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The Battle

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Usually, while I am at the sink doing dishes, the hummingbirds come to the feeder.  Some are quite comical–one time, it kept popping its head out, and then back behind the feeder…like it was playing a game of peek-a-boo with me.

The other day there was a battle between a wasp and a hummingbird.

Guess who won?

Not the obvious choice.

The wasps like to eat at the feeder, too, getting nectar out of the six or so holes.  Usually, they’re left alone, but this particular hummingbird didn’t want the wasp there, and used its beak to peck at the wasp.  The wasp flies up but doesn’t fly away as the hummer hoped.  It instead flies to another hole, where the hummer follows and again pecks at it.  I figured the wasp was going to be put off by it, but not this one–persistent little bugger just kept darting to different holes.  The hummingbird gave up and flew off.

Go wasps!

The war is far from over between the wasps and the hummingbirds, however….

Forty Years of ALEC

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They’re protesting ALEC in Chicago as I type…the tweets are keeping tabs on what is going on.  Badass Teachers Association is there.  Others have reported rough treatment by Chicago Police.

https://twitter.com/aaroncynic/status/365556308516151297/photo/1

Chicago Teachers Union

 

Speaking Truth to Weiner

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I saw this a few days ago and wanted to get it posted.

Let’s pick this story, as reported, apart, shall we?

As someone says in the comments, this wasn’t a “heckler” this was someone speaking the truth.  She is a voter, she has every right to call him on his criminal behavior.

“You’ve got little kids here”  Is he kidding me?  He puts his penis out in cyberspace, and he’s now worried about cuss words in front of kids?!

And then…the word that will piss off even the most even-tempered woman who is speaking her mind….he tells her to “relax”.    Grrrr.

Then he accuses her of putting on “a show”….degrading her opinion as less than valid.  She’s just out for attention instead of speaking out publicly.  Where else would she be able to voice her opinion to his face?  In some structured town hall meeting?  I think not. 

See…politicians just can’t handle all that freedom.

Anyway, back to the Weiner saga,  this part of the story was disturbing:

“Oh, take is easy. Lighten up. You put your show on. Why don’t you beat it? Beat it!” Mr. Weiner shot back, strutting in front of his sign-holding volunteers.

“Beat it?” Ms. Borock, incredulous, said back.

Several men to the side yelled encouragements for Mr. Weiner.

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This just sent chills down my spine.    Several men to the side yelled encouragement for Mr. Weiner.   Kind of like a verbal gang assault.   Bullying, anyone?  And they wonder why kids bully?

And then Weiner just dismisses her after she tells him that she voted for him.  Just plain dismisses her instead of humbling himself and apologizing for his behavior.

But one would have to admit to himself that his behavior was unacceptable and even criminal.

I still don’t believe Weiner has done that:

Not long after, Mr. Weiner seemed to revel in the sparks. “I love how crazy I make some people,” he said, grinning.

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He still thinks it’s a joke.

 

Hedge Funds sucking public schools dry

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Well, now, there is much more to the story than just the unethical toad Daniel Loeb’s millions towards charter schools.    The creeps on Wall Street see a gold mine in Charters….they can’t lose.  And it’s not just unethical investors in the U.S., but foreign investors looking to make a fast buck off of American children. and get a green card to the U.S.

Why does it not surprise me that Bill Clinton allowed this to happen by signing into law effing tax breaks for these monstrosities??  Good God, how does this creep get away with soo much?  Is there no one who will stand up to him and HIllary?  WTH?!

What’s that giant sucking sound…?

It’s millionaire bankers, hedge fund managers, the Walton family, and foreign investors draining our public schools dry.

 

 

 

Loeb putting millions into charter schools

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Sometimes I wish my hunches weren’t right, then I wouldn’t  have to see the workings of unethical toads like Daniel Loeb. (hat tip to Diane Ravitch).

Yep.  He’s a union buster.  And is putting millions towards destroying them and the public school system.

It’s clear to me with the new information that Loeb is a conservative who probably sees the movie industry as supporting liberals, and wants to destroy it.  He puts money into schools that seek to destroy the creative by micromanaging them,  so it’s not a big leap that he wants to destroy the creative in movies.   Just my guess.

Hedge funds create jobs?

