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Zoo May Close, Kill Animals

“BOSTON -- The Franklin Park Zoo, the only Boston institution of its kind, may be forced to close and euthanize some of its animals, zoo officials said Friday.

Without more state funding, zoo officials said that they will run out of money within months and have to close both Franklin Park and the Stone Zoo in Stoneham.

The zoos would be forced to lay off most of their 165 employees and attempt to find new homes for more than 1,000 animals.

Zoo officials estimated 20 percent of the animals would not find homes and could be euthanized…”

  This is just more more thing that we have to thank President Bush and the GOP for doing for the nation…All over the United States cities and states do not have money to pay for basic services.  It is the same here in Miami and in all of FL. 
  Part of the blame for this goes back to the start of the no tax movement.  It started, if I remember correct, in CA.  I knew at the time that it was a bad idea but it was very popular and spread all across the United States and it still has major support.  It also became part of the GOP platform and movement.  It has been bad for the United States.
  Now tax reform was needed and government did need some controls and changes put on it…but the entire movement just became an anti-government right wing fuck the system revolt. 
  CA, where it started, has been suffering for years and right now CA is giving people they should be paying IOUs.  Many of those businesses will go under and then they will not be paying taxes and the employees will not be paying taxes and will need help from the state.  It is just one sad fucked up mess that we can thank the right wing Republicans for giving us.
  Now it looks like they will be the cause of killing zoo animals.  Just one more reason that President Bush is the worst president of all time and that fewer and fewer people now say they are a Republican.
 
  We have got to stop letting people get our vote by not talking about issues and by not being honest with us.  The Republicans had this system down pat.  They just used buzz words and said the things that would get them elected and it worked for a time.  We are paying for it now.  Looks like little fuzzy zoo animals will pay for it now.

Slot machines at Miami International Airport?

  The Miami Herald has a report that slot machines could come soon to the Miami International Airport.  Miami Dade County needs new sources of cash to meet rising airport costs.
  I think that we have to stop looking at gambling to pay for everything.  Where will it end?
  Now having said that…  Miami is a place that people come to for travel, recreation and leisure.  I could see slot machines at the airport.
  But the addition of slot machines at the airport is going to add problems.  Will the machines be in a public area for all people to use or just those that are using the airport?  They would add to security problems at MIA.  You have to worry about crime and crooks.  If it is open to the public you would have additional traffic and parking problems.
  If MIA can not make money with the thousands of people flying in and out of MIA then maybe they just need to shut down.  Or they may need new management.

Student twice puts planes on runway collision course

  I have posted a number of post on Howard’s Notebook about the ATC problem.  There were warnings about this sort of problem.  I hate to keep blaming President Bush and the Republicans but they are the cause of this current problem we have with ATC.
 
 

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- “A student controller was directing planes during two runway mishaps in the past month at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, apparently giving instructions that placed planes on possible collision courses, federal investigators say.

Federal transportation safety investigators say the exact causes of the mishaps are still unknown. But in both cases, potential accidents were averted only after pilots recognized that mistakes had been made, according to the National Transportation Safety Board.

In one instance, two commercial jetliners came within 500 feet of each other, the NTSB said.

Both incidents involved a "developmental" controller -- a controller who is not certified in every position in the control tower. The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates aviation in the United States including air traffic control, said Tuesday the developmental controller was under the supervision of different trainers during the two incidents, and that it is the controller/trainers -- not students -- who are held accountable for mistakes.

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown did not immediately know what action, if any, was taken against the student.

But a controllers' union representative said the controller was still on the job, and deserves to be.

"This particular trainee had a total of 11 hours of training in the entire month of June. That's less then an hour a day," said Bob Kerr of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association. "He's brand new; he's going to make mistakes."

The student had completed about 30 percent of his training hours at the position, Kerr said. "He has plenty of time to not only learn from the present situation, but to continue learning and develop into a fine controller in that position."  …”

  President Bush and the Republicans wanted to break the ATC employees union.  They wanted to cut pay and take other action.  They would not hire and train new employees to do the ATC jobs and massive numbers of employees were leaving their jobs and retiring. 
  President Bush is gone but we still  have the mess that he has left behind and it is going to take years to clean up this mess.  It may cost lives.  It takes a long time to hire and train ATC employees.  Even after they get out of the school they still have to spend months, if not years, learning the job.

