President Barack Obama heads to New York City Monday afternoon, for three days of meetings at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA).
But with his re-election 14 months away, the president will fit in some politics. According to the White House schedule, Obama will headline a Democratic National Committee event at a private residence in New York City Monday evening.
A source with knowledge of the gathering says approximately 60 people will attend the fundraiser, with tickets for the event listed at $35,800 per person, the maximum amount an individual can contribute to a campaign and a party committee per year.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Obama Hitting $35K-per-Head Fundraiser After Assailing the Rich
Wendy's Reinvents the Hamburger, But It's Still Square
NEW YORK – When Wendy's decided to remake its 42-year-old hamburger, the chain agonized over every detail. A pickle chemist was consulted. Customers were quizzed on their lettuce knowledge. And executives went on a cross-country burger-eating tour.
The result? Dave's Hot 'N Juicy, named after late Wendy's founder Dave Thomas. The burger — with extra cheese, a thicker beef patty, a buttered bun, and hold the mustard, among other changes — will be served in restaurants starting Monday.
Deciding whether to switch from white onions on its burgers to red (they did), to change the fat/lean ratio of the meat (they didn't), or to go with plain or crinkled pickles (they picked crinkled.)
Many suggestions sounded good but didn't ring true with tasters. They tried green-leaf lettuce, but people preferred to keep iceberg for its crunchiness. They thought about making the tomato slices thicker but decided they didn't want to ask franchisees to buy new slicing equipment. They even tested a round burger, a trial that was practically anathema to a company that's made its name on square burgers. (Wendy's ultimately did not go with the round shape, but changed the patty to a "natural square," with wavy edges, because tasters said the straight edges looked processed.)
Withholding evidence in a murder investigation?
Secret recordings raise new questions in ATF 'Gunwalker' operation
(Credit: CBS/AP)
WASHINGTON - CBS News has obtained secretly recorded conversations that raise questions as to whether some evidence is being withheld in the murder of a Border Patrol agent.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31727_162-20108240-10391695.html
DC Area
Manure Spill Over Mile Long Closes Md. Road
Traffic jams stink. Especially when they are caused by manure.
Howard County highway crews had to hold their breath while they hustled to clean up a manure spill that stretched 1.5 miles on Sunday. The spill stretched from Main Street in Ellicot City to Frederick Road in Baltimore County.
We work for them…
State workers are in a class by themselves
CT:
…the state's aggregate public sector employee compensation grew a robust 54 percent from 2000 to 2007, and another 13 percent from 2007 to 2010. For the decade from 2000 to 2010, it grew from $10.5 billion to $18.2 billion, or a whopping 73 percent.
Average compensation per worker reflects this dramatic dichotomy. In 2000, a private sector worker earned about $3,600, or 8 percent, more than a public sector employee. By 2009, the relationship had reversed: the average public sector employee out-earned his private sector counterpart by almost $9,000 or 15 percent.
The stumper of a question is what can be done to resuscitate a private sector stooping ever lower with this ever-weightier monkey on its back.
Well, we might start by segregating the "Class Apart" from the citizenry. Government employees and citizens are certainly not "in this together."
Totally in the tank
‘First Jewish President’: New York Mag Calls Obama ‘as Pro-Israel’ as the Prime Minister
Rep. Peter King: Americans support hearings on Muslim radicals
63 percent of Americans support the King hearings and believe 'they need to continue'
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/#ixzz1YQfzYjjg
Story is by a Dem (Had a friend in this weekend from East Coast. He was amazed at what he saw in Dallas.)
The Texas Story Is Real
Texas Governor Rick Perry entered the Republican presidential nomination race bragging about the job creation record of Texas during his term as his primary pitch to a nation starved for jobs. This triggered a flurry of debate on whether or not Texas is really all Perry claims for it. But while there is certainly nuance in numbers, and Texas doesn't win on every single measure, on the whole it seems indisputable that Texas did very, very well during the 2000s.
