Glenn Beck Claims Japan Earthquake is a Sign From God

God hates Japan? Glenn Beck, Tea Party activist and Fox News commentator, has said that the 8.9 earthquake in Japan that has killed many and destroyed the lives of even more is a sign from God. Here's the audio commentary:



That was said on Monday during a radio show. Oh Glenn Beck, how eloquent a speaker.

Adrian Peterson NFL Slavery Comment Removed From Yahoo Post

Minnesota Vikings Running Back Adrian Peterson has become a Twitter Trend, and is getting slammed in the process for comments he supposedly made on Yahoo!'s Shutdown Corner blog column. While blogs like The Huffington Post claim that Peterson said "It's modern-day slavery, you know? People kind of laugh at that.."

But where that appears in the actual Yahoo! blog post is not there. Instead, it reads:

The owners are making so much money off of us to begin with. I don't know that I want to quote myself on that…
SC: It's nothing that I haven't heard from other players, believe me.
AP: People kind of laugh at that, but there are people working at regular jobs who get treated the same way, too. With all the money … the owners are trying to get a different percentage, and bring in more money. I understand that; these are business-minded people. Of course this is what they are going to want to do. I understand that; it's how they got to where they are now. But as players, we have to stand our ground and say, 'Hey — without us, there's no football.'

The "modern-day slavery" comment is just not there anymore. In a search through the blog post, it only appears in the comments issued by readers below the blog post. Thus, while Adrian Peterson allegedly made that comment, it's clear he didn't mean for it to remain online. Instead he says "I don't know that I want to quote myself on that…"

Still, the damage was done. Comedian Chris Rock sent out the most retweeted Twitter Tweet, which popped up on Google Trends as a "top update" and which reads:

@NotChrisRock Chris Rock
Adrian Peterson said the NFL is like modern-day slavery? Slaves got hit with whips & locked in chains. He just buys whips & lots of chains
1 hour ago Favorite Retweet Reply

Twitter - 52 minutes ago

And NFL Running Back and Notre Dame star Ryan Grant weighed in with his disagreement, as have thousands of people on Twitter. (It's died down now; Adrian Peterson is not longer a Twitter Trend.)

But is Adrian correct? Well, I think it's an insult to the real slaves: college football players. The problem is the black college football player thinks that's the only road to financial success in the NFL. So they're willing to put up with being used at the college level, and the colleges are into helping them.

Once a player get to the NFL, the pay scale, endorsements, and guaranteed contracts take the "slavery" tag off the table. Just look at how former Oakland Raiders QB  Jamarcus Russell made out with $29 million in guaranteed money, and is now out of football. A draft bust.

But beyond that, it's clear the NFL has a problem which could be solved by a comprehensive employee ownership program.  In that concept, NFL Players would get to own a share of the NFL.  Now I'm not quoting anyone's idea; it's mine.  But it seems like something that should have been done a long time ago.

The Boxer's Poem

In my video talk with boxing legend Irish Pat Lawlor he got off a poem that's worth hearing. So here's the video:



Stay tuned.

Donald Trump Gets Roasted

Tonight on Comedy Central will be the roast of Donald Trump, previews show that Mike Sorrentino aka The Situation will probably be getting it worse than The Donald.

Watch it tonight at 10 pm after Tosh.O

posted from Bloggeroid

99ers Hungry & Homeless NOT an Emergency - But Japan Is?

I cannot understand how 99ers being hungry and homeless is not an emergency, but Japan Is?

I believe that anyone going hungry or homeless should be an emergency that must be tackled and resolved immediately by the powers that be - after all which is worse:

• Acute hunger and homelessness knowing that help is on the way?

or

• Prolonged hunger & homelessness knowing there is no help in sight?

The disaster and tragedy playing out in Japan is horrendous and every available resource must be used give aid and comfort to those effected. On the other hand, the USA who has yet to address the hunger and homelessness of millions of it’s own people must take care of the crisis on it’s own shores.

It makes me sick that our President, who has yet to utter the term “99ers” in public for more than 1 year now has mentioned Japan several times over the past week. Congress has focused it’s ‘post Japan disaster rhetoric’ on how “safe” nuclear power is in this country. The terms: Safe Nuclear Power or Clean Coal always strike me as intentional myths, like the term: Virgin Whore - exactly who are they trying to kid?

