Flap Your Lips Friday
Posted by Michelle Moquin on October 21st, 2011
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Good morning!
Ken: I can see that change doesn’t come easy for you. Racism is deeply engrained, but you are on the right path. It’s amazing to me that people such as yourself only do something when what they have been doing to others, they realize is actually what is happening to them as well. Then and only then do they “wake-up”, and want to take action.
Yes, what they are doing to us is just not right….and what you have been doing to OTWs for 27 years is just not right either. And yet you have the nerve to call someone like Robert an asshole for pointing out the truth. I don’t need to stick up for him, but I will say that when you’re pointing your finger at someone calling them an asshole, just look at your hand and see how many of your fingers are pointing back at you. Now who’s the asshole?
A kiss to your little girl for opening your eyes. I HOPE that you will continue to read, rid yourself of your racism, and pay it forward.
Al: I would say so as well. No doubt in my mind. FYI: I don’t feel you are correcting me. I realize that Jeb is no longer your Governor. Let me remind you that I do not take credit for writing the article. I simply got it from a trusted resource. The write was originally published in 2003 when Jeb was your Governor.
Let me remind everyone. The Governor in each state appoints a key person in a very important position. And that position is the secretary of the state’s voting administration. I’m not sure of the exact title, but that person has control of the entire voting process. So what does that mean? It means they have control over the amount of time that a person has to vote, making it difficult for OTWs to get to the polls. It means that this person has control of the voting machines - they want to rig them? Simple: They can. They can rig the machines so that anyone who votes for a Democrat it automatically changes to a Republican vote. And no one will ever know. It’s why Gore lost the presidency.
Norma Jean: What will it take for you to vote for Obama? How bad does the country need to get before you realize just who screwed up this country and who is trying his best to put it back together? Believe me it will stay this way and get a lot worse if Obama isn’t voted in a second term. Don’t stay home – that is a an automatic vote for the republicans. Vote Obama. Did you read what Henry wrote about women? Don’t be like so many women who continue to stand by men such as Henry. Thanks to President Obama, you’ll be kicking and screaming your way to freedom.
Henry: I agree with your assessment of Bachman and Palin’s intelligence but that is all I can agree with. However, I can answer your question: “People like you fucked it up.” I won’t speak for AH but from his past posts, my guess is that at least one founding father is appalled, but not for the reasons you’re thinking.
Lloyd: It is a very serious threat. And we can not take it lightly because the republican’s main goal is getting Obama out. Who cares what happens to the country before or after, matters not, as long as he is gone. When people think like that, they will do anything.
Yukio: Wonderful story! Thanks for sharing.
Irene: I’m with you on that one.
Delatam, Fadi: I join you in congratulating Obama as well. Next on his list: Joseph Kony
East Africa: Obama’s Move to Fight Kony Good
Barack Obama is already getting flak from the right wing media in the US over his decision announced Friday October 14 to send a hundred US “combat equipped” troops to Uganda to assist in finally undoing the horrible misdeeds of Joseph Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army. According to BBC, those troops are prepared to move through four East and Central African countries searching out and bringing to justice men who have murdered, maimed, raped and abducted children by the tens of thousands in northern Uganda.
Why the world has watched silently since 1987 when Joseph Kony first came on the scene to start his supposedly messianic bloody mission to bring down the Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni is beyond me. Especially when Museveni would become the darling of foreign donors by the early 1990s, after the then-wealthy Western powers realized he was no threat to their ongoing activities.
Museveni came to power in 1986 and in all likelihood, one year later, Kony was initially propped up by covert forces who were keen to bring down the former guerrilla fighter who brought an end to more than twenty years of hell overseen by Milton Obote, then Idi Amin, and then Obote again.
I for one welcomed Museveni as a hero who proved that Africans can run their own affairs and quash cruel dictators who usually remained in power because they either bowed to or were installed by Western interests wanting to continue reaping the spoils of the region without any government interference.
But Museveni’s success didn’t seem to reach Uganda’s northern region where the LRA were wrecking havoc mercilessly. I never fully understood how the guerrilla fighter-turned statesman couldn’t quash Kony if he could finish Obote! But i’ve been told it was because the LRA would flee across the border into Sudan and melt into the local population.