This may or may not be the doing of Perry. Nor are the national struggles clearly the fault of Obama. The man at the top always reaps the credit for the blame for what happens on his watch, but the realities of the modern economy are quite complex and there's only so much influence a governor or president has – and that usually comes with a lag. Nevertheless, the Texas story can't simply be discounted.
Let's take a look at the top level data. While reviewing, keep in mind that the data for the US as a whole actually includes Texas. If you stripped the Texas data out of the US total, the comparisons would generally get even better for the Lone Star State.
http://www.newgeography.com/content/002448-the-texas-story-is-real
Ok, they have beer too…
Oktoberfest 2011: the world's biggest beer festival opens in Munich, Germany
Stability control is obviously an important job requirement given the wastage.
Queues began forming early for the opening day, despite the price of 9.20 euros (£8.00) per litre and complaints that up to a quarter of it is spilled on its way from the barrel to the table.
Visitors pose with mugs in a beer tent
Women 'flown in from UK for Berlusconi sex parties'
Topless model Carolina Marconi allegedly went to Italian PM's parties.
Church members tackle gunman who killed wife and shot two pastors in prayer service shooting spree
After the shootings, Jeremiah Fogle, 57, pictured, was tackled by members of the church in Lakeland, Florida, who took his .32-calibre revolver and held him down, police said. Pastor William Boss was shot in the head as he prayed. Associate pastor Carl Stewart was shot in the shoulder, head and back, authorities said. Fogle and his wife Theresa Brown Fogle, 56, married in 2002 and once attended Greater Faith Christian Center Church as members - but they had not been for several years.
Riddle of the empty cockpit
Reno plane crash investigators say elderly pilot could have been out cold as shocking new video emerges
Investigators revealed the age and medical history of 74-year-old pilot Jimmy Leeward may prove relevant to their investigation. The news came as it was revealed the aircraft had undergone substantial changes since it was first built in the 1940s, which were done to improve the planes speed and not its safety.
Navy’s Newest Ship Is Pickup Truck of the Sea
There’s not much inside the Navy’s newest ship, and that’s exactly how they like it.
338 feet long, 93 feet wide, low and blocky, USNS Spearhead is basically a thin aluminum shell wrapped around four diesel engines, rudimentary control facilities for its 40 crew plus 312 airline-style passenger seats. The rest of the $250-million, twin-hull catamaran vessel, christened this weekend, is empty space … with an expansive flight deck on top.
“The vessel is in essence a large and fast maritime ‘truck,’” Eric Wertheim, author of the definitive Combat Fleets of the World, tells Danger Room. What she carries, and where, is left to the imagination of the Pentagon’s regional commanders. “Flexibility may the best attribute of this ship,” says Capt. Douglas D. Casavant Jr., Spearhead’s first skipper.
Why do they always hate the Irish?
World's Biggest Sperm Bank Turning Away Redheads
Yes that is her real color
Redheads are being turned away from the largest sperm bank in the world—because not enough people want children with red hair.
Ouch!
Former Hillary strategist: Obama plan is awesome — if he wants to lose the election
“The thicket of class warfare.”
Democratic strategist and former Hillary Clinton adviser Mark Penn at Huffington Post
A graph to make you happy – Short Answer is the West.
From The Economist (via AoSHQ and Dr. Mark J. Perry), a population-weighted history of the past two millennia:
Measured in years lived, the present century, which is only ten years old, is already “longer” than the whole of the 17th century. This century has made an even bigger contribution to economic history. Over 23% of all the goods and services made since 1AD were produced from 2001 to 2010 ***.
For century after century, the human race remained mired in poverty. Life was nasty, brutish and short. Then an incredible explosion of prosperity. How did it happen?
In Civilization: The West and the Rest, Niall Ferguson argues that, beginning around 1500, the West came to dominate the rest of the world because it adopted a system including competition, science, property rights, medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic. Yet the explosion comes centuries later. In Bourgeois Dignity, Deirdre N. McCloskey argues the explosion was ignited by a new attitude toward wealth and its creation — one that respected innovation and entrepreneurial drive.