Fact is, the only thing these members of the US Congress or the current Administration care about is the campaign contributions the big power companies put into their pockets and NOT the Safety of the US population. They lie and twist the facts and claim they are doing the “will of the American people” when nothing could be farther from the truth. If Wisconsin showed us anything at all it is that the “Will of the People” is one thing the Republicans couldn’t care less about and neither does Obama. For all his campaign promises to “march on the side of the workers” the first time the opportunity presented itself during his presidency - Obama was a no show!

Anyone who believes that our government or the Japanese officials for that matter are giving us the straight scoop on the nuclear portion of the current disaster - is only fooling themselves. The thing is, if the governments were honest about what is really happening due to the failed reactor incidents in Japan - the stock markets would crumble.

So we can infer from this intentional omission of the real facts that the US and Japan care far less about protecting the masses of poor, now in the path of huge radiation exposure and the resulting health consequences and care far more about protecting the wealth of those heavily invested in the markets. In other words, “Business as Usual” for our greedy leaders.

Perhaps this will finally wake up the world about the consequences of continuing to serve the needs of the few and risk the well being of the masses. Germany seems to be getting the message.

On Saturday, March 12, at the protest in southwestern Germany, demonstrators formed a human chain between the Neckarwestheim nuclear plant and the city of Stuttgart, which are 28 miles (45 kilometers) apart. Some waved yellow flags with the slogan "Nuclear power — no thanks." Organizers put the number of protestors at over 60,000.

The demonstration was planned long before the post-earthquake blast at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, but the fears of possible disaster gave an added focus to opponents of the technology in Germany.

So why can’t the US seem to get the message? Most of the nuclear power plants in California are said to be able to withstand a potential quake of up to 7 on the Richter Scale. With approximately 20 quakes in the last decade over the threshold of 7 - the present state of safety of these structures is in extreme jeopardy. Now is NOT the time to cut funding or repeal regulations that could further imperil our populations near these sites and around the world. Something the Republican Congress needs to be reminded of daily.

Another thing the Congress needs to be reminded of on a daily basis is the continuing effects of the man made 99er disaster playing out in every state of the union, unabated and unresolved with nobody coming to the rescue.

Before anyone condemns me for criticizing the USA’s rapid aid response to Japan - DON’T - I believe that every bit of help is needed to assist the Japanese at this terrible time of vulnerability for their country.

I simply cannot fathom how the US Government and main stream media can continue to put the suffering of Millions of American 99ers - for more than a year now with no help in sight - on the back burner yet again in favor of the latest “crisis of the month” - Remember the BP oil spill nearly one year ago?

From 20 April through 15 July 2010 for hours on end the media constantly showed the gushing oil from the bottom of the gulf. Had they featured the suffering from one 99er family each hour in addition to that gushing broken oil well - we might have already by now resolved the 99er issue and I’d have nothing more to write about....a development I look forward to with immense, happy anticipation - however it isn’t bloody likely to occur anytime soon.

Oakland Ranked Choice Voting Complaints An Insult To Mayor Quan

There's still discussion over the new Oakland Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV) system, with the latest article suggesting that a number of voters didn't understand it. Well, that's wrong headed and an insult to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan that's starting to sound like that high-pitched whine journalists make over the sale of The Huffington Post to AOL. Look, the November election's over and Quan won.

Moreover, Jean Quan won because a healthy number of voters did understand RCV - enough to product an incredible outcome.

In our election recap, Oakland City Attorney John Russo actually explained how Quan could win over Don Perata, who scored about 35 percent of the first-choice votes, before she won, then said that the possibility of Quan getting three-quarters of the second-place and third-place votes was so remote, it wouldn't happen. See this video:



But guess what? It did happen. Russo actually called it. Moreover, it means, once again, that Quan and Oakland Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan's gamespersonship worked. That's right. They smartly gamed the RCV system in telling their supporters to vote for the other person's candidate. Nice work.

And before you get upset over my use of that term gamespersonship, which was deliberate, calm down and consider the reverse. Don Perata didn't play the game. He failed to use a campaign strategy of working a deal to make sure even his supporters knew who to pick for second and third choice. Think of what may have happened if none of his supporters picked Quan as their second choice?

Now you see the point.

Even if all voters understood RCV, it would not have translated into a different outcome. The playing field was open to anyone willing to apply a little game theory and marketing. That's what Quan and Kaplan did.