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Um – hmmm…

These are just my first thoughts after a quick read~~

The title of the piece is written in a condescending way.  ” Just STFU and do your movies.”   Insulting.

The author brings up the two flops that Loeb complained about–and as George had stated, Loeb picks two flops and ignores the profitable movies. You can’t possibly think that you’re going to have hit after hit? Seriously? If one never takes a chance and puts stuff out there that may or may not do well at the box office, according to the public’s whim, then we’ll have what happened to the music industry. With the exception of Adele and the former Amy Winehouse, I can’t think of any new music that is being played on the radio that is worth a crap.

From the article:

But to be clear, and with job-creating growth in mind, if hedge funds didn’t exist we’d have to invent them

Um.. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think hedge funds invested in the movie industry when it was created. Folks used this thing called “cash” to form the studios and then they had this great idea to make some films and then ask people to pay to see them. Hedge fund investors don’t invest until there is a business going already. And Hedge funds have been known to fail themselves.

I found a history of hedge funds in investopedia.

More from the article:

It’s not broadly understood this way, but hedge fund billionaire John Paulson not only saved jobs, but the billions he earned surely created new ones.

Seriously? Where are those jobs, because there are an awful lot of people out of work for all the jobs created by Hedge Funds. /snark

For taking these risks, hedge funds are not only masterful job creators, they’re also paradoxically masterful job savers for their intrepid style telling others where and where not to go with their capital.

I think I’m going to be sick.

Let me get this straight–they create jobs by telling investors not to invest in a company that might create 100 jobs because….Company A looks better than Company B because Company A is willing to go without a union shop and pay people minimum wage….am I correct…?

Or…how about this–if you follow the “short selling” link, you see this:

Selling short is the opposite of going long. That is, short sellers make money if the stock goes down in price.

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Read that again–short sellers make money if the stock goes down.  Now I’m wondering if Loeb is short selling….or if someone he knows is short selling Sony stock?  An associate?  A relative?  Since Loeb actually owns the stock, it doesn’t appear that he is short selling, since the broker technically owns the stock in a short sale.  Gah.  The whole thing sounds like a scam.

I used to invest in stock back in the day.  I took an investment class in college, and I did quite well investing in emerging telecommunications technology.    But this was at the beginning of the metamorphosis I was going through, and I began to question the whole scheme because of stuff like the above.  I knew that I could not invest in companies that did not use Fair Trade practices or those that ran sweat shops,  or companies like Monsanto, etc.  The decision came to stop investing after losing $4,000 in Lucent Technologies, which had “facts” and “figures” that made it appear to be a good investment.  Turns out that it was not. 

Telling Sony to spin off the entertainment portion of its business is not creating jobs. Sorry, try another line of defense of the doubletalk.

Offshore fracking

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<sigh>  it took a Freedom of Information request by the AP to get this.

I rather doubt that it’s only been twelve times.  And the troubling thing is that the EPA only considers human life valuable:

In a statement to the AP, the EPA defended its oversight of offshore fracking, saying its system ensures the practice does not pollute the environment in a way that would endanger human health.

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…because killing whales and fish isn’t important.  Neither is contaminating the ocean water…oh, wait…the oil companies are putting freshy clean water back into the ocean when they’re done putting nasty chemicals that they won’t name into the ocean floor.  I mean, there is no waaay that the oil companies would lie or minimize their impact.  /snark

 

The history of pipeline spills

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Really hard to deny the massive incidents when you see this.

You can’t even see Indiana from all the “incidents”.  Nor Illinois nor Ohio.  And Texas!  A state that size that is practically obliterated by the dots should be up in arms about this.    Some folks are wisening up, though–unfortunately, it’s after they become sick and unable to put up much of a fight.

I found this timeline on wikipedia.  It’s pretty hard to deny how dirty this business is and how careless they are.  Why should they care?  They have Congress bought off….

Not only that, here are nuclear and radiation accidents…

…makes you feel all warm and cozy, doesn’t it?  No?

Koch cloud over Detroit

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Holy Crap. 

My worst fears that  I blogged about on that pile of pet coke in Detroit…Good God.  And the Koch brothers get away with murder….oh, it doesn’t look like murder because people die more slowly from emphysema, heart disease, and lung disease and God-knows-what-else….but it’s murder just the same.  Just because one doesn’t see blood spurting doesn’t mean the guilty are innocent.  Unconscionable.