If households budgeted like the GOP

Of course. What else would you do in a financial crisis? Read the rest of this post...

Honduras goes non-smoking - in the home

Ummm, if it's someone's home they should be able to smoke as much as they like. If guests don't like it then they can leave. On the positive side, kids really shouldn't have to suffer smoke if they don't want to. But doesn't this sound excessive?

Lighting up a cigarette at home could bring a visit from Honduran police if a family member or even a visitor complains about secondhand smoke.

A new law that took effect Monday banning smoking in most public and private spaces doesn't actually outlaw cigarettes inside homes, but it does have a provision allowing people to file complaints about secondhand smoke in homes.

Violations would bring a verbal warning on the first offense. After that could come arrest and a $311 fine — the equivalent of the monthly minimum wage in this Central American country.

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Even conservative-biased poll shows majority of Wisconsinites support unions over governor

Dave Weigel has the results. And TPM has the analysis.

A poll purporting to show broad support in Wisconsin for Gov. Scott Walker's (R) budget proposal made the rounds today, popping up on at least one Wisconsin news site and getting a mention on MSNBC.

"BREAKING: Poll Shows 71% of Wisconsinites Think Walker's Budget Changes are 'Fair'," screamed the release from the poll's sponsor, the conservative-leaning Franklin Center For Government and Public Integrity, based in Alexandria, VA. More on all that from TPM's Eric Lach here.

The poll was quickly picked up, making an appearance on the WisPolitics.com news site and getting a shoutout on MSNBC dayside.

There's only one problem: the poll actually shows more Wisconsin voters are on the side of the pro-union protesters and their Democratic allies than back Walker and the Republicans.

Remember the number one rule: Republicans lie. Read the rest of this post...

Alaska Democrat refuses to let TSA touch her mastectomy scars

Good for her! There's no reason anyone should have to go through such an unproven and invasive method from the TSA or Rent-a-TSA. The TSA often has a poor record of finding weapons and humiliating travelers but until enough people in Washington step up, it won't change. The lemmings in Congress and the White House are much too afraid of their own shadows to scrap a failing program. Bold decisions are not part of the Washington agenda.

Rep. Sharon Cissna, D-Anchorage, underwent a body scan as she was preparing to leave Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on Sunday. In a statement released late Monday, she said scan results displayed — as they had during a prior episode three months earlier — the scars from her breast cancer.

This caught the attention of the Transportation Safety Administration, Cissna said, but she refused to submit to the "invasive, probing hands of a stranger" this time.

"Facing the agent I began to remember what my husband and I'd decided after the previous intensive physical search. That I never had to submit to that horror again!" she said. "It would be difficult, we agreed, but I had the choice to say no, this twisted policy did not have to be the price of flying to Juneau."

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Qaddafi's rumored shot, Swiss freeze assets, rebels plan to move on Tripoli

First the rumor.

Next, the Swiss have frozen Qaddafi's assets.

And finally, the rebels plan an offensive against the capital. From NPR:

Eastern Libya is now completely under the control of forces loyal to the rebellion against President Moammar Gadhafi. Libyan army troops that have defected to join the pro-democracy rebels are trying to organize an offensive against the regime, according to senior military commanders in Benghazi, the birthplace of the uprising.

The force in Benghazi being hailed as the "new Libyan army" loads boxes of tank shells onto flatbed trucks that will take them to a warehouse for storage. Soldiers that once worked for Gadhafi are trying to gather up as much of their looted arsenal as they can for an offensive against the Libyan leader's stronghold in the capital, Tripoli.

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Qaddafi: Al Qaeda is putting hallucinogenic pills in young Libyans' coffee

I understand Sarah Palin is using the same excuse to explain her increasingly poor polling numbers. And Gingrich says that's why he cheated on his wife, and had two divorces - damn hallucinogenic coffee.

HuffPost.

Leader Moammar Gadhafi says al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden is behind the uprising in Libya and al-Qaida followers give young Libyans hallucinogenic pills in their coffee to get them to revolt.

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Wisconsin GOP votes to remove protesters. Paging Governor Qaddafi...

How un-American can you get. Having the GOP legislators pass a law requiring the protesters to be removed. In the old days we'd call that a bill of attainder - it's something Henry VIII liked to use, a lot, when he wanted to behead a wife or a top aide.

And some folks raised the issue of "how did this happen if they didn't have a quorom?" (because the Dems were AWOL).  They did have a quorom.  Here's how.  I just spoke with Terry C. Anderson, the Director of Legislative Counsel over at the Wisconsin legislature.  He's non-partisan staff.  He explained that the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization, that took this vote, is made up of ten members: 6 Republicans, and 4 Democrats.  Basically, the committee is made up of the President of the Senate (R) and the Speaker of the House (R), the majority leaders of the Senate (R) and House (R), the minority leaders of each body (D and D), the Asst Majority Leaders (R and R) and Asst Minority Leaders (D and D).  Thus you have 6 R and 4 D because the Rs control each body.  The committee circulates "ballots" through public notice posted in the Capitol Building, and the ballots are also delivered by mail to each office.  When six ballots are received back, that's enough.  In this case, all the members voted - all the Rs on one side, all the Ds on the other.  And that's how the Rs won this vote.

