Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[Toemeesleather]

Go Girl!!

http://abcnews.go.com/US/okla-woman-sho ... wWmI3r0R0I

[10ac]

That cancels out the whining post I read about a guy with a carry permit shooting at a bicycle rider.

[bluetick]

Read an AP article in our daily this a.m. about Chrysler having a huge sales month in December and how they were up 26% overall in 2011(moving into fourth place ahead of Honda).

There was no mention of oprama at all...and therein lies the genius of the 9:1 media. Everybody will make the connection on their own; some even experiencing a true "a-ha!" moment.

right?

[Owlman]

hummm, funny they meet both the chemical and biological definition of life much, much earlier than that.

so does sperm

[sardis]

Read an AP article in our daily this a.m. about Chrysler having a huge sales month in December and how they were up 26% overall in 2011(moving into fourth place ahead of Honda).

There was no mention of oprama at all...and therein lies the genius of the 9:1 media. Everybody will make the connection on their own; some even experiencing a true "a-ha!" moment.

right?

Thank goodness for natural disasters. I guess God is on Oprama's side...

[Toemeesleather]

The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage ticked down to 3.23 percent from 3.24 percent. That's up from 3.21 percent two weeks, also a record low.

Mortgage rates are lower because they tend to track the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which fell below 2 percent this week. They could fall even lower this year if the Fed launches another round of bond purchases, as some economists expect.

Still, cheap mortgage rates have done little too boost the depressed housing market. For eight straight weeks at the end of 2011, the average fixed mortgage rates hovered around 4 percent. Yet many Americans either can't take advantage of the rates or have already done so.

High unemployment and scant wage gains have made it harder for many people to qualify for loans. Many don't want to sink money into a home that they fear could lose value over the next few years.

[Hacksaw]

Deadliest SEAL sniper talks about the time he punched-out Jesse Venture (language NSFW)...

[youtube]bhjHWovwix4[/youtube]

[puterbac]

Wow. Ventura is a fucking whacko. I've heard all his conspiracy crap on Sirius before but didn't know that.

[Toemeesleather]

The failed Range Fuels wood-to-ethanol factory in southeastern Georgia that sucked up $65 million in federal and state tax dollars was sold Tuesday for pennies on the dollar to another bio-fuel maker with equally grand plans to transform the alternative energy world.

LanzaTech, a New Zealand-based biofuel company, paid $5.1 million for the plant in Soperton. Its main financial backer: Vinod Khosla, a California entrepreneur who also bankrolled Range Fuels, and helped secure its government loans, before Range went bust last year.

LanzaTech hasn't received the same type of loans, but the company has received $7 million from the U.S. departments of Energy and Transportation to assist in the development of alternative fuels.

The Range fiasco harkens other, failed renewable energy companies that received major taxpayer funding. California solar panel maker Solyndra got $535 million in federal loan guarantees. Beacon Power of Massachusetts, which makes energy-storage equipment, took in $43 million in federal money. Both filed for bankruptcy last year.

Range cost U.S. taxpayers $64 million and Georgia taxpayers another $6.2 million. Tuesday's sale netted $5.1 million which will help offset losses suffered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Georgia's money, which paid for some of the ethanol-making equipment, won't be recouped outright, but state officials expect LanzaTech to use the machinery.

Sam Shelton, director of research programs at Georgia Tech's Strategic Energy Institute, was long skeptical of Range Fuels' plans and technology.

"It was too damn big a risk for an apparently unproven technology and the due diligence I personally performed on Range would not entice me to invest in it," Shelton said Wednesday. Shelton was invited by Range a few years back to check out its operation in Colorado where it was based.

"Government should not be in the venture capital business selecting technologies," he added.

Range was the alternative energy rage in 2007 when then-Gov. Sonny Perdue held a press conference to announce dot-com billionaire Khosla would help finance the $225 million wood-to-ethanol plant in economically depressed Treutlen County, 155 miles southeast of Atlanta.

Later that year, at a groundbreaking in Soperton's industrial park, Perdue boasted that "Range Fuels represents a new future for our country." And Georgia, with its 24 million forested acres, would become world renowned for cellulosic ethanol which, conceivably, turns pine trees and scrap into fuel.

