2Truthy's Happy Friday Hour LIVE Bridge Benefit Concert with Buffalo Springfield, Pearl Jam, Lucinda Williams and More: TURN UP THE VOLUME!

Buffalo Springfield Headlines Historic 24^th Bridge Benefit Concert 2010

Stop, children, what's that sound...Click RIGHT HERE and turn up the volume for the complete live Buffalo Springfield reunion set after 43 years, and well worth the wait.

Last Saturday, yours truly and friends took a trip down to the dump for Neil & Pegi Young's annual 24th Bridge School Benefit Concert for a one-time-in-a-million amazing live acoustic set headlining Buffalo Springfield's first time playing together in 43 years. Awesome, amazing and timeless are mere mortal words that can not come close to describing the sheer magic of being transported there to enjoy the sight and sounds of this historic concert.

It didn't hurt that we had SECTION ONE CENTER ROW stone's throw away from the stage seats, either.

The best part was that Buffalo Springfield played and sounded just like Buffalo Springfield – no strains of Crazy Horse or CS&N or solo Neil Daddy, just straight up Richie Furay (do I have to come right out and say it that Richie looks and sounds so fine as ever?) Stephen Stills and Mr. Weird playing and harmonizing tight and true to the original music.

Rolling Stone called the reunion triumphant:

“It has been public knowledge for weeks that the surviving members of Buffalo Springfield were going to reunite at Saturday’s Bridge School Benefit in Mountain View, California — but somehow it didn’t seem real until Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Richie Furay walked onstage and played the opening chords of “On the Way Home.” The three men hadn’t shared a stage together since the final Buffalo Springfield concert in 1968.”

Of their flawless set, I don't think there was a dry eye in the house when Neil Young, before singing my favorite “I am a Child” turned around to the kids on stage and said “This one's for you, kids” and sweetly sang the hell out of it. Oh, to live on planet Neil Young...

As if Buffalo Springfield were not enough, don't even get me started on Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam who brought new meaning to “let's bring this mother fu^king house down” as they preceded Buffalo Springfield with an entirely acoustic set.

MEMO TO PEARL JAM: More acoustic sets!

Keep up with the vocal coach, Eddie! Yours truly has never been a big fan of Pearl Jam, but that all changed last Saturday night when they moved out of their electric zone and played acoustic – a style that really, really compliments Eddie Vedder's natural baritone voice that has evolved from the early days of his trademark grunt that used to make Kurt Cobain sound like Harry Belafonte.

Click on the above video (second one down) to listen to Vedder croon Patti Smith's I'm Dancing Barefoot and get blown away by Pearl Jam's acoustic sound and Eddie's great voice.

“Uncle Neil” is having a strong and powerful influence on Vedder, as you can see watching them perform Walk with Me together. White. Hot. (Click on above video.)

And before Buffalo Springfield and Pearl Jam, there were my heroes, soulful Lucinda Williams and the all-time songbird Emmylou Harris. What can I say?

You should have been there.

And God bless Neil Young and Pegi for doing all they do every year to help the Bridge School help these kids.

Happy Friday, Loserettes!

-2Truthy

YES MEN Unhinge the Chamber of Commerce

 "Business as usual; Chamber is its own parody"

-TYM

Breaking News below from their website:


WASHINGTON, D.C. - In a dramatic announcement at the National Press Club today, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce reversed its position on climate change policy, and promised to immediately cease lobbying against the Kerry-Boxer bill.
Not.

Within minutes of the Chamber's dramatic announcement, it was revealed that the "Chamber spokesperson" was an impostor, and the press conference an elaborate hoax designed by activists to draw attention to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's "troglodytic" fight against climate change legislation. At the close of the news conference, a visibly rattled Chamber of Commerce spokesperson (Eric Wohlschlegel) barged into the room and declared the event a fraud. (Video here.)

-2Truthy

Juan Williams Canned By NPR (National Paranoid Radio)

FROM THE DESK OF QUINCY

Hello Everybody, it's me,

QUINCY,

Today, I found out that the distinguished black radio news analyst from NPR, Juan Williams got fired! And do you know what for? Because he said he gets a little “nervous” when he sees men dressed in “Muslim garb” on planes because he remembers 9/11 (you remember that bad day, right?) Big Journalism explains:

“The move came after Mr. Williams, who is also a Fox News political analyst, appeared on the “The O’Reilly Factor” on Monday. On the show, the host, Bill O’Reilly, asked him to respond to the notion that the United States was facing a “Muslim dilemma.” Mr. O’Reilly said, “The cold truth is that in the world today jihad, aided and abetted by some Muslim nations, is the biggest threat on the planet.”

Mr. Williams said he concurred with Mr. O’Reilly.

He continued: “I mean, look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.””

This is almost as bad as Vince Vaughn getting banned by Ellen for saying electric cars look gay.

I mean, look, everybody, I'm no bigot but I get a little nervous when I see Pigs identifying themselves first and foremost as chefs at Sum-Ting-Wong's kitchen in white chef garb wielding cleavers and standing around the grease vats. I can't help it. I get worried. Why? Because I remember exactly where that Pigsnout with truffle sauce that Obama ate at that fancy Philly deli came from and will never forget the pork plight of my brethren down on the North Carolina Pig farm during the days of my youth.

Is that so wrong?

And even if I did say Pigs dressed in white chef hats at Chinese greasy spoons make me a little nervous, should I get fired for speaking my mind just like Juan Williams did? Think about it.