More from Defend Wisconsin:

Today’s vote to ban protestors from legislative offices and hearings rooms at the Capitol starting Saturday is a blatant attack on our democratic rights to be heard on the very important matter of the union-busting budget repair bill. Protestors, supported by up to 60,000 protestors outside, have occupied the Capitol for more than a week, slowing down the vote on the bill and forcing the state government to hear the voices of workers on a bill that would crush the ability of public sector workers to unionize. Offices and hearing rooms have been used to organize the protest, and removing us from them cripples our ability to continue to make the voices of the people of Wisconsin heard.

Without the presence of the protestors, it is likely that the bill would have been voted on by the Senate last Thursday, after the Republican Co-Chairs of the Joint Finance Committee cut off debate early Wednesday morning despite having promised on Tuesday to hear everyone who wanted to speak. The presence of vast numbers of anti-bill protestors encouraged Senate Democrats to make the highly unusual move of leaving the state to slow down the vote in favor of debate. That has allowed Democrats to hear more than 100 hours of testimony, lasting well through the weekend and into this week, from people who are opposed to the budget repair bill.

The vote by the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization to remove from hearing rooms and legislative offices everyone other than legislators and legislative staff between 6 p.m. and 8 a.m., effective Saturday, is a blatant move to end the democratic occupation of the Capitol, which is the only thing that is making time to debate this bill. We call on the State to protect our democratic rights to be heard.

The ballot vote:

“I vote (yes|no) that it is the policy of the Joint Committee on Legislative Organization that no one, other than legislators and legislative staff who possess a valid legislative identification card, may be in any legislative office or hearing room between the hours of 6:00 PM to 8:00 AM. This policy is effective beginning at 6:00 PM on February 26, 2011, until modified by joint directive of the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the Assembly.”

Read the rest of this post...

Ice-age child's remains discovered in Alaska

And her parents are putting her on "Dancing with the Stars"! Kidding. Just an interesting apolitical story for the day, from the Anchorage Daily News.

The 3-year-old is only the second ice-age child discovered on the continent, according to the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Archaeologists discovered the remains in a fire pit in an abandoned living area from 13,200 years ago and dated the child's death to about 11,500 years ago, according to research by UAF's Ben Potter and his team in the Feb. 25 edition of the journal Science.

Looking at the child's teeth, UAF bioarchaeologist Joel Irish said in initial observations that the remains had traits of North Americans and northeast Asians.

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Tennessee GOP proposes law to jail anyone who follows Shariah law

Washing your feet? Jail!  Do not steal? Jail!  Praying?  Jail!  Helping the poor?  Jail! (Well, at least that last one is consistent with GOP doctrine.) The Republicans are having a national competition to see who can be the most ridiculous and offensive.

A proposed Tennessee law would make following the Islamic code known as Shariah law a felony, punishable by 15 years in jail.

State Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and state Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, introduced the same bill in the Senate and House last week. It calls Shariah law a danger to homeland security and gives the attorney general authority to investigate complaints and decide who's practicing it.

"What do you mean, really, by saying I can't abide by Shariah law?" he said. "Shariah law is telling me don't steal. Do you want me to steal and rob a bank?"

The Attorney General's Office had no comment.

Tennessee is also debating a bill that would force school teachers to address "controversies" such as evolution, climate change and other "science" issues. One can only imagine. Read the rest of this post...

The WI protesters thank you for your donations

Just a quick video the Wisconsin protesters sent to thank you guys for the over $11,000 you donated to them via the blog the other day.

Read the rest of this post...

New airport scanners to x-ray inside of body

So will the poop-scanners replace the porno-scanners? The porno-scanners cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for each machine (plus training and maintenance) and it's likely that the new scanners won't be a bargain either. Australia is reviewing the new machines because of the 60 pounds of drugs that were found smuggled inside the bodies of travelers last year. Once again, this sounds like a pretty bad return on investment. Is sixty pounds of drugs worth millions in new machines and training?

NEW X-ray technology that can reveal drug smugglers' internal cavities will be trialled at airports under a plan to fast-track security searches.

Legislation before Federal Parliament would enable customs officers to use new body scanners instead of sending suspects to hospital for internal X-rays ordered by a doctor, reported the Herald Sun.

Federal police wasted more than 4600 hours in hospital waiting rooms last year because of drug smugglers waiting for scans.