What I also couldn’t understand is why the West didn’t come to Museveni’s aid, especially after their unforgiveable neglect of Africans during the Rwanda genocide. But now that Obama is trying to rectify that horrible oversight to a very limited degree, he is being attacked by the likes of Rush Limbaugh who despises Obama “on principle.”
Ironically, some of his fiercest critics didn’t sound a peep when he supported French President Sarkozy and British Prime Minister Cameron and agreed to send NATO forces to Libya. Instead, they quietly endorsed the Western invasion of North Africa in the name of ‘saving civilian lives’ because they cynically understood that what was really at stake was the OIL that no African, especially Gadaffi, should be allowed to control.
Most of Obama’s current critics don’t yet realize that once again the covert issue in this troop deployment could also be oil. Instead, Limbaugh complained on his radio show that Obama was “sending troops to Africa to kill Christians.” Can you believe it? The guy is not only racist, but also so utterly ignorant that he upgrades a butcher like Kony to being an ‘authentic’ Christian. Launching his religion-based smear campaign, Limbaugh applauds the LRA for its “good work” of “fighting Muslims in Sudan.”
What’s scary about this sort of smear campaign is that in America today, the likes of Limbaugh, including his Fox News colleagues, are commanding much of the mainstream media, meaning many ordinary Americans are likely to listen to Fox or right-wing radio talk, and believe what they hear.
This is a moment when Americans ought to applaud Obama for doing what Bill Clinton didn’t have the guts to do 17 years ago when more than a million innocent Africans were being slaughtered en masse in Rwanda. Since 1987, Kony”s LRA has also been murdering an incalculable number of Africans in Uganda, and at last, an American head of state is doing something about it.
The Ugandan foreign minister has welcomed the deployment of US troops. And while Emira Wood, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus claims Obama’s decision had more to do with the OIL recently discovered in Uganda than any selfless initiative taken on behalf of his African kin, the locals are grateful for any sort of protection.
What’s ironic to me is the timing of President Obama’s decision. People are asking, why now? And I don’t have an answer, but I have to say that just last week, a film opened at a cinema house down the street from me, starring the action-hero Gerald Butler (300) as a degenerate biker who finds hope and meaning in life by coming to Uganda and waging his own Rambo-like war on a “brutal renegade militia” known as, none other than the LRA.
The movie bombed in my neighborhood, but the following Friday is when President Obama announced that he too was going to “do good” for African children. One only hopes his show fares better than Mr. Butler’s did at the box office
*****
Readers: I’m done flapping my lips. Your turn. Blog me.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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October 21st, 2011 at 10:38 pm
The Dark Side of Coupons
Farnoosh Torabi
Clipping coupons can be an effective way to save money — or a trap that costs us money, time and even our health. Among the ways these ostensible money savers actually work against us…
Coupons can convince us to buy overpriced or unneeded products. Most coupons are for pricey brand-name goods, not cheaper generic or store-label items.
Coupons for brand-name goods are legitimate money savers only if they reduce the price enough that these items are cheaper than their generic alternatives or if the brand-name products truly are better than the generic ones. Often neither is the case.
Frequently coupons steer us toward obscure or recently unveiled products that we wouldn’t have considered at all without a coupon. It’s perfectly reasonable to try new foods and household products that seem interesting. Just don’t be fooled into thinking you are saving money.
Unless you cross something more expensive off your shopping list each time you use a coupon for an item that you would not otherwise have purchased, you could be coming out behind.
Warning: Be especially wary of coupons that feature the word “free” in large typeface, such as “Buy two, get one FREE.” Consumer-products companies have discovered that shoppers tend to significantly overestimate how attractive a deal is when they see the word “free,” a fact confirmed by MIT researchers in a study published in Marketing Science.
The study found that consumers are far more likely to accept the offer of a free candy than the offer of a candy at a price so low — one cent — that it is essentially free.
The authors of the study also noted that Internet retailer Amazon.com had come to the same conclusion about the powerful effect of the word “free.
” When Amazon.com tested free shipping, orders increased dramatically, but when it reduced the cost of shipping to a negligible amount (the equivalent of 10 cents), orders hardly picked up at all.