Obama Picks Camp David Church

By AMY SULLIVAN Amy Sullivan – 38 mins ago

“For the past five months, White House aides and friends of the Obamas have been quietly visiting local churches and vetting the sermons of prospective first ministers in a search for a new - and uncontroversial - church home. Obama has even sampled a few himself, attending services at 19th Street Baptist on the weekend before his inauguration and celebrating Easter at St. John's Episcopal Church.

Now, in an unexpected move, Obama has told White House aides that instead of joining a congregation in Washington, D.C., he will follow in George W. Bush's footsteps and make his primary place of worship Evergreen Chapel, the nondenominational church at Camp David…”  See Yahoo News

  Sounds to me like they made a good choice.  I just wonder how far is Camp David from the White House?  How will they get to Camp David?  Do they drive each Sunday through traffic or do they fly him to Camp David?  I guess we will find out.
 
  History of Camp David

  Camp David - Wikipedia

Fox “news” hates Al Gore

  I have noticed that Fox “news” hates Al Gore. 

“…Albert Arnold "Al" Gore, Jr. (born March 31, 1948) is an American environmental activist who served as the 45th Vice President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 under President Bill Clinton. He is an author, businessperson, and former journalist. In 2007, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Gore also starred in the 2006 documentary An Inconvenient Truth, which won an Academy Award in 2007 and wrote the book An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It, which won a Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album in February 2009…^”

   I am not sure what it is that makes Fox “news” so filled with hate for him.  They been saying that he is trying to make money off of the environment. 
  I hope that someone inside Fox is keeping notes and will publish a book someday on the workings of Fox.
  It has been reported that Fox “news” gets their marching orders each day.  That someone from the top puts out the party line and that they have to follow the party line.  It seems to be true because they attack the same person and in the same way and use the  same words. 
  It just could be that Al Gore pissed off someone high up in the Fox “news” corporation and they are doing a pay back.
  It is just odd.  I was never a fan of Al Gore.  My feeling was anyone is better than Bush.  So now when they beat up on Al Gore I do not care…I just wonder why beat up someone that does not even hold any office.  He is just a private citizen that happens to have been the Vice President of the United States, has a Nobel Peace Prize, won Academy Award and a Grammy.  
  I think that Fox “news” has to have someone that they can attack ….I think their viewer want someone that they are told is evil and right now they can not do it to the current President of the United States.

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford unmoored from reality

South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford unmoored from reality
Kathleen Parker

WASHINGTON — A wise man once said that love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.

No one who managed to get through the torture of South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's news conference admitting to an affair would disagree. Yes, I know, shocking. Another Republican affair. Next thing you know, we'll learn that a Democrat hasn't paid his taxes.

If we were feeling charitable, we might say something about man's fallen nature and his attempt to repair himself through public works. Thus, Republicans touting family values can't seem to stay zipped.

We might conclude that public espousals carry certain risks of self-incrimination.

Before charity exhausts its welcome, let's do give Sanford this much: He has a flair for the dramatic in what otherwise would have been banal. Nothing like vanishing for a few days amid lies and speculation to get that "whole sparking thing" going, as Sanford ickily described his affair.

That was but one of many bits of information the governor might have spared the world — and his family. His news conference felt like a combination AA meeting-tent revival, filled with self-recrimination and flagellation. Although his agony seemed sincer, his apparent need to drag everyone else along his Via Dolorosa was embarrassing and politically disastrous.

The man would not stop talking. Even though most cable news channels covered the spectacle live, Sanford began with a recounting of his youth when he hiked the Appalachian Trail. What? He spoke for five minutes before moving, finally, to the point: Where did he go, with whom, and why?

People will forgive human frailty, especially in matters of the flesh. But Sanford's foray into iniquity has potential repercussions beyond what he and his wife ultimately resolve. He did disappear for several days, five of which he confessed to having spent "crying in Argentina."

And, there's no nice way to put this, he lied — by omission if not commission.

He lied by not telling his staff where he was going or how to reach him. He deceived his staff by allowing them to believe and then report to the media that the governor was hiking in the Appalachians. And most important to his political future, he failed to make arrangements for his state's uninterrupted governance.

Sanford acknowledged all of these failings, but he seemed less interested in discussing his shirking of executive duty than in making statements abouthis heart. Not only did we learn Sanford's philosophy of moral absolutes, but we were led through the meaning and purpose of God's laws.