Now Quan's the Mayor of Oakland. Get over it, please. We have too many problems and still not enough jobs for Oakland residents. We need more than a new retail store; we need a manufacturing plant. Our focus should be on Oakland's economic development, and not on ranked choice voting.

The Fighter: Irish Pat Lawlor: Boxer On Beating Roberto Duran, Boxing Poem

Today, while with my friend Thomas Bonk at a bar called La Rocca's at Chestnut and Columbus in San Francisco's North Beach, and making the first videos of what will soon be the Thomas Bonk Show, I had the pleasure of meeting a boxing legend. The Fighter: Irish Pat Lawlor, a San Franciscan who fought, on-and-off, between 1987 and 2005, and in some of the most memorable matches in boxing history.

Irish Pat Lawlor's career was marked by three major victories over fighters Roberto Duran, Wilfredo Benitez and Rene Arredondo. But separate from the joy of winning and fighting 12 boxing champions, was the grind of being a career boxer. Someone who fought to make the rent.

But, even while posting what became a 23-16-1 (7 KOs) record, Lawlor's never-say-die attitude and winning personality carried him through. His determination allowed him to later (in my video) describe his win over the intimidating Roberto Duran as "easy." It also caused him, at one point, to run for San Francisco Mayor on what was described as an "arch-conservative, anti-gay platform."

But all of that, some 20 years ago, seems well in the past, and Lawlor's a far more willing to go-along to get-along today. The kind of guy who will buy the bar a round and engage in friendly banter, as he did today.

Of late, Lawlor's become known for "The Boxer's Poem," that he recited in the video without a break and for just over 3 minutes. It's a riveting poem Lawlor delivers in a riveting way, and starts like this:

Sometimes I think it's a lowdown shame
the way I try to hang in this rough, crazy game
My body is aching, my hands and feet are sore.
And I'm getting really tired of pulling myself up off the floor
It all started as a tribute to a friend ...

From my research my video is the first to have Lawlor actually speaking a poem only written about before.

The variation of the poem Lawlor tells today is different from the one recorded in text in 2001. It focuses more on the loss of a friend than the prostitute that the boxer sometimes is. This version, the 2011 version, is softer and more touching that before, but packing no less of a punch.

Irish Pat Lawlor's still got it, just in a different way.

Gilbert Gottfried Fired By Aflac For Tsunami Jokes On Twitter

Gilbert Gottfried, best known as the voice of the duck in the now-famous Aflac commercials, has ducked up. Aflac, the insurance company, wasn't too secure with his Twitter tweets about Japan and the Japanese in the wake of the worst natural disaster in that nation's history. So, Aflac fired Gottfried.

Apparently Mr. Gottfried knew he was wrong and wanted to maintain his job because he removed the offensive tweets. But that was too late, as they were picked up by a number of blogs, of note, The Huffington Post. Here are the Twitter tweets of concern:

I just split up with my girlfriend. But like the Japanese say, "They'll be another one floating by any minute now."

Japan is really advanced. They don't go to the beach. The beach comes to them.

One thing's for certain, Gottfried is out of a job. But this blogger has to question Aflac, because from reading his remaining Twitter tweets, it's OK to insult black men! Witness:

RealGilbert Gilbert Gottfried
@.@LisaLampanelli Black convicts are RMAO (ramming my ass off)!
11 Mar

RealGilbert Gilbert Gottfried
@.@LisaLampanelli Maybe no more black convicts for you, but I constantly visit Rikers Prison for a good ass fuck.
11 Mar

RealGilbert Gilbert Gottfried
.@LisaLampanelli You married a white cop! Does he mind you fucking black convicts?
11 Mar

RealGilbert Gilbert Gottfried
@Abner_Malitee What did he say this time?
10 Mar

RealGilbert Gilbert Gottfried
My doppelganger or my Sammy Petrillo, which ever you prefer. Marlee Matlin's interpreter, Jack Jason. #Roast http://twitgoo.com/20owp2
10 Mar

RealGilbert Gilbert Gottfried
Me backstage at the #DonaldTrump #Roast with a very large black gentleman. http://twitgoo.com/20obop
10 Mar

Good for Gilbert Gottfried getting fired, but couldn't Aflac have been more comprehensive in its reasons?