Just like Juan Williams who didn't call anybody names or use any slurs, he said what a lot other Muslims or Kaballists or Atheists or Mormons or Scientologists must feel, too, when they board a plane and see men dressed in Muslim garb. It's just that way. Anyway, all this censorship and banning and firing is insanity.

Speaking of insanity, I hope that Mr. “Tolerance” Stephen Colbert will hold a special vigil for Juan at the Restore Sanity March at the DC Mall to restore sanity to the airwaves and restore Juan's job! After all, it's OK for Colbert and Stewart to make Pope bashing comments because the Pope is, of course, not a Muslim.

Hmph. Like a wise old sow once said:

"When fascism comes, it will be dressed in a clown suit carrying Soros' water."

NPR is ALSO the same station that is banning its employees from attending the Restore Sanity rally. Hmph. No wonder they fired Juan. The paranoid old windbags at National Propaganda Radio must only want insane people working for them.

Anyway, I have to go now and get to work on my Halloween costume. This year, I'm going to glue some garbage all over an old green track suit and go as an eco-friendly dump and make a high-pressure deodorant spray gun out of my super soaker. It's going to be the best Halloween ever!

In Uncensorship We Trust,

QUINCY

2Truthy's Lunch Break with Lucinda Williams: Turn Up the Volume!

(Very Special Thanks to Lucinda Williams)


-Wrap Your Head Around That-

-2Truthy

Bill Clinton Blames Unemployed Americans for "Skills Mismatch"

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

“Of course it is absurd to claim America has a skills shortage. We have sky high unemployment rates, across the board, relative to their past rates, with highly skilled and educated people.”

-Robert Oak, The Economic Populist

Blame Employers for the Jobs Crisis, and Blame their Public-Private Political Enablers, Too

Neo-Feudal Valley, USA – While there are not enough jobs for  educated Americans and the Republican controlled Chamber of Commerce is taking it in the shorts for outsourcing American jobs, click on the above video link and watch good old Democratic Bill Clinton hammer the rickety old saw that educated American citizens are unemployed because they have a “skills mismatch” with corporations! Yes, the same corporations who are of course, even trained to deliberately NOT hire Americans in favor of cheap imported labor from India and China.  Simon Lomax and Miles Weiss report here that while “Clinton’s campaign against poverty in poor countries is making room this year for programs to aid unemployed Americans”, the former president makes the bogus following claim:

“The “biggest problem” that stands in the way of boosting employment is a “skills mismatch” in the U.S. economy. This means the jobs that are being opened don’t have qualified people applying for them. If job-specific training were provided to 5 million unemployed workers, the jobless rate would fall to around 7 percent.”

As Bill's Indian lobby buds and he himself know full well, the biggest problem that stands in the way of boosting American employment is a “moral character mismatch” between millions of educated Americans of good character and horribly sociopathic pigs who choose to feast at the trough on cheap imported labor. Skills mismatch, MY ASS! Beating the drum about some mythical “skills mismatch” is neo-feudal state speak for greasing the skids for more age and local discrimination, slave wages, labor arbitrage and more immigration at a time when there are not enough jobs for our own citizens.

Our friend Rob Oak at the Economic Populist takes us for a comprehensive stroll through the land mines of this war on America's educated middle class with his mother of all “skilled labor shortage myth” posts entitled Blame Employers for the Jobs Crisis. 

Oak provides detailed articles, charts, graphs and links that debunk the lies and propaganda from the perpetrators waging genocide on America's educated citizenry. In particular, he includes the above must-watch video clip with Bill Clinton on Dylan Ratigan's show where Clinton makes the shocking claim that while 5 million job openings exist, millions of educated American citizens who need them are NOT educated or skilled enough to be hired by most U.S. corporations and are in need of “training.” Indeed, the long-arm of Clinton's good intentions seems to stretch globally, just not locally.

What WOULD possibly possess former president Bill Clinton to claim that while 5 million job openings exist, millions of educated American citizens who need them are NOT skilled enough to hire? Since when is it suddenly academia's responsibility to train the already educated American unemployed workforce for corporations at the very expense of unemployed educated Americans? Could there be some underlying profit motive there? Not only do corporations not want to hire Americans or pay them decent salaries and healthcare, they are hellbent with replacing them with cheap foreign imported workers. Could The Cash Cow of Indian Outsourcing and Clinton family ties to the India lobby (h/t Rob Sanchez) who have made Billary very wealthy Connecticut “farmers” and the cheap labor itch have something at all to do with the LIE that there is an American skilled labor shortage?

Included in his post is a new website and database from the AFL-CIO which allows you to see who is exporting jobs by zip code. How are your friendly local companies holding up? In addition to many technology companies (ahem, including the nation's supreme sociopathy pit, Hewlett-Packard) I even found a bread company in my zone that apparently can't find qualified Americans to work for them. A bread company! With so many people locally out of work, local companies continue to discriminate.  Oak writes:

“Those of us in STEM know what skills shortage really means. It means enabling more outsourcing, more foreign guest workers and more immigration. There is no skills shortage, there never was a skill shortage. There is a shortage of good employers who do not discriminate, age discriminate, ship jobs to India, China, Brazil and treat their workers like cannon fodder. There also is a shortage of jobs, pure and simple. Put U.S. workers first. Demand these employers quit their inane, harsh, wage repressing, discriminatory labor practices.”

Where exactly is Clinton's explanation of what these mysteriously missing skills are that Americans are supposed to be lacking? Anyone who starts a job in a company is trained, period. Never mind this horseshit excuse of educated Americans not being qualified and that somehow only an inexperienced, dubiously and unverifiable, cheap foreign worker magically shows up with all the right “trainability” because they overwhelmingly always don't.