The Bush administration's Energy Department steered a $76 million federal grant to Range. The Department of Agriculture followed up with an $80 million loan guarantee. Georgia officials pledged $6.2 million. Treutlen County, one of the state's poorest, offered 20 years worth of tax abatements and 97 acres in its industrial park.

Private investors reportedly put up $158 million. In all, the project raised more than $320 million.

Range, unable to turn wood into ethanol, closed its doors a year ago. It never came close to creating the 70 jobs once promised.

[bluetick]

Audit: Baghdad Embassy Wasted Money by Aamer Madhani, USA TODAY

Washington - The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad has unnecessarily spent more than $700,000 on cellphone service and lost track of millions of dollars of government property, according to a State Department audit released Thursday.

Among the findings are that the embassy acquired about 1,000 more handheld radios than needed at a cost of $936,000 and that nearly half of the embassy's cellphones not assigned to anyone were being used and racking up thousands of dollars in monthly service fees, according to the State Department's Office of Inspector General.

The report also found that 159 of the embassy's 1,168 vehicles, worth $18.5 million, are unaccounted for. The audit covers 2005 to 2009.

The embassy, the United States' largest overseas diplomatic post, is located on a sprawling campus along the Tigris River inside the Green Zone. It spends more than $1.5 billion annually on operations and security

[10ac]

And you want the government to handle health care?

[bluetick]

Not my healthcare.

no way, Jose

[GBJs]

Babies aren't babies until they've been in their moms belly for 3 months Prof.

hummm, funny they meet both the chemical and biological definition of life much, much earlier than that.

so does sperm

Bull Shit. Then why do you have to kill it to have an abortion.

[Professor Tiger]

If it's got human DNA, brain waves and has a beating heart, then it's obviously a human being.

[Owlman]

Human being is a legal and thus political definition, determined by whatever law is accepted. The definition of life at this time is a scientific definition (which of course can also be at some point be officially affected by the law).

Scientific definition of life clearly includes sperm and human life would clearly scientifically include human sperm.

As for when termination of pregnancy can occur, the law of the land is currently Casey which isn't based on life but viability and the standard that the state can step in as long as it doesn't place an undue burden on the mother. Roe v. Wade, also didn't deal with the question of when life begins (much to the surprise of most laymen and feminists). The case essentially ruled that both the mother and the state have an interest in the pregnancy, but the state interest is at it's lowest point in the first trimester (at the same time, the mother's is at the strongest point) and at it's strongest point in the 3rd trimester. Casey replaced the trimester based system.

[Jungle Rat]

How do you kill something that isn't born yet?

[Toemeesleather]

Cut off it's oxygen supply?

[Professor Tiger]

Human being is a legal and thus political definition, determined by whatever law is accepted. The definition of life at this time is a scientific definition (which of course can also be at some point be officially affected by the law).

Scientific definition of life clearly includes sperm and human life would clearly scientifically include human sperm.

As for when termination of pregnancy can occur, the law of the land is currently Casey which isn't based on life but viability and the standard that the state can step in as long as it doesn't place an undue burden on the mother. Roe v. Wade, also didn't deal with the question of when life begins (much to the surprise of most laymen and feminists). The case essentially ruled that both the mother and the state have an interest in the pregnancy, but the state interest is at it's lowest point in the first trimester (at the same time, the mother's is at the strongest point) and at it's strongest point in the 3rd trimester. Casey replaced the trimester based system.

Dred Scot, separate-but-equal, three-fifths of a human being and Jim Crow laws all looked at a particular group of human beings, that were obviously human beings by any rational metric, and decided they weren't really human beings based on purely utilitarian arguments and others' convenience. The courts determined they had no legal rights, and others could do whatever they wanted to them.

That was the law of the land too, just like Roe v. Wade.

[Owlman]

Roe v Wade is not the law of the land

[Owlman]

others, many in fact, would disagree with your suggestion that fertilized eggs are human beings by any rational metric. Anyway, as pointed out above, the law of the land isn't based on human beings versus non-human beings or life versus non-life, it's based on primarily a balance of interests. When does the interest of the state in the fetus override that of the mother?

It took a Constitutional amendment to overturn Dred Scott and apportionment representation. The others were overruled by a combination of Supreme Court rulings and legislative rule.