fayfreethinkers.com

Super Tuber is a great snack that uses one of my favorite vegetables: The Idaho Potato. Of course, I suppose any type of potato could be used, but I cannot guarantee that a Super Tuber made with anything but a true Idaho potato would taste as good. Sincerely, Larry E. Craig, United States Senator

Ingredients
1 hot dog, cook's choice
1 Idaho baking potato, 7 to 10 ounces
Mustard for dipping, any style
Other condiments as desired such as cheese sauce, sour cream, chili, chives, bacon pieces or black olives.

Wash and dry potato. Rub with shortening or butter. With an apple corer or small knife, core out the potato center (end to end). Push hot dog through the center. Bake until potato is cooked through.
http://www.virtualcities.com/ons/id/gov/idgvlc10.htm

Pictures are always great for additional understanding:



then shove it on in

Note the thoughtful use of oil so as not to be too rough on the old potato.

"A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows Hillary leading Obama 53-20%.
A new Quinnipiac Univ. poll of NY RVs shows HRC leading Obama 47-15%.
In a general matchup, HRC leads Giuliani 52-41%."
LINK

The New York Times | The American Dream in Reverse

The editors of The New York Times write, "For the first time since the
Carter administration, homeownership in the United States is set to
decline over a president's tenure."

Link


Iraqis Say Basra Quieter After British Troop Pullout

Aref Mohammed reports for Reuters UK, "Residents of Iraq's southern
city of Basra have begun strolling riverfront streets again after four
years of fear, their city much quieter since British troops withdrew from
the grand Saddam Hussein-era Basra Palace."

Link

Five Myths About Sick Old Europe

LINK

Steven Hill reports for The Washington Post on the myths being
proffered abut "Old Europe."

1. The sclerotic European economy is incapable of leading the world.

2. Nobody wants to invest in European companies and economies because lack of competitiveness makes them a poor bet.

3. Europe is the land of double-digit unemployment.

4. The European "welfare state" hamstrings businesses and hurts the economy.

5. Europe is likely to be held hostage to its dependence on Russia and the Middle East for most of its energy needs.

Paul Krugman | Same Old Party

LINK

Paul Krugman, writing for The New York Times, says: "I don't know what
true conservatism is, but while doing research for my forthcoming book
I spent a lot of time studying the history of the American political
movement that calls itself conservatism - and Mr. Bush hasn't strayed
from the path at all. On the contrary, he's the very model of a modern
movement conservative."

Republicans Pretend Bush Doesn't Exist
The Los Angeles Times notes that the transcript of Tuesday's Republican presidential debate "does, indeed, make it official: The men vying to keep the White House in GOP hands appear loath to utter the current occupant's name."

"The panel of questioners made direct mention of President Bush (or the "Bush administration") seven times... Yet in their responses, Bush's name did not escape the lips of any of the candidates with even a ghost of a chance of capturing the Republican nomination. And this omission occurred over two hours -- longer than the usual 90-minute face-offs."

http://www.politicalwire.com/

Al Gore's resumé as of this morning:

Son of a great senator.

Harvard graduate, with honors.

Vietnam veteran.

Award-winning investigative journalist.

Congressman.

Senator.

Vice President.

Winner of the popular vote for President of the United States.

Best-selling author.

Environmental activist.

Academy Award winner.

And, now, Nobel Peace Prize winner - a prize he shares with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - for "their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about manmade climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change."

Not too shabby.

Darrel wrote:Al Gore's resumé as of this morning: [snip]

And he's detested and reviled by the right. Funny that, yes?

"The richest one percent of Americans earned a postwar record of 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, up from 19 percent a year earlier, reflecting a widening income disparity among different classes in the nation, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing new Internal Revenue Service data.

The data showed that the fortunes of the bottom 50 percent of Americans are worsening, with that group earning 12.8 percent of all income in 2005, down from 13.4 percent the year before."