Rob Oak is right. Corporations are to blame for not hiring educated Americans. And if corporations stopped discriminating against educated American citizens of all ages and started hiring them instead of importing cheap foreign workers, politicians and former presidents would be relieved of making excuses for them. But they would also be relieved of a few zillion ruppees, too, that keep them all fat and happy down on the farm.

Rob Oak doesn't hesitate to call it like it is when it comes to this ruse from Clinton about educated Americans needing “training” as he offers this excellent comment below:

“As a techie, I can tell you a main STEM skill is the never ending ability to learn and self-teach. You'd be dead in the water without that ability for technology changes every 6 months. That said, acting like people cannot learn new skills on the job, when the entire United States learned skills on the job to become the biggest military machine in history and win the war...

just infuriates me. I mean come on, the entire planet is currently addicted to iphones and facebook. All of that requires learning new skills...i.e. the younger crowd is all thumbs, literally. Think they cannot learn some skilled manufacturing trade if they can figure out how to text at 80wpm with just their thumbs? What is wrong with these corporations and politicians?”

After reaping so much wealth, it is a shame that the Clintons would still choose not to stop this war on America's educated middle class, many of whom supported them. As yours truly has previously reported, Follow the Drinking Gourd.

Party on, plebes!

-2Truthy

2Truthy's Happy Friday Hour with Duane Allman: Turn Up the Volume!

(Very Special Thanks to the Immortal Duane Allman) 

"A 10 minute + song that starts slow and builds momentum like a freight train. If this song doesn't get you tapping your toe or playing air guitar then your probably dead." -Youtube Commenter

Loan Me a Dime

What are your local Congress critters doing to stop importing cheap labor to take your jobs? How about your local Chamber of Commerce selling out your jobs to foreign BFFs who grease their palms?

High Profits, High Unemployment?

"Perplexing statistics have been surfacing concerning the economy. While corporate profits are returning to pre “crisis” levels, unemployment seems to remain stuck around ten percent. Worsening the scenario is the fact that this doesn’t capture the entire employment picture, as some believe at least another ten percent have given up on finding a job or have been forced into early retirement."

 20.5 Million Americans have a Bachelors Degree in Science & Engineering but our "best and brightest" thought leaders lie and tell us we have a skilled labor shortage and that we need MORE imported cheap workers to take jobs educated Americans need?

"A new question in the 2009 American Community Survey asked respondents with bachelor's degrees about their undergraduate major: The estimated number of people in the United States 25 and over with a bachelor's degree or higher was 56.3 million. Of this group, 20.5 million, or 36.4 percent, held at least one science and engineering degree." 

Jobs for U.S. citizens are not commodities like GMO crops under some skewed NAFTA agreement. But for many years of job outsourcing,  to  caste-minded neo-frat boy bean counters running U.S. corporations,  a slave is a slave is a slave. 

Happy Friday, Loserettes!

-2Truthy   

Get Behind Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel: The Gay Rahmi Times Chicago Exclusive

(Click on image to enlarge)

“If the teacher is corrupt, the city will be, too!”

-The Gay Swami

Ex-Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel to Run for Mayor of Chicago!

The Gay Rahmi Kicks Off Chicago Tell It Like It Fu*king Is Tour

Get Behind Rahm!

Welcome back to The Gay Swami Times. Click here for previous issues.

Today we celebrate celestial news that dreamy Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel (click here for his blog) has officially declared his Chicago run for Mayor! The Gay Rahmi's "Tell It Like It Is" listening tour of Chicago is leading him to all kinds of exotic locales to progressively bridge the “enthusiasm gap” by listening to people in places like the N. Kimaball Home Depot, the Diversey River Bowl and train stations, too:

"As I prepare to run for mayor, I'm going to spend the next few weeks visiting our neighborhoods -- at grocery stores, L stops, bowling alleys and hot dog stands," Emanuel said. "I want to hear from you -- in blunt Chicago terms -- what you think about our city, and how the next mayor and you can make it better."

One minor fly in the ointment involves a residency evil dispute that some malicious experts say may disqualify him from running, but this is Chicago, right? It's NOT like it's Delhi or New Jersey or anything. This is the Second City known for its glorious, worldclass corruption standards where constant friction between moral pantywaists and lying, corrupt politicians create a melting pot for grand scale thievery unlike anyplace known to the galaxy! No suspicious legal maneuvering should prevent enlightened Rahm from winning his rightful seat. Om.

The Gay Swami predicts that Rahm will elude these bed bugs who would present such odious and trivial roadblocks to his inevitable SUCCESS, because a person can always make spiritual progress under the guidance of a corrupt master! “The Gay Rahmi shall triumph over his fluffy opponents to win the hearts and souls (the dead voters have a ballot, too!) and wallets of the people of Chicago!”

“A desire arises in the mind. It is satisfied immediately after a higher power comes to rectify the residency requirement.”

-His Holiness, the Swami Salami

-THE GAY SWAMI

Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel Kicks Off Tell It Like It Is Public Transportation and Hot Dog Tour

Rahm's Tell It Like It Fuc*ing Is Tour

Dear Chicago land BFFs and Voters Everywhere, (You too, Blago),

As you know, I have announced my decision to run for Mayor of Chicago.

In an attempt to clean up my image as a backroom dealing, profane piledriver, my staffers have suggested I instead STFU and stuff my filthy mouth with hotdogs as a first baby step in my rehabilitation.

I'm serious, bitches.