Coupons can persuade us to eat unhealthy foods. Among the most common coupon categories are prepackaged sugary or salty snacks, cookie dough and soda.
These “junk food” coupons encourage shoppers to mistake irresponsible behavior, such as purchasing and consuming junk food, for responsible behavior — saving money with coupons.
This psychological trap undercuts some shoppers’ ability to skip the supermarket snack and soda aisles and can foster poor eating habits and weight gain.
Besides, junk food coupons are not really money savers at all. As the term implies, junk food is food that we don’t really need, so any money spent on junk food always is money poorly spent.
If a 25-cents-off coupon convinces us to buy a $1 bottle of soda, we haven’t saved 25 cents — we’ve misspent 75 cents. And because junk food makes us less healthy when consumed regularly, it could increase our long-term health-care bills as well.
We tend to fritter away any money that we save with coupons. Shoppers often reward themselves for their coupon-clipping frugality by allowing themselves to splurge on a luxury item or two.
These splurges sometimes are greater than the amount that was saved in the first place, an observation confirmed by a 2008 working paper by Harvard Business School researchers.
The authors of that paper found that shoppers at an online grocery Web site who redeemed a $10-off coupon spent an average of $1.59 more than shoppers who didn’t use a coupon. The financial reward for using a coupon is a lower bill, not an extra purchase.
Some people see coupon clipping as a substitute for a job. Jobs are hard to find these days, and some frustrated job hunters are turning to coupon clipping as a productive way to use time previously spent in the workplace.
This thinking received a boost from a well-publicized 2010 Wall Street Journal article that concluded that couponers earn the equivalent of $86.40 per hour, tax-free, for their efforts.
Unfortunately, coupon clipping is not a reasonable substitute for a job. While a few minutes per week flipping through the Sunday circulars or visiting coupon Web sites in search of savings on items that you would have purchased anyway can indeed yield solid financial returns, the per-hour earning rate from coupon clipping declines dramatically the more time that is devoted to it.
Those who are unemployed would be better served spending their time obtaining new job skills or searching for a new job, as frustrating as that can be.
Bottom Line/Personal interviewed Farnoosh Torabi, a financial journalist who has been an anchor for CBS MoneyWatch segments, a reporter for Money magazine and a contributor to Wall Street Confidential video podcasts. Based in Brooklyn, New York, she is author of Psych Yourself Rich (FT Press). http://www.Farnoosh.tv
October 22nd, 2011 at 3:04 am
Hafa adai
Looks like someone was right. The fighter jets are here.
=================================
Marine Fighter Training Underway at Andersen AFB
Written by News Release
Friday, 21 October 2011 14:14
Guam News – Guam News
ANDERSEN AIR FORCE BASE, Guam – Marine Aviation Logistics Squadron 12, Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 115 and Strike Fighter Squadron 94 arrived here to conduct training Oct. 6
The twenty Marine F/A-18s are ensuring combat readiness by logging 200 flight hours, 120 sorties and vital air-to-air and air-to-ground training for the 400 Marines participating in the training.
While here on Guam, the Marines have also supported the local community with a bus stop painting and a 5K run to raise awareness about the Ko’ko bird during their three week stay. Andersen Airmen are providing help with maintenance workspaces, aircraft hangar space and a foreign object free runway making this joint training visit a successful one.
======================
I hope we don’t see aliens
Lupi
October 22nd, 2011 at 3:11 am
The US will begin to shift its attention to Asia because China has shown its willingness to take on allies of the US boldly. Look for a major US build up in Asia at its allies request. They too fear China’s saber rattling.
October 22nd, 2011 at 3:29 am
We are in 1890:
William Kemmler, of Buffalo, New Ok, took a chopper to his woman, Tillie Ziegler, during a quarrel. He was the state’s first convicted murderer to receive the death penalty of electrocution.
Indeed, his defense was financed by the Westinghouse(Aternating Current) Electricity Company, which dreads the effect on sales should official executions prove their cheap power to be dangerous. Messrs Westinghouse need have no fears. The “scientific execution was disastrously inefficient.
Kemmler was strapped into a solid wooden chair, and terminals were fastened to his limbs and head. Then a switch was thrown, and for 17 seconds, a massive shock of 1,300 volts pulsed through his body, which leaped, eyes popping in anguish, against the bonds.
