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Good Morning!
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Drop in any time of day or night to say hello. |
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The Road Not Taken
Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. |
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News
Lots of Inconvenient Truths -- Chemical Illness Epidemic in the Wake of the BP Blowout
Recently Kenneth Feinberg, the lawyer overseeing the $20 billion Gulf Coast Claims Facility to "make it right" for people harmed by the British Petroleum oil blowout disaster, told a Louisiana House and Senate committee that he had not seen any claims, or any scientific evidence, linking BP's oil and dispersant release to chemical illnesses. Feinberg also stated that chemical illnesses take years to show up -- conveniently well after his tenure with the compensation fund.
Instead of tossing the media a juicy bone, Feinberg tossed a red herring. He is wrong at worst, or intentionally misleading at best, on all points.
In Iraq, military still seen as dysfunctional
KHOR AZ-ZUBAIR, Iraq — Eight years after the United States disbanded the Iraqi army and set out to build a new one, uniformed Iraqi soldiers seem ubiquitous and increasingly professional.
But Iraqi politicians and military officers say the country’s armed forces remain dysfunctional, with power dangerously decentralized and wielded by regional fiefdoms controlled by Iraq’s top politician.
Local commanders have a direct line to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, circumventing heads of the military. The armed forces remain focused almost entirely on internal security; no one knows how the Iraqi military would come together to fight a foreign enemy, or even who would be in charge.
3 big lenders undercut foreclosure-prevention effort, Obama team says
WASHINGTON - The Obama administration is blaming the three largest US mortgage lenders for the failures of its foreclosure-prevention program.
Wells Fargo & Co., Bank of America, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. have failed to help enough people permanently lower their mortgage payments so they can stay in their homes, the Treasury Department said yesterday.
Based on those lenders' lackluster performance, the government is withholding financial incentives of up to $1,000 per permanent loan modification. Treasury said the three lenders incorrectly determined that many people were ineligible for the program.
China launches economic projects in North Korea
Reporting from Beijing— In the aftermath of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's visit last month, Chinese companies in recent days have held a series of low-key groundbreaking ceremonies across the border for projects designed to jump-start the moribund North Korean economy.
The North Korean regime, largely out of desperation, has leased parcels of its territory to the Chinese. The parcels include grassy islands in the Yalu River, near the crossing made famous in 1950 when China intervened in its communist neighbor's behalf in the Korean War; and ports at the northern tip of the country that will give China access to the Sea of Japan through North Korea for the first time in 150 years.
Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan and Jang Song Taek, Kim's brother-in-law, attended a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday for an industrial park on Hwanggumpyong, an island on the Yalu River, that is supposed to take advantage of Chinese capital and cheap North Korean labor.
Better healthcare, marriage equality, and now this...
Canada Unemployment: Jobless Rate Drops To 7.4% On 22,000 New Positions
THE CANADIAN PRESS -- OTTAWA - Canada's unemployment rate has fallen to the lowest level in more than two years as a combination more jobs and fewer people actively seeking work in May pushed the rate to 7.4 per cent.
Statistics Canada said 22,300 new jobs were created last month, slightly above consensus following the previous month's strong 58,000 gain.
The last time Canada's employment rate was as low as 7.4 per cent was in January 2009, a few months after the economy had been plunged into the deep global recession.
Iraq will ask US troops to stay post-2011, says Panetta
Outgoing CIA director Leon Panetta said he had "every confidence that a request like that will be forthcoming".
Mr Panetta was speaking at a US Senate committee considering his nomination.
The US currently has about 47,000 troops in Iraq, none in a combat role. Under a 2008 deal, they are expected to leave by 31 December 2011.
(h/t cosmic debris)