In case you haven't heard, my new scene will involve trolling Chicago's hot dog stands and L stops for ordinary citizens to give me ideas on how I could make the City of Chicago a better place for them in the “New Economy”.(As if.)

My campaign tour is called "Tell it like it is" and believe me, I'll tell YOU like it is: I'll be looking for donations from every one of you motherf*ckers because this democracy business is a TWO way street. And after a hard day hitting the slums and listening, listening to ALL KINDS of WHINEY SH*T – maybe I can listen to some aspiring U of C interns at Cedar's over shish-kebobs and Rahm-itinis for dinner, too.

I'm excited to be your mayor in waiting, so help me help you make a difference in my slam-dunk campaign.

Onward!

Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel

Ohio's Anti-Offshoring Royal Silver Bullet

( Credits Patrick Thibodeau/Computerworld)

“Outsourcing doesn't reflect Ohio's values”

-Ohio Governor Ted Strickland

Anti-Offshoring Ohio Lures Indian Offshoring Giant on U.S. Taxpayer Dime

Patrick Thibodeau's headline today at Computerworld entitled Ohio takes the lead in offshoring fight revisits LWOH's probe into the rising “backshoring” trend where incumbent Democratic Ohio Governor Ted Strickland woos TCS, presses India for jobs and is now campaigning on the “anti-outsourcing” brand. If Strickland says outsourcing doesn't reflect Ohio values, what about insourcing?

As we reported in this article entitled NCR, GE and Dow "Backshoring" as Boeing Profits, Plans 10,000 Layoffs, the growing trend of “backshoring” as we reported in Corporate Welfare Roulette  for U.S. corporations to move their operations back home to states that lure foreign outsourcing companies on the U.S. taxpayer dime raises the question: Why are American taxpayers subsidizing foreign outsourcing corporations whose businesses are in the cheap labor/labor arbitrage racket in the first place when millions of unemployed Americans (and businesses) can do those jobs?

Thibodeau's article prompted an interesting discussion in the comments section, as one Ohio citizen notes below:

“...practically from the beginning, Ohio had among the best law schools, excellent medical schools, and soon developed the best K-12 text books. We've got plenty of bright, knowledgeable, industrious and creative people in Ohio. We don't need to be importing guest-workers for work Buckeyes can do quite well, while making and leaving our capable people unemployed and under-employed. Off-shore out-sourcing should be rare. Guest-workers should be geniuses at the very least (since we have many gifted people who are unemployed).”

The article also notes that Strickland has "blasted" offshore firms, saying their use has "unacceptable business consequences," most important being data security and privacy risks. Hear, hear, Governor Strickland! But Thibodeau points out that despite his tough stance on outsourcing, Strickland has curiously “given about $19 million in tax breaks in 2007 to Indian giant Tata Consultancy Services to build a development center in the state. Tata has already established 400 jobs at the center and is supposed to have 1,000 there by the end of 2011.” So will American citizens get those jobs with good wages? With India's concern over Ohio's anti-offshoring efforts, President Obama will visit India in November “to take our relationship to the next level," as SOS Hillary Clinton put it in a speech earlier this month. What “next level” might that be? Thibodeau's article may suggest that the whole H-1b visa program that provided U.S. corporations massive flows of cheap labor from India might be abolished. After all, the state of Ohio is home to Dennis Kucinich who wants to scrap the whole H-1b visa program. What would it be replaced with? Some unlimited, global open borders/green card program and massive L-1 student visas? Thibodeau slips in news about a massive Ohio “Supercomputer Center Blue Collar Computing program”:

“The decline of manufacturing in Ohio and elsewhere affects more than jobs; it affects IT as well. "Manufacturing is extremely important because that is where the bulk of the research and development is," said Harold 'Hal' Williams, an economics professor emeritus at Kent State. Manufacturers are increasingly relying on high-performance computing systems to develop products. These systems can simulate how products might perform as conditions change, and they eliminate the need for continuous prototype-building, thus speeding time to market and product development. The Ohio Supercomputer Center's Blue Collar Computing program in Columbus has been on the leading edge in the U.S. to provide high-performance computing resources to manufacturers. "If we are going to maintain a strong competitive position internationally, we've got to have firms that are doing a lot of research and development," said Williams.”

Would this mean an unlimited number of L-1 visas? Hmm...that way, wouldn't TCS (and other foreign outsourcers in other states) have all the unlimited, cheap imported student labor they could get their hands on to further drive down wages for educated American citizens (young and old) who need jobs? Slick. They could just skip the whole outmoded adult H-1b slave labor visa entirely and go down to the L-1 slave youth labor model? We don't know!

Will Strickland's anti-outsourcing brand (sans anti-insourcing) seduce Ohio's voters? Never mind  that third-party groups are targeting Ohio Democrats with ads or that FiveThirtyEight's prediction about the gubernatorial race has John Kasich bagging it:

“Silver gives The Wizard of Westerville a 90.1 percent chance of beating Ted Strickland, the incumbent governor from southeast Ohio, whose campaign strategy has been to paint Kasich green, colored by the greed and money that go hand in hand with working on Wall Street.”

We applaud Governor Strickland's executive order prohibiting use of public funds for outsourcing, as the use of U.S. taxpayer dollars to ship American customer support and technical design projects offshore harms American workers. But why turn around and then “lure” Indian outsourcing companies to states where millions of educated Americans and businesses can take those jobs? Does one hand know not what the other is doing? 