The Left stays classy
Speaker at Progressive Rally Suggests Urinating on Republicans as an Alternative to Pouring Beer on Them
CNN Host Criticizes Own Network for ‘Ganging Up’ on Perry During GOP Debate
"many of Wolf Blitzer's questions, they singled out the Texas governor"
CNN host Howard Kurtz spent air time on Sunday to criticize his own network and fellow host Wolf Blitzer over last week’s GOP presidential debate. According to Kurtz, CNN and Blitzer spent too much time singling out Rick Perry. The way he put it: it was “obvious” that the other candidates “had some company” when it came to “ganging up” on Perry.
“Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney, and the others were ganging up on Rick Perry,” Kurtz said. “But there’s no question they had some company. If you look at many of Wolf Blitzer’s questions, they singled out the Texas governor even when the moderator was addressing Perry’s Republican rivals.”
Top 1% Pay 38% of Taxes, Top 50% pay 97%, 49% of U.S. Households Pay No Tax
Top earners are the target for new tax increases, but the U.S. tax system is already highly progressive. The top 1 percent of income earners paid 38 percent of all federal income taxes in 2008, while the bottom 50 percent paid only 3 percent. Forty-nine percent of U.S. households paid no federal income tax at all.
Read more: http://www.heritage.org/budgetchartbook/top10-percent-income-earners#ixzz1YQ351c4x
For some race trumps all
CBC’s Cleaver: We would be ‘marching on the White House’ if Obama weren’t president
What’s different about Obama?
Kim Kardashian Sports Princess Leia Bikini
Looking tanned and toned, Kim appeared very comfortable in the famous costume as she filmed parts of the ten minute clip alongside the rapper and several muppets.
The clip was set to be part of a pilot for Kanye's muppet comedy show, Alligator Boots, which he made in collaboration with hip hop star Rhymefest.
In Kim's brief appearance, she is serenaded by a very crude talking muppet while Kanye watches stunned.
We now have heard from more eyewitness about his early background than we have ever heard from those that knew Obama.
Perry Colleagues Remember Solid Pilot and Airman
When Rick Perry joined the 772nd Tactical Airlift Squadron in 1974, his fellow Air Force pilots could sense the poised, self-assured second lieutenant was headed for a successful career. But many never imagined his future lay in politics, or that he would one day become the leading candidate for the Republican nomination for president.
"I knew he would be really good at whatever he decided to do," said Bobby Forman, who attended Texas A&M University with Perry and later served with him at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene. "I had no inkling or even concept of Rick going into politics. It never crossed my mind."
It's a refrain repeated by several airmen who served with Perry in the 772nd, where Perry was by at least one account the most popular person in the unit.
"I think we were all surprised," said Dale Scoggins, who served with Perry as an aircraft commander. "We weren't talking politics a lot back then. The topic of the era wasn't deep philosophical questions."
In interviews with half a dozen men who served with Perry 35 years ago, a picture emerges of Perry as a good pilot, a competent and safety-conscious airman and a magnetic personality who often invited his comrades on hunting trips near his hometown of Paint Creek in West Texas and who could be the life of the party on the unit's many overseas deployments.
WH May Face Criminal Charges Over Solyndra
The Solyndra debacle is not just Obama-style crony socialism as usual. It is a criminal fraud. That is the theory that would be guiding any competent prosecutor’s office in the investigation of a scheme that cost victims — in this case, American taxpayers — a fortune.
Fraud against the United States is one of the most serious felony offenses in the federal penal law. It is even more serious than another apparent Solyndra violation that has captured congressional attention: the Obama administration’s flouting of a statute designed to protect taxpayers.
Read more: http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/277512/solyndra-fraud-andrew-c-mccarthy#ixzz1YPjducD3
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
