Colin Bruce Milne/cbmilne33

alexholzbach:

In the last two weeks, Mitt Romney has remained steady at the top in the polls in New Hampshire and Huntsman has remained steady in the low teens. Newt Gingrich has slipped from second to third, losing nearly a full one-third of his support. On the flip side, Ron Paul has nearly tripled his support in the last two weeks.

December 13th:

1. Mitt Romney - 38%
2. Newt Gingrich - 20%
3. Jon Huntsman - 13%
4. Ron Paul - 8%

December 28th:

1. Mitt Romney - 36% (-2%)
2. Ron Paul - 21% (+13%)
3. Newt Gingrich - 13% (-7%)
4. Jon Huntsman - 12% (-1%)

1. Obviously, the absence of a must-see mass-market movie. When moviegoers hear about “Avatar” or “The Dark Knight,” they blast off from home base and land in a theater seat as quickly as they can.

2. Ticket prices are too high. People have always made that complaint, but historically the movies have been cheap compared to concerts, major league sports and restaurants. Not so much any longer. No matter what your opinion is about 3D, the charm of paying a hefty surcharge has worn off for the hypothetical family of four.

3. The theater experience. Moviegoers above 30 are weary of noisy fanboys and girls. The annoyance of talkers has been joined by the plague of cell-phone users, whose bright screens are a distraction. Worse, some texting addicts get mad when told they can’t use their cell phones. A theater is reportedly opening which will allow and even bless cell phone usage, although that may be an apocryphal story.

4. Refreshment prices. It’s an open secret that the actual cost of soft drinks and popcorn is very low. To justify their inflated prices, theaters serve portions that are grotesquely oversized, and no longer offer what used to be a “small popcorn.” Today’s bucket of popcorn would feed a thoroughbred.

5. Competition from other forms of delivery. Movies streaming over the internet are no longer a sci-fi fantasy. TV screens are growing larger and cheaper. Consumers are finding devices that easily play internet movies through TV sets. Netflix alone accounts for 30% of all internet traffic in the evening. That represents millions of moviegoers. They’re simply not in a theater. This could be seen as an argument about why newspapers and their readers need movie critics more than ever; the number of choices can be baffling.

6. Lack of choice. Box-office tracking shows that the bright spot in 2011 was the performance of indie, foreign or documentary films. On many weekends, one or more of those titles captures first-place in per-screen average receipts. Yet most moviegoers outside large urban centers can’t find those titles in their local gigantiplex. Instead, all the shopping center compounds seem to be showing the same few overhyped disappointments. Those films open with big ad campaigns, play a couple of weeks, and disappear.

All Republicans running for president say they want to cut federal spending.

But a study the libertarian Cato Institute conducted by analyzing the candidates’ websites showed that most of them are light on details about specific cuts they would insist on as president.

The study’s author, Tad DeHaven, wrote in his “Guide to the Presidential Candidates’ Proposals to Cut Spending” that Texas Rep. Ron Paul stands out the most.

“When it comes to proposing specific spending cuts and identifying the dollars amounts, Paul’s website is unrivaled,” DeHaven explained.

“He is the only candidate to put together an actual budget proposal,” he said. “Paul’s spending proposals would amount to the largest reduction in the size and scope of the federal government of any candidate.”

Paul calls for getting rid of the Commerce, Education, Energy, Housing and Urban Development and Interior departments, while also making major cuts to the military. He also believes younger American citizens should be permitted to opt-out of Medicare and Social Security.

cwnl:

idontlikeronpaul:

http://newsone.com/nation/casey-gane-mccalla/why-ron-pauls-racist-newsletters-matter/

Ron Paul is back in the hunt for the Presidency. Many see him as an appealing candidate, one who opposes the wars, wants drugs legalized and supports fiscal responsibility. What they don’t know, is his long history of racism and connection to white supremacists. He has dodged questions on his connections to white supremacists and the newsletters, full of abhorrent racism that he put out in his name and he made millions from, spreading racism.

There has been controversy over Ron Paul’s ties to racism for some time now. Many people have pointed to Ron Paul’s Newsletters as proof of his racism. Paul has previously admitted to writing the newsletters and defended the statements in 1996, then blamed them on an unnamed ghostwriter in 2001 and then denied any knowledge of them in 2008. He has given no explanation, for how the racism entered his newsletter and has dodged questions about them without casting blame on anyone. If we are to take Paul at his word, he is guilty of at least promoting racism on a large scale. Paul earned almost a million dollars a year from the racist, conspiracy theorist newsletters. Here are some excerpts that I’ve found.

In this story Ron Paul writes about “needlin” and blames packs of young black girls for spreading AIDS to white women. I could find no evidence of this “epidemic” and the article seems to have no point other than to make white people scared of Black people.