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Gingrich called out on his multiple divorces, adultery - whines about people focusing on his 'past'

Mr. Butts

Um excuse me. So family values are only what you promise to do in the future, and not what you have done in the (quite recent) past? That's a nifty new definition. We only judge people by their future promises. Not sure the religious right would agree with Newty on that one (though I do believe I recall the religious right already gave Newt a pass on his adultery, since they too are really all about GOP politics and not promoting anything they actually preach).

(AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field has some great video of Gingrich being questioned, publicly, about his adultery, and Gingrich using the lamest of excuses to avoid answering.)

Now, why should you care that Newt Gingrich has had three marriages (two divorces) and at least one adulterous affair? Because Newt Gingrich cares about your marriages, to the degree that he wants to legislate them. He cares about banning gay marriages so much that just six months ago Gingrich reiterated his call for an amendment to the United States Constitution banning gay marriages.

Yes, the man who told his first wife he was divorcing her while she was recovering from cancer, Gingrich, the man who admits he was committing adultery while going after Bill Clinton for pretty much the same thing (oh, you say, it was Clinton's "lie" that Gingrich was going after? - then what do you call cheating on your wife? sounds like a lie to me.), the man who wants to now amend the US Constitution to "sanctify" marriage, wants you to ignore the fact that he's already had three marriages and at least one case of adultery.

If a Democrat had pulled a Gingrich, and claimed that their utter hypocrisy on family values, that their sexual promiscuity was irrelevant to their public agenda of chastity, Gingrich would eviscerate them.

The man is a pig. A charlatan. A hypocrite.

And a bit of a slut.

Which is all fine. Just don't run for President as the paragon of family values, while trying to legislate how other people run their own marriages. Otherwise expect to be asked about your penile indiscretions again and again and again.

Maybe it's time we brought back Mr. Butts (actually called 'Butt Man' at the time) (who famously harassed Bib Dole on the campaign trail in 1996) for Newt's presidential run. But rather than a 6 foot cigarette, someone should follow Gingrich around as a 6 foot... oh the possibilities. Read the rest of this post...

Space Shuttle Discovery to launch on last mission today 4:50PM EST; beginning of end of shuttle program

NASA TV will be covering the launch from the Kennedy Space Center, online, at that time.

Orlando Sentinel:

Discovery is set to launch at 4:50 p.m., with a crew of six commanded by Steve Lindsey, a retired Air Force colonel. Its 11-day mission – ferrying supplies and a humanoid robot to the International Space Station -- will be its 39th since 1984, and its last.

The mission marks the beginning of the end of the 30-year space shuttle program. Discovery, arguably the most-storied and versatile spaceship in the fleet, should be followed by Endeavour in April, and, if all goes well, Atlantis as early as June. Then, for the first time in nearly 60 years, the United States will have no government-owned rocket ready to launch.

Read the rest of this post...

GOP spending cuts will slash GDP 1.5% to 2% according to Goldman report

Of course they will. What won't be a surprise either is if the GOP then blames it all on the Democrats. What would then be even less surprising would be the Democrats making another quiet attempt to push back before crumbling as they so often do. The problem today is that because the Democrats (especially the White House) keep repeating the same Republican language, they are adding fuel to the fire. Even the "best case" scenario of a deal between the White House and the GOP House will cut the growth by 1% of GDP. ABC News:

A confidential new report prepared by Goldman Sachs for its clients says spending cuts passed by the House of Representatives last week would be a drag on the economy, cutting economic growth by about two percent of GDP.

“Under the House passed spending bill [which cut spending by $61 billion],” says the report, which was obtained by ABC News, “the drag on GDP growth from federal fiscal policy would increase by 1.5pp to 2pp in Q2 and Q3 compared with current law.”

More likely, the report says, is a deal to cut spending by $25 billion this year, followed by a cut of $50 billion next year.

Even those more modest spending cuts, Goldman Sachs predicts, will cut economic growth rates by one percent of GDP.

NOTE FROM JOHN: It's time for the President himself to go public and say that there will be NO cuts this year, period, lest we send the economy back into a recession. Read the rest of this post...

Cairo and Wisconsin: Why the unrest in poor countries matters to U.S. workers

Via Chris Hayes, I think Matt Stoller makes an important connection here (my emphasis):

Today, the city of Providence, Rhode Island sent out layoff notices to every single teacher in the city. Every single one of them. If you want to understand why this is happening, why wages in the US keep getting cut, this chart tells the story.