LINK

Latest Krugman article

Gore Derangement Syndrome

Link

Excerpt:

"The worst thing about Gore, from the conservative point of view, is that he keeps being right.
In 1992, George Herbert Herbert Bush mocked him as the “ozone man,” but three years later
the scientists who discovered the threat to the ozone layer won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
In 2002 he warned that if we invaded Iraq, “the resulting chaos could easily pose a far greater
danger to the United States than we presently face from Saddam.” And so it has proved.

But Gore hatred is more than personal. When National Review decided to name its anti-environmental
blog Planet Gore, it was trying to discredit the message as well as the messenger. For the truth Gore has
been telling about how human activities are changing the climate isn’t just inconvenient.
For conservatives, it’s deeply threatening."

Maternal Mortality Shames Superpower US

LINK

Haider Rizvi, Inter Press Service, reports: "Despite its enormous
wealth and highly advanced technology, the United States lags far behind
other industrialized countries - and even some developing ones - in
providing adequate health care to women during pregnancy and childbirth."

REPUBLICAN RETIREMENT WATCH IN CONGRESS GROWS DRASTIC

"Virginia wingnut Bob Goodlatte has one of the hardest jobs in Congress. He's head of the Republican incumbent retention program. Hapless NRCC Chair Tom Cole has charged him with keeping Republican members, already sick of minority status (and the relative difficulty collecting regular bribes), from resigning. Last year the NRCC enlisted Bush to pressure Planet Denny Hastert into not resigning. Hastert gave Bush another term. He isn't expected to do it again and, in all likelihood, a carpenter and Iraq vet, whose parents were missionaries, will be the next congressman from IL-14.

And Hastert is hardly the only problem facing Goodlatte in Illinois. Longtime Hastert ally, Ray LaHood, already served notice on the GOP last week that he's had it. And Don Manzullo (IL-16, Rockford and the extreme NW of the state) is likely to bail too. And Illinois is just part of the dire situation for the Republicans, who are unlikely to feel comforted by Rove's good cheer last week that if they can just not get caught stealing or having sex with children, they can probably weather the little Iraq kerfuffle and get re-elected."

More

From C & L

"Less than a week ago, the World Health Organization released one of the most comprehensive studies to date on reproductive health. Its conclusions were not surprising — the only effective way to reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions is to make contraception widely available.

Five days later, the White House has responded to this reality by naming an opponent of birth control to head the federal government’s family planning office.

The Department of Health and Human Services appointed Susan Orr — who has spoken out against contraception — to a post responsible for U.S. contraception programs.

Orr, who will be acting deputy assistant secretary for population affairs, has been directing child welfare programs in another branch of HHS. Prior to joining the Bush administration, Orr was senior director for marriage and family at the Family Research Council, a conservative group that favors abstinence-only education and opposes federal money for contraception.

Orr will replace Eric Keroack, a doctor who believes the distribution of contraceptives is “demeaning to women,” and who had a history of saying truly nutty things, such as the belief that condoms “offer virtually no protection” against herpes or HPV.

It’s as if the Bush administration is trying to find the most offensive choices possible for public-health posts."

Code Pink protestor Desiree Farooz confronts Condoleeza Rice with “blood-stained” hands,
calling the Secretary of State a “war criminal” who should be tried at the Hague.

LINK

"In the months before the March 2003 Iraq invasion, the Bush White House estimated Bush's quagmire would cost no more than $50 billion."

"CBO officials were asked this afternoon whether the $2.4 trillion figure represents
their 'worst-case' scenario. No, they said: It represents only the worst of two
different scenarios the CBO priced out. The real costs could actually be higher."
-- Tim Grieve LINK

"Today no other country on earth is arguably more dangerous than Pakistan. It has everything Osama bin Laden could ask for: political instability, a trusted network of radical Islamists, an abundance of angry young anti-Western recruits, secluded training areas, access to state-of-the-art electronic technology, regular air service to the West and security services that don’t always do what they’re supposed to do. (Unlike in Iraq or Afghanistan, there also aren’t thousands of American troops hunting down would-be terrorists.) Then there’s the country’s large and growing nuclear program. “If you were to look around the world for where Al Qaeda is going to find its bomb, it’s right in their backyard,” says Bruce Riedel, the former senior director for South Asia on the National Security Council. …"
--Newsweek cover story The Most Dangerous Country in the World

I Should Pay More Tax, Says US Billionaire Warren Buffett
By Andrew Clark
The Guardian UK

Wednesday 31 October 2007

The United States' second-richest man has delivered a blunt message to the Bush administration: he wants to pay more tax.