When the current was turned off, horrified doctors saw his chest expand, and breathing resume.
After a panicky conference, another shock lasting 70 seconds was applied, which ended the unfortunate man’s life. The poor wretch had been cooked by the current!
Few people believe this incompetent torture will be used again. An efficient hangman using a calculated drop can end life instantly and painlessly. The electrician fries his victim with successive agonizing jolts and not always successfully.
October 22nd, 2011 at 3:30 am
Michelle, I couldn’t even pull the blog up to read it. What is happening?
October 22nd, 2011 at 3:54 am
Hafa adai:
It is crazy how our leaders in government look the other way when corporations pollute our ocean waters and poison our beaches.
_________________________________________
Guam EPA Weekly Beach Report: 24 Advisories, 1 Closed
Last Updated on Saturday, 22 October 2011 12:52
Written by News Release
Saturday, 22 October 2011 12:07
Guam News – Guam News
Guam – The Guam EPA has placed advisories on 24 beaches and West Haganta Bay Beach remains closed, as it has been for years.
The Recreational Waters Pollution Report is compiled by Guam EPA’s Environmental Monitoring and Analytical Services Division which has performed this service every week since 1974.
The Environmental Monitoring and Analytical Services Division takes water samples of 42 recreational beaches every Thursday [ *Adjustments are made during official holidays] and analyzes the samples for concentrations of the enterococcus bacteria indicator. Advisories are based on an instantaneous standard of not greater than 104 enterococci/100 ml and a geometric mean standard of not greater than 35 enterococci/100 ml.
BEACH ADVISORIES: 24
The results of samples taken by the Guam Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, October 20, identified that the following recreational waters were polluted above the accepted bacteriological standards:
TAMUNING
Gognga Beach, East Hagåtña Bay – Alupang Towers Beach, East Hagåtña Bay – Trinchera Beach
HAGATNA
Padre Palomo Park Beach
ASAN
Adelup Beach Park, Adelup Point Beach (West), Asan Bay Beach
PITI
Piti Bay, Santos Memorial Park, United Seamen’s Service
AGAT
Togcha Beach – near Namo River, Togcha Beach – Agat Park Beach, Togcha Beach – near Southern Christian Academy, Bangi Beach, Nimitz Beach
UMATAC
Umatac Bay, Toguan Bay
MERIZO
Merizo Pier at Mamaon Channel
INARAJAN
Inarajan Pool, Inarajan Bay
TALOFOFO
Talofofo Bay, First Beach, Togcha Bay
CHALAN PAGO-ORDOT
Pago Bay
(Place names as spelled in United States Geological Survey [USGS] maps.)
No harvesting or consumption of seaweed, fish or marine organisms is allowed at Tanguisson Beach.
Swimming, fishing or playing in unsafe waters may result in minor illnesses such as sore throats or diarrhea. It might also result in more serious illnesses such as meningitis, encephalitis, or severe gastroenteritis. Children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems have a greater chance of getting sick when they come in contact with contaminated water.
CLOSED 1:
Testing is NOT performed weekly at West Hagåtña Bay, but it remains closed because because GWA has on 5 occasions since 2009 has used the old, fractured, outfall pipe to dispose of sewage and will continue to use the pipe for sewage disposal when over flow situations due to heavy rainfall exist. The area closed includes Hagåtña Boat Basin & Channel and the West Hagåtña Beach Park.
Questions about the Recreational Waters Pollution Report should be directed to the Guam EPA Monitoring Section at 475-1656/8.
For more information, please also visit http://www.guamepa.net, http://www.epa.gov/ostwater/beaches/local/sum2.html
Page 1 Guam Environmental Protection AgencyP.O. Box 22439 GMF, GU 96921
October 21, 2011 PLEASE RELEASE WITHIN 24 HOURS Contact: Environmental
Monitoring and Analytical Services Divisionat 475-1656 OR 475-1658/9 KILL DATE OF THIS PSA IS ONE WEEK AFTER RELEASE RECREATIONAL BEACH ADVISORY REPORTNumber of beach closures:
1 ATTENTION: West Hagåtña Bay is currently closed due to the intended or continued use of the oldfractured outfall at the Hagåtña Sewage Treatment Plant as emergency and/or bypass overflow.