"Outsourcing jobs does not reflect Ohio values," Strickland said. "Ohioans have been among the hardest hit by more than a decade of unfair trade agreements and the trickle-down economic policies that promoted offshoring jobs at the expense of Ohioans who work for a living. We must do everything within our power to prevent outsourcing jobs because it undermines our economic development objectives, slows our recovery and deprives Ohioans and other Americans of employment opportunities."

"Ohio's policy has been--and must continue to be--that public funds should not be spent on services provided offshore," Strickland says in the order. "Throughout my Administration, procurement procedures have been in place that restrict the purchase of offshore services. Despite these requirements, federal stimulus funds were recently used to purchase services from a domestic company which ultimately provided some of those services offshore. This incident was unacceptable and has caused me to redouble my commitment to ensure that public funds are not expended for offshore services."

Governor Strickland may be “redoubling” his commitments, alright – by luring Indian outsourcing giants to Ohio with public funds that were once expended for offshore services? This would be fine, if foreign outsourcing companies  like TCS hired only Americans at high compensation levels. How likely is that?

Of course, if Governor Strickland really wanted to turn Silver's predictions upside down, he would include a sign that reads WELCOME TO OHIO, THE ANTI-INSHORING STATE.

Party on, plebes!

-2Truthy

Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel's Address to the Nation

A Message from Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel

Hey, Mother Fu#^ers,

Everyone and their retarded uncles have probably heard by now that I, Rahm Emanuel, White House Chief of Staff (on my way out the fu#^ing door) am supposed to run for Mayor of my home town, Chicago after Daley's sudden announcement that he's stepping down. Why is that? It really doesn't matter why his approval ratings are in the shitter or that the city is broke, or how any of that happened. So, for now, you can call me 'Hizzoner' until I decide whether I want the job or not.

What matters now is that the people of Chicago will need a strong leader to fill Daley's shoes and collect the dues. (I'm good at collecting dues, and don't DON'T even start talking sh*t about my height because I KNOW PEOPLE.) While that gravedigger buster Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart's name is making the rounds, believe me, I'm the guy around Chicago who knows where the bodies are buried. These other pansies in this poll called We Ask America haven't read We Ask Fu#^ing Rham, have they.

I'm not saying yet if I will or I won't run for Mayor, especially not to you fu#^ing babies at the Washington Post who make sh*t up as you go along, anyway. So, while you pussies are wondering why I might – might want to run for Mayor, don't forget that my man on the street (code for 'the smooth talking orator guy I walked into the White House') is also having his sorry ass handed to him in the Swamp for colossally blowing it on a long, long chain of undelivered, promised goods filed under the “hope and change” tab (haha) which will probably cost him 2012. It seems that the Inauguration was only yesterday.

Looking back, I think it was those disrespectful Scandinavian mother fu#^ers who pissed me off the most for refusing to cut the Chicago Olympics deal under Barry's watch - that's when the whole tuna can lid of this administration began to peel back. The rest is history.

Don't even get me started on peeking into Nate Silver's fu#^ing candy ass crystal ball for “predications”. F^CK YOU, Silver!

Did any of you people even consider that maybe I'm sick of being a political big, swinging, public servant dick and might want to switch hit over to the private sector? (No, you didn't, and don't try to tell me you assh*les did.) I know, the broke city of Chicago needs me to get back home and start kicking ass, even if I'm Mayor or not. And if nobody votes for me, boo-hoo, too fu#^ing bad because maybe I've got other, bigger, waaay bigger fu#^ing fish to fry. Like firing up the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) to name one not entirely half-backed scheme. I could even keep a seat warm for Barry by the time he gets back in 2013. Good times, all over again.

We'll make a new start trading carbon futures and bring a whole new meaning to the “Hookers and Blow School of Economics” where derivatives beasts rule and greenbacks are old school. Frame THAT, you fu#^ing babies without an inside clue. Talk about future book deals, baby... “Barry and Me: Building a Bridge Out of Fu#^ing Thin Air to the Hog Butcher of the World” is one title I'm already floating.

Maybe I'll even drive to DC to pick up Barry in my new Fisker, only I'll have to get the thick smell of bacon and grain spirits out of the backseat upholstery first. By all means, the prospects are so mother fu#^ing exciting, I've got to go take a cold shower.

Here's the important thing. If you forget all about how Chicago's public schools are one big, fu#^ing mess or that whole Renaissance 2010 stinker Barry cooked up with Arne Duncan is another frothy house of cards that needs filthy lucre that doesn't exist to run on, or that the fu#^ing teachers union contract is rolling around and they're in no mood for any more cutbacks and Charter Sch$ol sh*t, the city of Chicago is gonna need an Enforcer the size of Goliath. That would be me.

IF...if I run.

Later, maybe,

Hizzoner Rahm Emanuel

**********

-2Truthy

Harvey Keitel Eyed to Clean Up the "Office"

(Victor the Cleaner in Point of No Return)

“Office” Producer Wants Harvey Keitel for New Boss to Replace Steve Carell

Breaking News

Los Angeles – Producer Paul Lieberstein of the Office “insists he's serious” about having Harvey Keitel (a.k.a. "Victor the Cleaner” in Point of No Return) replace Steve Carell as the boss. We have no doubts that Harvey is THE MAN to get the job done cleaning up around the “Office”.

Should this excellent casting pick get the green light, you won't want to miss an episode. For readers who missed PONR, below is a precise review of Keitel in his finest role:

"A cameo by Harvey Keitel -- as a murderous trouble-shooter called Victor who cleans up botched murders and other sticky problems -- is almost worth the price of admission. In fact, he should star in a spinoff movie called "Victor the Cleaner." It would be exactly the kind of cult hit Warner Bros. is trying to crib. Perhaps they'd better wait for it to come out in France first. But until that time, give yourself a treat and rent the video of "La Femme Nikita."

