Author: Ezra Grant

I'm just tired of the lies and nonsense coming from the GOP, so this is my little contribution to combat the nonsense!

Categories
dead Politics

Former NYC Mayor Ed Koch Dead At 88

NEW YORK (AP) — Ed Koch’s favorite moment as mayor of New York City, fittingly, involved yelling.

Suddenly inspired to do something brash about the rare transit strike that crippled the city in 1980, he strode down to the Brooklyn Bridge to encourage commuters who were forced to walk to work instead of jumping aboard subway trains and buses.

“I began to yell, ‘Walk over the bridge! Walk over the bridge! We’re not going to let these bastards bring us to our knees!’ And people began to applaud,” the famously combative, acid-tongued politician recalled at a 2012 forum.

His success in rallying New Yorkers in the face of the strike was, he said, his biggest personal achievement as mayor. And it was a display that was quintessentially Koch, who rescued the city from near-financial ruin during a three-term City Hall run in which he embodied New York chutzpah for the rest of the world.

Koch died at 2 a.m. Friday at the age of 88 from congestive heart failure, spokesman George Arzt said. The funeral will be Monday at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.

Koch was admitted to NewYork-Presbyterian/Columbia hospital on Monday with shortness of breath, and was moved to intensive care on Thursday for closer monitoring of the fluid in his lungs and legs. He had been released two days earlier after being treated for water in his lungs and legs. He had initially been admitted on Jan. 1

h/t USA Today

Categories
Osama bin Laden teaching Tid Bits

Osama bin Laden Applies For Teaching Job in India

On his registration form for one of the new teaching positions in India, the candidate who called himself Osama Bin Laden said his father’s name was Bill Clinton.

He was one of hundreds of bizarre false names given by chancers apparently hoping to secure jobs in schools in Uttar Pradesh, in northern India.

Perhaps the so-called ‘Abcdefgh’ thought he would stand a better chance of teaching children English when he told India’s Ministry of Education that his father’s name was Xyz. Or maybe bow-wielding Hindu deity Jai Sri Ram thought he needed a break from heavenly duties to help boost the state’s religious education results.

There was even one aspirant who gave his name as Farji, which translates as ‘fake’. His father’s name was given as Farji Singh. And unsurprisingly, all these applicants had spotless academic records to boot, with 100 per cent marks in all exams.

When dead terrorist ‘Osama bin Laden’ applied for a teaching post at an Indian primary school last year, citing Bill Clinton as his father, it did not take long for teachers to unravel his masquerade.

But rather than dismiss the applications out of hand, the state’s basic education department allotted them all registration numbers and and even issued letters for counselling on their ‘fake’ addresses.

Such aspirants, shortlisted in the first list of candidates for the primary teachers’ job, have made the state’s basic education department’s recruitment drive a laughing stock.

Categories
Music

Beyonce Admits She Lip Synced At Obama’s Inauguration – Video

Her reason?

“Due to the weather, due to the delay, due to no proper sound check, I did not feel comfortable taking a risk. It was about the president and the inauguration. I wanted to make him and my country proud,” she said. “I decided to sing along to my pre-recorded track, which is very common in the music industry.”

Beyonce started her Superbowl news conference with the singing of the National Anthem. At the end of her singing, she asked “any question?”

The first question was about her performance at the inauguration, and whether or not she lip synced. She answered, “I am a perfectionist and one thing about me, I practice until my feet bleed and I did not have time to rehearse with the orchestra,” she said, explaining her decision to go with lip synching. “I am very proud of my performance.”

Video.

Categories
Tid Bits

Pastor’s “No Tip” Note Gets Applebees Worker Fired

Another person goes to a restaurant, got served, and decides to leave a note instead of a tip. We recently told you about a guy leaving a note blaming president Obama for there being no tip for his waiter. Now, a pastor is doing the same thing. The only difference is the pastor apparently thinks the waitress should not get 18%, because he gives only 10% to God.

That’s what his note said.

The waitress posted the note on Reddit with the title “My mistake sir, I’m sure Jesus will pay for my rent and groceries.” She said the post was done to show the humor of the whole situation, but users of the site began deciphering the Pastor’s signature until his identity was known.

The pastor contacted Applebees and demanded that the waitress and managers on duty at the time he was served be fired. Chelsea (the waitress) claimed she was then terminated.

“When I posted this, I didn’t represent Applebee’s in a bad light,” she said. “In fact, I didn’t represent them at all. I did my best to protect the identity of all parties involved. I didn’t break any specific guidelines in the company handbook — I checked.”

“But because this person got embarrassed that their selfishness was made public, Applebee’s has made it clear that they would rather lose a dedicated employee than lose an angry customer. That’s a policy I can’t understand.”

Categories
Tid Bits

Machine Gives Men The Feeling Of Real Labor Pains – Video

Labor pains – once, only something women had to deal with since the beginning of time. Something they wished they could share with their male partner… for whatever reason.

Well wish no more ladies! There is a new machine that gives the love your life the very same labor pains you get when you’re pregnant.

Why would you even want to subject him to this pain? I don’t know. But then again, he did have something to do with why you suffer yours.

Enjoy!

Categories
children sandy hook elementary school superbowl Tid Bits

Sandy Hook Children To Perform With Jennifer Hudson At Super Bowl

The New York Times is reporting that twenty-six children from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., will join Jennifer Hudson to sing at the Super Bowl to honor the 26 children and school staffers killed in a shooting massacre last month.

The children will be shown live singing “America the Beautiful” with Hudson before Alicia Keys performs the national anthem. USA Today reported that the N.F.L. confirmed the performance.