Warren Buffett, the famous investor known as the "Sage of Omaha", has complained that he pays a lower rate of tax than any of his staff - including his receptionist. Mr Buffett, who is worth an estimated $52bn (£25bn), said: "The taxation system has tilted towards the rich and away from the middle class in the last 10 years. It's dramatic; I don't think it's appreciated and I think it should be addressed."

During an interview with NBC television, Mr Buffett brandished an informal survey of 15 of his 18 office staff at his Berkshire Hathaway empire. The billionaire said he was paying 17.7% payroll and income tax, compared with an average in the office of 32.9%.

"There wasn't anyone in the office, from the receptionist up, who paid as low a tax rate and I have no tax planning; I don't have an accountant or use tax shelters. I just follow what the US Congress tells me to do," he said.

Mr Buffett also took a pot shot at hedge fund managers. He said: "Hedge fund operators have spent a record amount lobbying in the last few months - they give money to the political campaigns. Who represents the cleaning lady?"

His intervention comes amid an increasingly rancorous debate on Capitol Hill about tax. Shortly after taking office, President Bush pushed through $2 trillion in temporary tax cuts, including sharp reductions for high-earners. These expire at the end of 2010 and the White House wants to renew them.

A leading Democrat, the Harlem congressman Charlie Rangel, published alternative plans this week that would impose a 4% surcharge on people earning more than $200,000 a year, while delivering tax relief to 90 million working families.

Republicans say the net effect would be a $2 trillion tax increase that would hurt small businesses and farmers. Meanwhile, Mr Buffett's remarks drew a robust response from the US Chamber of Commerce, which said the top 1% of US earners accounted for 39% of tax revenue - and the highest earning 25% of the population delivered 86% of the tax-take.

The chamber's chief economist, Martin Regalia, said: "Mr Buffett has made an awful lot of money and if he wants to pay more taxes, I think that's fine. But I think he should get his facts straight."

He added: "There's no question in my mind: if you were to impose [the Democrats'] tax increases, you would see the US go into a recession."
***

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/103107M.shtml

Darrel wrote:The chamber's chief economist, Martin Regalia, said: "Mr Buffett has made an awful lot of money and if he wants to pay more taxes, I think that's fine. But I think he should get his facts straight."

He added: "There's no question in my mind: if you were to impose [the Democrats'] tax increases, you would see the US go into a recession."

DOUG
Right. Unlike the recession caused by huge tax CUTS imposed by Bush for his rich cronies.

We saw what a failure Bill Clinton's tax approach was: a balanced budget and a huge surplus. We sure want to avoid that, don't we?

Uneasy U.S. diplomats yesterday challenged senior State Department officials in unusually blunt terms over a decision to order some of them to serve at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad or risk losing their jobs.

At a town hall meeting in the department’s main auditorium attended by hundreds of Foreign Service officers, some of them criticized fundamental aspects of State’s personnel policies in Iraq...

Service in Iraq is “a potential death sentence,” said one man who identified himself as a 46-year Foreign Service veteran. “Any other embassy in the world would be closed by now,” he said to sustained applause.

LINK

Abstinence Education Not Curbing Teen Sex

LINK

The Associated Press reports that "Programs that focus exclusively on
abstinence have not been shown to affect teenager sexual behavior,
although they are eligible for tens of millions of dollars in federal
grants, according to a study released by a nonpartisan group that seeks to
reduce teen pregnancies."