-2Truthy

Ignition Interlock Devices Sniff Your Seats, Hands for Liquor: Big Brother in Your Backseat

Big Brother in Your Backseat

Update 9/5: The article link by Sarah Longwell is no longer available at The Hill's website.

Most sober, sensible and sane people would overwhelmingly agree that the best way to curb drunk driving is to keep drunks at the curb, or as far away from the steering wheel as they can get. In her article entitled Big Brother in the Backseat, Sarah Longwell, Managing Director of the American Beverage Institute, reports on a new automobile technology that would sniff the seats and hands of all drivers, sober or not - to decide if the driver is drunk.

The author writes that a  “classic bait and switch” plan to keep drunk drivers off the road from Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) called the ROADS SAFE Act "would pour $60 million dollars of taxpayer money" into developing “a new generation of in-car alcohol detectors.” Although well-intentioned, such devices could  potentially risk leaving millions of  sober and or light-drinking drivers stranded alongside strip malls, nightclubs, restaurants, homes and driveways, workplaces and roadsides all across the country. The new generation of in-car alcohol detectors would be embedded in your steering wheel to sniff your seats, hands, and who knows what else to detect traces of alcohol in your car. Once a certain level is detected, the car would not start.

But what if your hands had hand sanitizer on them? Or you just had your nails done? Or you, the driver, were not drinking but the person groping you to your right (that's not ever happened to me, not even as a teen) in the passenger seat was totally sh*tfaced? While drunk driving is a serious problem, aren't there wiser, humane and civil solutions to make use of taxpayer funds that don't demonize sober and responsible drivers? Is putting alcohol detection devices in every car an “overreach and invasion of privacy that will deprive responsible adults of their right to enjoy a drink with dinner?”

Hell yes! And this ingenious, ominous seat and hand sniffing technology in your car may even be an excellent way for a few enterprising, public-private sector “thought leaders” and insiders to turn a mighty fine, profitable return by hooking up to the cash cow auto industry, too! On your taxpayer dime, of course.

Ms. Longwell also points out that while “alcohol detectors are a good tool for getting chronic drunk drivers off our roads”, we ought to be able to fight the problem of drunk driving without treating every American like a bunch of “irresponsible” alcoholics. If such a technology is available, why not limit it to the pool of “chronic” offenders instead of millions of non-lushes who drive?

In fact, why not kick social services programs to the curb, too? Perhaps all of those successful, good old fashioned, taxpayer funded alcohol rehabilitation programs that once employed millions of psychologists and social workers with good wages and benefits in alcohol and drug abuse prevention programs that flourished during the Carter administration years just aren't as profitable as an infinite supply chain of seat and hand sniffers to be installed in every vehicle from Detroit to the Delta from now to Kingdom Come?

Somebody has to prosper, and if this well-intentioned seat and hand sniffing detector is any gage of how far humanity has evolved in the emerging public/private partnership 21^st century, drunk driving prevention, innovative technologies, and rehabilitation solutions that would be smart, humane, sensible and civil may have to take a backseat.

Party on (responsibly and safely), plebes!

-2Truthy

Pink Flamingos - Marbles Trial with Judge Divine

(Very Special Thanks to Divine and John Waters)

Ode to Truth and Truly, Timelessly Offensive Art

"Is there any cross-examination? No? A very strange defense, I must say. Gentlemen, the verdict is guilty on all ten counts of first-degree stupidity."

and

“Connie Marble, you stand convicted of assholeism!”

-Judge Divine

From the brilliant writer and time-honored King of the truly tasteless director John Waters, the 1970's era Pink Flamingos is an all-time classic. Who will mold the delicate, impressionable minds of today's youth amidst stupid Nanny Staters and Groupthinkers polluting the intertoobes, TV and cinema? Ah, we'll always have South Park...

The South Park episode "The Tale of Scrotie McBoogerballs" has those bad boys writing a “vulgar, disgusting book with the sole intention of getting it banned by disgusting people”, a book SO offensive that nobody can read the first page without hurling - despite it being hailed a “literary masterpiece.”

-2Truthy

Chuck "Chop Shop" Schumer Itches for Cheap Labor Lobby Cure

(Very Special Thanks to Redbone)

U.S. Itches to Match Indian Outsourcing Wages to Third World Levels

Rash of Cheap Slave Labor Spreads to U.S. like Posion Ivy

Scratching News

Contact with sap from poison ivy, oak, and sumac causes a rash in most people. While the majority of skin rashes are a threat to individuals who come into contact with them, they are not dangerous to others unless they are caused by an infectious disease - such as shingles or scabies. Or the dreaded clap.

But poison ivy, like the deadly U.S. cheap labor lobby that uses educated U.S. citizens as human slave trade bargaining chips with third world hustlers requires prompt treatment to remedy relief to its helpless and unwitting victims. How did the United States devolve into embracing horrific slave labor practices? According to this No Slaves article, India thinks displacing American workers is "trade" and the U.S. is "protectionist". When there are not enough jobs for U.S. citizens, isn't it time to protect U.S. workers? 

Poison ivy is unusually similar to the hubris disease, in how its inhospitable, parasitic hosts skulk around dark places, hoping to continue their assault and avoid the watchful eyes of vigilant rangers wielding potent sprays and machetes to eradicate the disastrous, locally unsustainable effects on the local body politic. There are effective treatments for poison ivy and the unsustainable Neo-Frat Boy Corporate State. (Don't miss the video.)