Spiritually, Sanford may have succeeded in checking off several acts of contrition. But politically, he did everything wrong — invoking religion, apologizing endlessly, and acknowledging friends in a sort of reverse intervention.

Meanwhile, the questions that matter remain unaddressed. Can a governor lie about his whereabouts and leave the country while his state is untended? Were taxpayer funds ever used in the pursuit of his personal gratification?

If not for Sanford's appalling judgment in disappearing, his personal travails might never have come to public light. That alone suggests that he is a man unmoored from reality and, just possibly, unfit for public office.

Contact Kathleen Parker at kparker@kparker.com.
www.statesmanjournal.com

Microsoft Windows Pricing

  I hate being poor and broke all the time.  If you are poor you end up paying more for things. 
  
  Microsoft is saying that they expect to sell Windows 7 for $119.19 and $199.00 each.  Because I been using Windows 7 RC I can get half off.  I can get Windows 7 Home Premium for $49.99 and Professional for $99.99. 
   I am running Windows 7 RC and it is excellent and I do plan to buy Windows 7 when they release it. Because I am poor it looks like I will have to pay the $199.00 and that happens to the poor all the time.
 

   CNN reports that you can purchase an upgrade copy of Windows 7 RC for $49.99 and $99.99 each.  That offer is good for both Windows XP and Windows Vista owners.
   Now both these offers are good for a limited time and the number of copies is limited but Microsoft is not giving out a date and a number.

   If you buy a new computer with Windows Vista on it you will get a free upgrade to Windows 7 and be able to upgrade without doing a clean installation of Windows 7.

   People that are poor end up paying more for things and services and they end up paying late fees etc.
   There has been some talk of the United States having a sales tax.  I have heard a few people say that even a half of one percent sales tax would bring in tons of money for the federal government and allow us to pay for national health insurance and pay off our debt and do other things.  I wonder if that sort of tax hurts the poor more than others.  Or is it a fair tax?
 

  I guess some people are thinking of a Value Added Tax which is different than a Sales Tax.  I want to see our taxes become easy and simple but I do wonder if it would not be more fair and better for the poor if food and medication was not taxed or if a person cold get a refund for those taxes when they file a tax report.

  How did I go from talking about Windows 7 to talking about taxes?

Gov. Sanford gone in 48 hours?

  South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford admits extramarital affair.  I think he  will have to resign in less than 48 hours.  Not because of the affair but because he went AWOL and his staff did not know or lied to fellow Republicans.
  This for me is the big deal.  The fact that he was missing and no one knew where he was or how to get hold of him and no idea who was in charge in case of an emergency.
  Also his press conference was nutty.  The only thing he did right and I bet his wife was the one that made the decision was in not having his wife standing at his side.
  The only reason, I think, he would not resign is if their is a problem with the Lieutenant Governor Andre Bauer.
  The pressure, I think, is going to be from Republicans. 

Betty Bowers Explains Prayer

S.C. Governor was in Argentina!

COLUMBIA, South Carolina (CNN) -- “South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford did not spend the last five days hiking the Appalachian Trail -- as his staff indicated -- but instead was in Buenos Aires, Argentina, he told The State newspaper.

Spotted returning from the trip at the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, Wednesday morning, the Republican governor told The State he had considered hiking the Appalachian Trail after his state's busy legislative season ended but instead decided differently.

"I wanted to do something exotic. It's a great city," Sanford said, referring to Buenos Aires.

The governor will speak with reporters Wednesday at 2 p.m. ET, his office announced.

Sanford's staff and family seemed to be in the dark about his whereabouts. Sanford also said no one else accompanied him on the trip, the paper reported. The Republican governor and possible 2012 contender told the newspaper only that he took a drive along the coastline on his trip…”

  OK I am GOING to watch that meeting with reporters today at 2 PM.  My God, this is all crazy.  My first feeling is that the people of S.C. should remove him from office and right now.
  I do not think I have to go into any details as why they should remove him.  That should be clear to any of you.
  Then my feeling is that he is a right wing Republican and hard core so I would bet money he was with a woman or a little boy  having sex. 
  He would not accept $700 million in federal stimulus money to help the people of his state but how much does the security for him cost and then he just takes off without security.  If he does not security take it away from him. It might even like that.  Plus I would take away from him the use of any police vehicles.  Hell he drove one away and no one knew were it was and he left it parked at an airport and we all know how secure parking a car in a parking lot is don’t we? 
  He just needs to have his ass kicked out of office.