The Super Bowl is more than a game; it’s a national event. But is there a touch of exploitation in the move? Maybe even a hint of political commentary? Some readers at ProFootballTalk.com seemed to think so, although they may change their minds if they watch the children sing.

In the YouTube video below, Ingrid Michaelson led a children’s choir from Newtown in a rendition of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.”

Categories
bill o reilly Immigration Politics

Colin Powell To Bill O’Reilly – “Why Are You Only Seeing Me As An African American?”

Retired General and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, went on the Fox News Network on Tuesday and was interviewed by Bill O’ Reilly. Powell, and outspoken Republican who voted for President Obama in 2008 and 2012, was asked by the host to defend his voting record for the Democratic president.

“What is it that you object to mostly, that caused you to vote for President Obama twice,” Reilly asked, to which Powell answered that the economic policies offered by the Republican candidates in 2008 and 2012, would not have fixed the economy. But that answer was not enough for Reilly and he ventured into trying to paint Colin’s votes for Obama, as based on race.

After pointing out that African-Americans are still suffering under President Obama, Reilly questioned Powell’s previous answer that the economy made him vote for President Obama. Powell seemed irritated by Reilly’s insertion of race into the conversation. “Why are you only seeing me as an African-American Bill?” Powell asked. “I’m an American.”

He then goes on to explain that although the economy is not where it needs to be, it is better now than it was before Obama took office. Powell also pointed out that when the general economy improves, as it’s doing now, then the economic outlook for other minority groups will improve as well.

The conversation progressed to immigration and voting, with Powell correctly stating that Republicans in the last election tried to “disenfranchise” minority by requiring voter ids and limiting voting days. “I want to see a Republican party that rather than try and make it more difficult to vote and restricting the days and hours you can vote,” Powell said, “a Republican party that says we want everybody to vote and we want you to vote for us.”

Powell and O’Reilly also spoke about Sarah Palin and other Republicans who turned him off during the previous campaigns.

Categories
Politics

President Obama’s Ratings Goes Way Up After Election

President Obama is riding a wave of personal popularity into his second term, with his highest favorability ratings since his first year in office, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Fully 60 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of Obama in the new poll, up slightly from October but a clear shift in opinion from an election year in which his ratings hovered in the mid-to-low 50s. And by 39 percent to 26 percent, the president now has more “strongly” positive ratings than strongly negative reviews, breaking a two-year stretch in which intense opposition was on par with (or higher than) intense support.

h/t WashingtonPost

Categories
Chicago News

She Performed At President Obama’s Inauguration And Was Shot In Chicago

Thanks to@TonyLBlackwell for this.

She performed in a marching band for President Obama’s second inaugural, but the mean streets of Chicago ended up taking the life of 15 year old Hadiya Pendleton.

A 15-year-old girl who performed at President Obama’s inauguration last week was shot dead Tuesday while hanging out with friends in bullet-scarred Chicago.

Hadiya Pendleton was standing under a canopy in Vivian Gordon Harsh Park when a gunman ran down an alley, opened fire at the group and fled in a white car, police said.

Pendleton was shot in the back but managed to run about a block before she collapsed, officer Laura Kubiak said. She died at the hospital.

A 16-year-old boy was wounded in the 2:20 p.m. incident. Police said Pendleton, who had no criminal record, was probably not the intended target.

Categories
Technology

Video And Pics Of The New iPhone Killer From BlackBerry

Word on the street is that this new iPhone killer from Black Berry will be released early February 2013. The Blackberry z10, packed with features never before seen on any previous Blackberry device, will feature a 4.2-inch display with a resolution of 1280 x 768, 16GB of memory and according to the cases we saw at CES and its FCC filing, a microSD card slot for expanded storage space, two cameras, NFC support, Bluetooth and access to 4G. It’ll also have an 1,800 mAh battery to keep it powered.

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Video:

Categories
Politics taxes

Taxes Raised On The Rich, The Dow Goes Up. GOP Wrong Again

Wow. The Dow is approaching 14000 for the first time since 2007. This, in spite of the fact that taxes on the top 1% went up for the first time in over a decade.

Seems Republicans were wrong on this too.

Last week the broad Standard & Poor’s 500 index closed above 1,500 for the first time in five years. This week the Dow Jones industrial average has been flirting with 14,000, a level it hasn’t seen since October 2007.

In early trading Tuesday, the Dow added 22 points, or 0.2%, to 13,905.

Stocks are a bit pricey relative to their earnings, but are nowhere near the overheated levels they’ve seen before, said Robert Shiller, a famed Yale University economist who identified the stock market and housing bubbles of the last decade.

Shiller, who may be best known for a widely reported index tracking U.S. house prices bearing his name, also created an index to track whether stocks were cheap or overpriced.

His CAPE index — which stands for cyclically adjusted price-to-earnings ratio — factors in 10 years’ worth of earnings. He has collected data stretching back to 1871.

Categories
Politics Texas

Even Texas Republicans Want Rick Perry Out

A new PPP Poll found that Texas voters- even Republicans- have had enough of Rick Perry.

PPP’s newest poll finds that only 31% of voters think Perry should seek reelection next year, compared to 62% who think it’s time for him to step aside. He’s among the most unpopular Governors in the country, with only 41% of voters approving of him to 54% who disapprove.

Perry could face great peril in a primary challenge next year. Only 41% of GOP primary voters want him to be their candidate again, compared to 47% who think it’s time for someone else. And in a head to head match up with Attorney General Greg Abbott, Perry leads by only a 41/38 margin. What makes those numbers particularly worrisome for Perry is that Abbott only has 59% name recognition at this point with primary voters. Among voters who are familiar with Abbott- whether they like him or not- he leads Perry 55/33. That suggests the potential for things to get worse for Perry if Abbott does indeed go forward with a bid.

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