In this Financial Times article entitled US matches Indian call centre costs, workers “are becoming as cheap to hire in the US as they are in India.” This should come as no surprise, as the H-1B visa is the ultimate rash that the Neo-Frat Boy corporate state has spread to inflict educated American citizens and replace them with cheap imported workers who are hired by foreign outsourcing companies here. So what are our “thought leaders” and legislators doing to eradicate the poison ivy patch aka the Neo-Frat Boy corporate State's disastrous, imported third world slave labor policies?

As U.S. Politicians like Ted Strickland continue to lure foreign outsourcing companies to their states on the U.S. taxpayer dime, others like Senator Chuck “Chop Shop" Schumer recently introduced a bill  that would tax businesses for transferring U.S. based call center jobs to foreign countries by charging them 25 cents for every service call placed abroad. With millions of educated Americans available, why are foreign outsourcing companies moving their operations to the U.S.? Will Schumer's bill discourage more labor arbitrage and foreign outsourcing companies from moving their operations to the U.S.?

The FT article explains:

“The move to expand operations in the US also comes as protectionist rhetoric against outsourcers rises in Washington. Last week, Charles Schumer, a US senator, described Indian IT outsourcing companies unflatteringly as “chop shops”, a term referring to places where stolen cars are dismantled for their parts.”

Stolen cars, stolen jobs, whatever. But this is tough talk from Schumer, if nothing more than tough talk. Who will put the brakes on it? The antidote, of course, to treating this rash of cheap labor arbitrage is for Indian outsourcing companies to just entice more U.S. politicians to pony up American taxpayer money to “lure” foreign outsourcing companies to  their states and continue their race to the bottom where it can thrive right here in the Poison Ivy Patch of America.

Somebody is feeling the looooove. More stinging Man-Crushinomics on steroids?

Party on, plebes!

-2Truthy

FutureGen 'Old Clean Coal' Project Bags $1 Billion from DOE

 "How many billions of taxpayer dollars will we send down what is now just a hole in the ground before we recognize that pumping carbon pollution underground is nothing more than an industry pipe dream?"

-Dan Howells, Greenpeace

Old Clean Coal was a dirty old soul
And a dirty old soul was he;
He tried to filter and pipe CO2 down a hole
And instead it blew up a tree.
Every fiddler has a carbon credit to piddle
Some carbon credit swaps had he;
Oh there's none so rare, as polluted air
With Clean Coal for all Mattoon Illinois to see.

-2Truthy

WASHINGTON, DC – President Obama gave a $1 billion enhance on Thursday to FutureGen, a “beleaguered” alliance aimed at curbing carbon dioxide pollutants created by burning coal to produce electrical power thorough an experimental, federally funded carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project for Mattoon, Illinois. In a sudden shift of events this week, Mattoon dropped out of the project citing that it was “not in their best interest”. Mattoon was expected to serve as host of the experimental, jobs-creating, coal-fired power plant that would test whether carbon pollutants could be stored underground. The move is said to leave federal energy officials “scrambling to find a new site to store the pollutants.”

Is 'clean' coal really clean? If not, can carbon capture and sequestration technology (CCS) eventually be perfected to make coal become a leading American energy alternative at home and for export  abroad?

Jeff Biggers at the Washington Post explains What a Load 'Clean' Coal' is below:

“Clean coal: Never was there an oxymoron more insidious, or more dangerous to our public health. Invoked as often by the Democratic presidential candidates as by the Republicans and by liberals and conservatives alike, this slogan has blindsided any meaningful progress toward a sustainable energy policy.”

He makes a compelling case against ever counting on coal mining becoming safe and clean for humans and the environment here:

“Orwellian language has led to Orwellian politics. With the imaginary vocabulary of "clean coal," too many Democrats and Republicans, as well as a surprising number of environmentalists, have forgotten the dirty realities of extracting coal from the earth. Pummeled by warnings that global warming is triggering the apocalypse, Americans have fallen for the ruse of futuristic science that is clean coal. And in the meantime, swaths of the country are being destroyed before our eyes.

Here's the hog-killing reality that a coal miner like Burl or my grandfather knew firsthand: No matter how "cap 'n trade" schemes pan out in the distant future for coal-fired plants, strip mining and underground coal mining remain the dirtiest and most destructive ways of making energy.”

In his excellent article entitled Obama: The Making of a Clean Coal President, David Sassoon profiles both sides of the clean coal argument. While CCS “fits the limitless growth model like a glove, with the technology expected to double the size of the fossil fuel industry from its current size”, he speculates it will need two decades of government support to grow. In other words, the technology just is not there yet. A Department of Energy roadmap published late in the Bush administration (2007) projected that commercial-scale application of CCS would NOT be possible before 2030, saying:

"As a technology and a research discipline, carbon sequestration is in its infancy."

But the very real economic imperative of capitalizing on the abundance of  U.S. coal and patently owning 'clean' coal technology can not be underscored in these insecure economic times, as Sassoon explains that the Democrats are looking to the legacy energy industries which have another advantage:

“They play powerfully inside a global economic system built on the assumption of limitless economic growth, and which is in dire need of boost in the wake of the US mortgage crisis. The coal supply remains a commodity that needs to be mined, shipped, exported and traded — a BTU bonanza for the nations that have it in abundance like the U.S., Russia, China, India and Australia.

Further, with China already leading the world in the export of solar and wind hardware, CCS offers the prospect of being an exportable big ticket advanced technology that even the Chinese will want to buy.”