In this piece he criticizes Martin Luther King as a pro-communist philanderer and says the MLK holiday is “Hate Whitey Day.” This is in great contrast to 2008 when he told Wolf Blitzer that Martin Luther King was one of his heroes. When activists suggested naming a city after Martin Luther King Paul suggested other names such as “Welfaria,” “Zooville,” “Rapetown,” “Dirtburg,” and “Lazyopolis” He would continue:

In another piece he blamed Black people for the riots that happened in Chicago in 1992 after the Bulls won the NBA Championship

Paul here is using false information to attack African Americans. The Washington Post reported that 1000 people were arrested but did not indicate their race. The riot, like most sports riots was multi-racial, including Blacks, white and Latinos, yet Paul used the incident to demonize African Americans. The Washington Post also reported that two officers suffered minor gunshot wounds and that 95 were injured in total, but the way Paul phrased it, it would seem most of the 95 officers injured were shot.

In this article Paul uses the “carjacking” epidemic to put fear into white people. He advises them to carry guns and shoot “carjackers” illegally and then dispose of their weapons. He also refers Black people as “animals” and directly refers to his home town of Lake Jackson, Texas.

The newsletters also contained the quotes:

opinion polls consistently show only about 5% of blacks have sensible political opinions

if you have ever been robbed by a black teen-aged male, you know how unbelievably fleet-footed they can be,

This is only the first skirmish in the race war of the 1990s

Here are some of the newsletters I could find. They also contain a good deal of homophobic and Black Helicopter, New World Order conspiracy theories and warnings of upcoming in “race wars.”

BUT BUT BUT HE’S AGAINST THE DRUG WAR U GUISE! DONTCHA WANT WEED? FORGET HIS ACTUAL IDEALS N STUFF!

occupyonline:

About 1.8 million Americans will face a cutoff in unemployment benefits in January if Congress doesn’t extend emergency federal unemployment insurance (UI) before returning home for the holidays, according to estimates from the National Employment Law Project (NELP). The NELP report (which includes state-specific estimates) says that the 1.8 million workers affected in January include:

• Over 430,000 workers who became unemployed within the last six months and are receiving benefits through their state’s regular UI system, but whose benefits will expire in January, leaving them without access to any federalbenefits.  (Several hundred thousand unemployed workers exhaust their regular benefits each month — a trend that will continue over the coming year.)

• Almost 650,000 workers who have been unemployed for over six months and have been receiving benefits through the temporary Emergency Unemployment Compensation (EUC) program, which will expire in January.  EUC provides benefits in “tiers” of weeks; people receiving EUC when the program expires at the beginning of the year will be allowed to complete their current tier but not move on to the next tier.  NELP estimates that almost 650,000 workers will reach the end of their current tier and thus receive no further federal benefits in January.  Many more will lose EUC benefits prematurely in the months to follow.

• Over 700,000 workers who have been unemployed for over six months (most for over a year) and who are receiving benefits through the permanent Extended Benefits (EB) program.  Without congressional action, this program will not be available in any state after the first week of January, and all EB recipients will be cut off.

Camping in parks will become a necessity.

amandapalmer:

i thought i’d write you a little essay on the most important thing i learned this year.
(more photos of recent melbourne goings-on under the essay.)
i was thinking of putting up a end-of-the-year best-of list of things i’ve seen and read. and maybe i will….after new years. i always think i’m…

jayherself:

• Got sweet marks at Uni
• Met Adam McLean!
• Lost Adam McLean to China!
• Bought a bunch of cameras
• Bought my first ever gaming console (hasn’t even arrived yet)
• Made a rad friend and tattooist in Joshua Rhat Klor Solomon
• Discovered the wonders of “smart” phones by drunkenly messaging and…

mohandasgandhi:

kohenari:

This article provides a brief look at a fascinating bit of World War II history about which I’d previously heard nothing: Irish who deserted their own neutral army to fight against the Germans and Japanese, and who were then blacklisted when they returned to Ireland after the war.

They were formally dismissed from the Irish army, stripped of all pay and pension rights, and prevented from finding work by being banned for seven years from any employment paid for by state or government funds.

A special “list” was drawn up containing their names and addresses, and circulated to every government department, town hall and railway station - anywhere the men might look for a job.

It was referred to in the Irish parliament - the Dail - at the time as a “starvation order”, and for many of their families the phrase became painfully close to the truth.

The BBC will air a documentary — “Face the Facts: Deserters Deserted” — on Radio 4 next Wednesday and then make it available through the BBC iPlayer.

Robert Farley makes the case that desertion, even in this case, isn’t heroic … before concluding that an amnesty for these deserters is long overdue.

To my mind, the decision to fight alongside the British against the Axis powers rather than remaining neutral is a heroic one. These Irish soldiers, who recognized that the Germans posed a far greater threat to the world than the British posed to the Irish alone, both endangered themselves in the fighting and faced serious consequences for their decision. When they might have remained neutral, avoiding both the danger of war and the scorn of their countrymen, they seem to have felt — rightly, we probably all conclude from this historical remove — that the fight against fascism was worth the costs.

I don’t agree with the use of violence in the vast majority of circumstances and while WWII provides, perhaps, a partial exception, I don’t find it be inappropriate to call these individuals heroes. To sacrifice so much for others and to do it with little regard for oneself is heroism at its most basic definition. It’s a shame we would even think to sanction such individuals.

What a fascinating piece of history.

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