[Click through for the chart. There are almost no 1000-worker strikes since, well, PATCO.] ... What you’ll notice is that people in America just don’t strike anymore. Why? Well, their jobs have been shipped off to factory countries, their unions have been broken, and their salaries until recently have been supplemented by credit. It’s part of a giant labor arbitrage game, that the Federal Reserve and elites in both parties are happy to play. Strike, and you’re fired. Don’t strike, and your pay is probably going to be cut. Don’t like it? Sorry, we can open a plant abroad. And we have institutions, like the IMF, to make sure that we get goods from those factory-countries, and get them cheap.

In passing, note that point — "their salaries have been supplemented by credit." Those days are gone forever; and with it the salaries.

The key connection is here: "Don't like it? Sorry, we can open a plant abroad." And that's where Cairo comes in. Cairo is "abroad." And Stoller makes the case that all of these second- and third-world revolutions ... are labor revolts. Stoller again (emphasis his):

I noted a week and a half ago that the Egyptian revolution was a labor uprising against Rubinites. So to the extent that global labor arbitrage relies on sweatshops and environmental degradation in poor countries for cheap goods, successful strikes in poor countries undercuts the whole system. The reason to outsource work in the first place is to prevent workers in rich countries from gaining pricing and political power. Now workers in poor countries are getting pricing and political power? It’s actually a fragile system of control, and can be broken through either crackdowns on tax havens and oligarchs in wealthy countries or protests/strikes where the goods are made.

The Egyptian revolution was really a series of protests and highly politicized strikes, which is why people in Madison are taking inspiration from Cairo. In fact, the actions in Egypt may be creating a wave of labor actions worldwide, rippling to Wisconsin, Indiana, and Ohio. All of these strikes are aimed at a collusive set of tight relationships.

He goes on to detail those relationships, the key elements being a world-wide wealth transfer upward (duh) and the creation of crony-controlled world-wide shadow governments "in the form of security contractors, corporations, and banks that are supported with taxpayer money but consider themselves part of the 'private sector'." There are complexities in the article, and not all of it is to agree with, but I'm certain the prime connections are valid.

Cairo sent pizza to Wisconsin because it's all one big anti-Rubinite labor action, and the rest of the world is where the workers are. Mubarak's regime was neoliberal to the core. The world-wide labor action only looks political — because the agent of the Rubinite wealth transfer is captured government. And if captured government is the agent of control — well, you always strike the bosses, don't you.

Playing to win — Notice that Cairo played to win. They pushed till Mubarak was gone, and they know the game isn't over. We need to do the same. And you can't do that if you don't know who's playing opposite you. Stoller says that this spirit of uprising "didn’t come from the Democratic Party leadership," and that Obama "is really nowhere, meekly tut-tutting about union busting while gravely acknowledging fiscal realities and tough choices." The Rubinites are, after all, Democrats.

It may just be that changing the Democratic party dynamic is our best road to leverage. Primaries, anyone? How about "early and often," as they say in Chicago. And how about playing to win.

GP Read the rest of this post...

Dubai: 40% of office space is empty

This means that there is still lots of room for the bankers to pack their bags and move. C'mon guys! The region is ripe with the kind of chaos that only a banker could love and nobody will think twice about bonus handouts. The bankers always make threats to leave if they don't get everything they want so now is the time for them to show the world that they're not just a bunch of freeloading spongers. Think about how much fun their families can have living in the middle of the global uprisings. They can start moving their operations now but with the construction still going, they can probably get even better deals in a few months. Make good on your threats and go for it bankers!

Forty percent of the buildings in Dubai are vacant, according to Arabian Business.

For comparison only 28 percent of homes are vacant in America's ghost town, Detroit.

Read the rest of this post...

Royal Bank of Scotland to pay nearly $1.5bn in bonuses after losing $1.7bn

Nice economic model, if you can get it, though the banks always get it. Remember how the apologists told us that it was critical for the banks to retain talent or else? Well? It looks like that talent isn't as impressive as they told us. Outside of the banks and government, everyone else knew that.

Bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland reported losses of £1.1bn for 2010 – but still plans to pay out bonuses of £950m to its bankers.

The loss is an improvement on the loss of £3.6bn a year ago and the record breaking £24bn loss in 2008, when it was rescued by the taxpayer.

RBS returned to the black in the final quarter even though it was hit by a £1.1bn charge for its Irish banking unit, Ulster.

The proportion of revenue the bank uses to pay its investment banking staff rose to 34% from 26% a year ago.

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Ahmadinejad warns leaders against using violence against protesters

This from the country that used violence and intimidation against protesters last year. Reuters:

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose security forces crushed protests against his 2009 re-election, on Wednesday condemned state brutality against demonstrators in Libya.

Speaking for the first time about this year's Arab uprisings, Ahmadinejad expressed horror at the use of extreme violence and urged governments to listen to their people.

"How can a leader subject his own people to a shower of machine-guns, tanks and bombs? How can a leader bomb his own people, and afterwards say 'I will kill anyone who says anything?'" he said in televised comments.

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