So until 2030, President Obama may well believe – fervently and unconditionally – that government investment in clean coal technology is essential for our domestic economic growth and global climate sustainability.  Fair enough. You might call the phantom 'clean' coal the Skunkworks of polluting DIRTY coal development or the Manhattan Project of pollutants... But if all goes well, and at least until 2030 - it looks like we're stuck with plenty of DIRTY coal, and the choice of continuing to burn it and keep polluting the planet.

So what's next? Eli Kintisch from Science Insider explains below:

"Now, with $1 billion in stimulus funds, DOE has announced FutureGen 2.0—with decidedly less-aggressive goals. The project will retrofit an existing plant that burns the coal as solid coal—the old-fashioned way, pulverized into fine powder. But it will do so in burners full of rich oxygen, so the coal is burned more fully and produces a nearly pure stream of CO₂ and water vapor—making the CO₂ easier to collect and store than in traditional plants.

So instead of focusing on new technology for brand-new plants, the move emphasizes the need for understanding the decidedly less-sexy chore of creating retrofits for the coal plants that run today."

In the meantime, will dirty coal plants here and in countries around the world be fined for polluting? Will China, for example, be purchasing plenty of carbon credits in the near term? If we really care about the environment, dirty coal is not the way to go.

-2Truthy

2Truthy's Happy Friday Hour with Cathy Richardson and Starship: Follow the Drinking Gourd

(Very Special Thanks to Cathy Richardson & Jefferson Starship)

Watch this excellent account of the amazing song Follow the Drinking Gourd, the last coded song from the Civil War's Underground Railroad, written by Peg Leg Joe.

Please Call Your Senators to Support American Workers

Neo-Feudal Valley, USA -- Slavery? Labor Arbitrage? No jobs? Two advanced degrees but can't even get a job sewing doilies? Kids with college degrees still living in your basement? Who's cooking up this No Americans Need Apply economy to wipe out America's educated middle class?

Business Insider cites 22 statistics that prove the middle class is being systematically wiped out of existence. Since there is no major (or any) MIDDLE CLASS LOBBY to fund journalists who support jobs for educated American workers, the article takes a predictable this is inevitable tone while the best part can be found in the comments section. But we don't need a weather man or corporate sponsored economists like Robert Reich to know which way the neo-frat boy corporate state's narcissistic sociopaths are blowing U.S. taxpayer money on privatization schemes that suck the public till for their personal gain at the expense of America's educated middle class by selling out jobs to cheap third world imports when there are not enough jobs for our own citizens.

In a post entitled Obama=Bush=Clinton=Global Labor Arbitrage, our friends at No Slaves explain that displacing American white collar workers with H-1B visa holders does not create jobs. It loses jobs. Got that, teabaggers and fleabaggers?

What to do?

No Slaves has  issued this timely request Please Call Your Senators to Support American Workers with an amendment sponsored by Senators Sanders, Grassley, Harkin and Tester to block companies from hiring foreign guest workers when firing competent and hard working U.S. workers:

“The Amendment is S.AMDT. 4438, introduced to the Small Business Lending Fund Act of 2010 bill number H.R.5297."

Below is their plea to save U.S. jobs.

COMPANIES LAYING-OFF THOUSANDS OF AMERICAN WORKERS DON’T NEED GUEST WORKERS

Please Support the Sanders-Grassley-Harkin Employ America Amendment to the Small Business Lending Bill.

Since the recession started in December of 2007, over 7 million Americans have lost their jobs and the unemployment rate has nearly doubled. In total, 15 million Americans are officially unemployed, another 8.8 million Americans are working part-time only because they cannot find a full-time job, and more than one million workers have given up looking for work altogether.

With the unemployment rate still unacceptably high and millions of people looking for a job, we have a responsibility to ensure that companies do not use temporary visa programs to replace American workers with cheaper labor from overseas.

Therefore, during the consideration of the Small Business Lending bill, we will be offering the attached amendment that would prohibit companies which have announced mass lay-offs over the past year from hiring guest workers, unless they can prove that their overall employment will not be reduced as a result of these lay-offs .

At a time when millions of Americans are out of work, the notion that we need to import labor from abroad because there are not enough qualified, willing or able American workers in this country rings hollow.

Recently, some of the very companies that have hired tens of thousands of guest-workers from overseas have announced large scale lay-offs of American workers. The high-tech industry, a major employer of H-1B guest workers, has announced over 330,000 job cuts since 2008. The construction industry, a major employer of H-2B guest-workers, has laid-off 1.9 million workers since December of 2007.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan, signed into law last February, included a provision to prevent companies receiving assistance through the Troubled Asset Relief Program from replacing laid-off American workers with guest-workers from overseas.

The Employ America Act expands upon this provision to prevent any company engaged in a mass lay-off of American workers from importing cheaper labor from abroad through temporary guest-worker programs. Those companies that are truly facing labor shortages would not be impacted by this legislation and could continue to obtain employer-sponsored visas. Only companies that are laying-off a large number of Americans would be barred from importing foreign workers through guest worker programs.

No Slaves also adds: "You can locate your Senator and CALL THEIR OFFICE to support this critical amendment here. Please tell your Senators to support U.S. workers and pass this amendment, intact!

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, wanting to offshore outsource your job, is already gearing up to fight this common sense amendment. They will stop at nothing in their quest to continue firing U.S. workers and replacing them with cheaper foreign guest workers and outsourcing.”

Follow the Drinking Gourd and do your part to restore civility to our hijacked democracy and local socioeconomic sustainability. It's Not the Economy, Stupid. It's YOUR JOB!

Happy Friday, Loserettes!

-2Truthy