The area closed includes Hagåtña Boat Basin & Channel and the West Hagåtña Beach Park.Number of beach advisories: 24The results of samples taken by the Guam Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday, October 20,2011, identified that the following recreational waters were polluted above the accepted bacteriologicalstandards:
TAMUNING
Gognga Beach, East Hagåtña Bay – Alupang Towers Beach, East Hagåtña Bay – Trinchera Beach
HAGATNA
Padre Palomo Park Beach
ASANA
delup Beach Park, Adelup Point Beach (West), Asan Bay Beach
PITI
Piti Bay, Santos Memorial Park, United Seamen’s Service
AGAT
Togcha Beach – near Namo River, Togcha Beach – Agat Park Beach, Togcha Beach – nearSouthern Christian Academy, Bangi Beach, Nimitz Beach
UMATAC
Umatac Bay, Toguan Bay
MERIZO
Merizo Pier at Mamaon Channel
INARAJAN
Inarajan Pool, Inarajan Bay
TALOFOFO
Talofofo Bay, First Beach, Togcha Bay
CHALAN PAGO-ORDOT
Pago Bay
(Place names as spelled in United States Geological Survey [USGS] maps.)
No harvesting or consumption of seaweed, fish or marine organisms is allowed at Tanguisson Beach.
Swimming, fishing or playing in unsafe waters may result in minor illnesses such as sore throats or diarrhea. It might also result in more serious illnesses such as meningitis, encephalitis, or severegastroenteritis.
Children, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems have a greater chanceof getting sick when they come in contact with contaminated water.
The Recreational Waters Pollution Report is compiled by Guam EPA’s Environmental Monitoring andAnalytical Services Division. Since 1974, Guam EPA has performed this community service weekly.
The Environmental Monitoring and Analytical Services Division takes water samples of 42 recreationalbeaches every Thursday* and analyzes the samples for concentrations of the enterococcus bacteria indicator.
Advisories are based on an instantaneous standard of not greater than 104 enterococci/100 mland a geometric mean standard of not greater than 35 enterococci/100 ml. *Adjustments are made during official holidays.
Questions about the Recreational Waters Pollution Report should be directed to the Guam EPAMonitoring Section at 475-1656/8 .For more information, please also visit http://www.guamepa.net, http://www.epa.gov/ostwater/beaches/local/sum2.html
___________________________________________
Every year, it gets worse. What needs to happen to alert our leaders that Guam and its waters are being destroyed by corporations with their greedy interests at heart.
Peter
October 22nd, 2011 at 6:02 am
Lucy, Michelle, what’s worse than not being able to get in is when you ARE in and reading the blog and you are suddenly bumped off! I, too, was unable to get back in until this morning!
October 22nd, 2011 at 7:34 am
I think it was safari, I got in, then off, then ‘server not available, then in…I think it’s more safari’s fault than anything Mischa was/is doing. – ZL
October 22nd, 2011 at 8:03 am
No, Zen Lill that was not the work of Safari or any other browser. That was the work of an expert. Some country was behind it.
Michelle you have pissed off some powerful people. They are jamming your blog big time. I guess they don’t like what is being said here. Considering all the dictators that have been toppled since you got this world wide web blog thing tell all going who knows who the shadow is?
Miram
October 22nd, 2011 at 8:20 am
I agree with you Miram. I was reading the blog and I have an IBM and It went dead in mid sentence and I was told that no such site existed on several other attempts.
This is meant to discourage readership and to prevent Michelle from obtaining advertising should she want to in the future. The aim is to make her blog irrelevant.
This was well thought out. Either the republicans or some government sponsored entity is involved. That would be my educated guess.
John
October 22nd, 2011 at 8:51 am
Lucy, Zen Lill, Miriam and John:
Is it not obvious that neither Safari nor any other Browser had anything to do with MM blog being blocked? It is being blocked by one of many countries who do not like freedom of speech or the spread of ideas about change and freedom.
Miriam, you get the kewpie doll. This could even be our own government — whomever it was, they were professionals.
HOWIE
November 17th, 2011 at 4:06 am
visit the website!…
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November 18th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
game news…
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November 28th, 2011 at 1:52 am
Recipes…
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