TV News LIES

Pretty much Standard Operating Procedure these days:  When bad things happen, have your legal and PR staff closely question and challenge the Point of View of accusers, while working every Catch-22 connection and boondoggle in stock, trusting complaints will crash in on themselves from sheer confusion, crosswinds, and weight.

Once the status quo has been maintained and Situation Normal (All Fouled Up) has been re-instituted, one can then declare victory and divvy out promotions and bonuses, taking a year off with full pay and benefits.

The billionaires who pass out the right-wing Kool-Aid are desperately trying to push the fantasy that they are going to act out Ayn Rand's novel, and leave us all to starve if we allow that Kenyan Socialist to raise their taxes by a couple of points. That's not what it's about of course.

These people will still have more money than they could ever burn if they tried. They're really afraid that the middle class will realize they've been screwed and start wanting their country back.

Sometimes we make it a lot harder on ourselves than we have to.  This is where the acronym KISS comes in handy -- Keep It Sane and Simple.

There are other variations on that acronymic theme, of course.  Many of them even contain no rough language whatever, surprisingly, when referring to our stalwart national stewards, aka members of Congress.

The point, although it seems especially prone to idly wandering away today, is easy enough to re-grasp:  Sometimes the answers for our most difficult challenges and problems are right in front of us, jumping up and down, waving like mad, trying to be seen and heard.

Access to family planning is an essential human right that unlocks unprecedented rewards for economic development, says new UNFPA report.

Making voluntary family planning available to everyone in developing countries would reduce costs for maternal and newborn health care by $11.3 billion annually, according to The State of World Population 2012, published today by UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund.

This exploratory study was designed to assess air quality in a rural western Colorado area where residences and gas wells co-exist. Sampling was conducted before, during, and after drilling and hydraulic fracturing of a new natural gas well pad.

Weekly air sampling for 1 year revealed that the number of non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHCs) and their concentrations were highest during the initial drilling phase and did not increase during hydraulic fracturing in this closed-loop system.

A different way of calculating America's poor by taking into account medical costs and work-related expenses finds a higher total than the government's official count.

This measure is aimed at providing a fuller picture of poverty. It found there are 49.7 million poor people in the country - or 16.1 percent of the population. That compares with the 46.2 million, or 15 percent, as reported in September in the Census Bureau's official count.

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The loose chatter of Romneysiacs is idling upward, as the gabblers feel their Wheaties, and are feeling especially well-armed with a bad case of Sore Loseritis, made worse by the brain-disengaging disease, Secessionist Fevers, aka Separation Anxieties.

In a word, give or take some Romney-voting states, the Old South wants O-U-T.

My first impulse is to be just as reckless in return, suggesting that all ten states, and all 100,000 petitioners in this idiot cause, be given a small, hyphenated phrase in blunt reply.  (No, I was not thinking of a biological impossibility, but that would be a most excellent guess.)  I was in fact thinking of this one:  Buh-bye.

The US accounted for the most requests, as it has consistently since the report was launched. US authorities asked for private details of Google users on 7,969 occasions, up from 6,321 in the last reporting period. The number is more than a third of the 20,938 requests for users' details worldwide. Google fully or partially complied with 90% of those requests.

Over the six months, Google was asked to remove seven YouTube videos that criticised local and state agencies, police and other public officials. It did not comply with these requests.