Breaking! Teamsters join Calif. supermarket strike

The Teamsters union said Monday its members will stop delivering groceries to three Southern California supermarket chains where grocery clerks have been on strike or been locked out for more than a month.

The move effectively shuts off supplies to Vons, Ralphs and Albertsons stores during the critical Thanksgiving shopping week.

This changes the entire strike. These supermarket chains can now no longer get their shelves re-stocked. The warehouses where the food is stored are computerized, and scabs or management don’t have the expertise to run them.

The striking grocery workers have been given a HUGE boost by the Teamsters, who figure that if grocery workers benefits are taken from, their benefits could go next.

As the ILWU (International Longshore Workers Union) says, “an injury to one is an injury to all”.

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The PATRIOT act is everywhere.

My mortgage company sent me a letter saying I qualify for a prime + 0 % line of credit, so I signed up.

One question they asked, and they said this was mandated by the PATRIOT Act as of a few weeks ago for all mortgage and credit line applications, was for my drivers license number. This  is supposed to aid in the fight against terrorism as it will prevent money-laundering.

Does this mean Homeland Security now gets copies of all such loan applications?  What does a drivers license have to do with money-laundering? Snoopy, snoopy, snoopy…

Would anyone who actually is laundering money be doing it through such easily trackable methods?

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Arnold reinvents history. Update.

More on Arnold’s bizarre claim he saw Communist tanks in the streets of Austria (following up our previous post)

He said:

Schwarzenegger had put it this way: “Growing up, I saw Communism with my own eyes. When I was a boy, the Soviets occupied Austria, I saw their tanks in the streets.”

A historian responds:

“It is very, very unlikely he saw Soviet tanks rolling in the British zone where he lived,” said historian James Jay Carafano, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C., and author of the recent book “Waltzing into the Cold War: The Struggle for Occupied Austria.”

“In all likelihood, he saw British or American tanks.”

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Democrats worry about Greens’ S.F. momentum

Reeling party hopes progressives won’t desert for Gonzalez

The officially non-partisan race for mayor of San Francisco has become a high-stakes battleground for the Greens and the Democrats, with both sides bringing in help from across the nation.

“Matt Gonzalez has a chance to become a Green and progressive mayor of one of the nation’s biggest cities,” said Marnie Glickman, national co-chair of Green Party. “Greens across the country can contribute to the campaign, raise money for the campaign or they can volunteer, and we’re doing all three.”

California Democrats are still reeling from last month’s recall election, when the state voted overwhelmingly to dump Gov. Gray Davis and replace him with Republican film star Arnold Schwarzenegger. If Gonzalez beats Newsom in one of the nation’s most Democratic communities, it would be both a public relations and a political disaster for the party.

Such a defeat would be the Democrats own empty-headed fault. Quick - what does the California Democratic Party stand for? Not sure, are you? But I bet you can tell me what Greens and California Republicans stand for, right? And therein lies their problem. Lordy, they just had an incumbent governor unseated by a lunkhead actor. That is beyond dismal - and should serve as an important clue that something is Seriously Wrong.

“Democrats around the country are concerned,” said Eric Jaye, Newsom’s political consultant. “A Green Party victory in San Francisco could hurt (Democratic Sen.) Barbara Boxer and could cost us her Senate seat.”

That’s just silly! A nuclear bomb couldn’t knock Boxer out of office. And many Greens will no doubt vote for her. The Newsom campaign, like too many Democrats, seems to stand for little and then blames others for their own ineptness.

That a Green has a serious chance of being mayor of S.F. is a telling example how rudderless the California Democratic Party has become. This mayoral race should be a slam-dunk for them. And it’s not. Which indicates to me they are in big trouble.

They should study why Howard Dean will probably be the Democrat candidate for President. That’s how to win.

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Death-defying Loony Stunt - Sandwichcam! Day 16 report in!

From my absolute favorite political party, the Official Monster Raving Loony Party, (who are “an actual recognized political party in the UK”).

David Blaine tried to impress the great British public by climbing into a box and going without food for 44 days - not even a sandwich passed his lips. The OMRLP is going to go one better, and is proud to present: Jeff The Intrepid Sandwich, who is going to spend 45 days in a box without David Blaine.

OMRLP, you are my inspiration. May you thrive and prosper!

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Getting ugly

Iraqi mob mutilates bodies of US troops killed by guerrillas

Moments after Iraqi guerrillas killed two American troops yesterday, a crowd swarmed to the car and began pummelling the soldier’s bodies with concrete blocks.

Witnesses to the assault in the northern city of Mosul said the mob mutilated the blood-drenched bodies, rifled through their pockets, looted their four-wheel-drive civilian car, smashed the windows and tried to set it on fire.

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Michael Jackson, sex, fame, the US

Adam Curry 

“It’s interesting to examine a culture that mounts cameras on smart bombs to view the kill on the 6 o’clock news, but freaks out if a nipple of a [female] breast is flashed on TV.”

This is the same Adam Curry who was one of the first VJ’s on MTV. He now lives in Holland, is a high-tech media-savvy guy with a popular weblog, and has some quite intelligent things to say.

Michael Jackson my have a lifestyle different from yours, and for all I know he may be guilty as charged. We must however practice constraint when drawing conclusions and remember that every citizen is innocent until proven guilty. In most countries, accused are only mentioned in Big Media by their initials, so as to protect the wrongly accused. Celebrities don’t seem to share many of these protections. And why it is neccesary to handcuff a man who is surrendering to police from his private jet is beyond me. Like he’s going to run down the tarmac and hi-jack another aircraft to escape. Puhleazze.

I’ve been receiving daily downloads of the Tonite Show and have followed Leno’s jokes. Every day he’s made hurtful accusatory jokes that insult Jackson to the core. These jokes probably are also very hurtful to victims of child abuse.

And the audience loves it. Let’s laugh about the sick fuck, so we don’t have to confront our own sins and frustration.

(Via Scripting News)

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The revolution will be blogged

While the media is too busy covering Michael Jackson we find a blog reporting the latest about the coup d’etat in Georgia, directly from the Tblisi.

LivingWithCaucasians

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Drinking water from fog

Clouds on tap

A beautifully low-tech solution to freshwater access in areas with negligible rainfall, fog-collection arrays have been successfully installed in Chile, Nepal, southern Africa, and other dry, mountainous regions worldwide.

“Fog collectors are inexpensive, passive devices that each produce 200 to 600 liters of fresh water a day by collecting the tiny wind-blown water droplets present in fog. Arrays of collectors produce an average of 5,000 to 15,000 liters of water per day.”

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