More news from the Irrational Rifle Association...

Gun manufacturer Ruger is a month away from completing its Million Gun Challenge to donate a dollar to the NRA for every firearm they sell. Business is booming and it looks like they'll exceed a million sales!

US forced to import bullets from Israel as troops use 250,000 for every rebel killed

By Andrew Buncombe

US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan - an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed - that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.

Read more: http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/us-forced-to-import-bullets-from-israel-as-troops-use-250000-for-every-rebel-killed-15050027.html#ixzz1mBvUNLQ

NRA's LaPierre: "This Is The Most Dangerous Election Of Our Lifetimes"

http://mediamatters.org/blog/201202100014

February 10, 2012 4:05 pm ET by Matt Gertz

You Auto Know Better

U.S. loses $1.3 billion in exiting Chrysler

By Annalyn Censky July 21, 2011: 5:41 PM ET

http://money.cnn.com/2011/07/21/autos/chrysler_government_exit/index.htm

I was listening to Stephanie Miller this morning and heard a right-wing caller criticize the Clint Eastwood ad as a waste of tax payer dollars, since GM and Chrysler owe the government over a billion dollars. Stephanie and the others on air laughed at the caller, imitated his southern accent and claimed the auto industry paid back everything it owes. Unfortunately, the caller was correct that the bailout was over $1 billion in the negative. Where conservatives are wrong-in my opinion- is that the bailout was a waste of money.

If Chrysler and GM had not been rescued, the economic dominoes crashing Detroit and affecting all the employees and businesses connected to them would have been far more costly than a billion dollars. It's similar logic to that of rescuing Wall Street. The real question is what to do to make sure that no bank or car company is too big to fail in the future.

Religion tackles Football

From "The Super Bowl as Religious Festival" by Joseph L. Price

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1375

The specifically American character of the mythology has to do with the violent nature of the game. Not only does it dramatize the myth of creation, it also plays out the myth of American origins with its violent invasion of regions and their settlement. To a certain extent, football is a contemporary enactment of the American frontier spirit.

From "The Superbowl Culture of Male Violence" by Eugene C. Bianchi

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1578

...this great national sport, which claims the devotion of a significant percentage of our population, mirrors in a ritual way some of the worst characteristics of our culture. ... it interlinks four qualities that drive the American violence machine: physical brutality, profit-maximizing commercialism, an authoritarian-military mentality and sexism.

... I have come to the conclusion that the fundamental evil from which the others flow is sexism. The basic way by which the male in our culture establishes his sexual identity is a prime source of exaggerated aggression in the interpersonal, economic and political realms. The problem can be put thus: How are males in our society conditioned to value themselves as persons? What are the criteria of self-worth and social acceptance among American men?

Your History for Yesterday

Corporations are people with Robots

Headline and lede from Fox Business website:

US HUD's Donovan: 'Very Close' To Robo-Signing Settlement

U.S. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan said Wednesday that a pending settlement of an investigation into banks' foreclosure-processing problems would benefit about 1 million families with cuts in the amount they owe on their home loans.

Headline and lead from Daily Kos:

Obama to Grant Banks Robosigning Immunity in Showdown With Breakaway AGs

byAmeriGus

Without considering the guilt or innocence of the five major banks involved, the Obama Administration is poised to let Wall Street off the hook for foreclosures where as many as one million borrowers were "harmed" by robo-signing practices.

Hot Air

I saw kids lining up in the cold for half a block at 7:30 in the morning to get into Foot Locker. I asked another middle aged gawker what inspired the line, and he told me with some disgust that the kids were foolishly wasting money on the new retro Jordans. I shared his sentiment, then remembered that I was wearing shoes that had inserts that cost me $400 (even with BCBS).

Who Do You Trust?

In October the American Spectator asked: Who do you believe: "professional doomsayers" Meredith Whitney and Nouriel Roubini or the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Citigroup, and JP Morgan -- Lloyd Blankfein, Brian Moynihan, Vikram Pandit, and Jamie Dimon.

First is Lloyd Blankfein, who testified before Congress in April 2010 at a hearing of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations that Goldman Sachs had "no moral or legal obligation" to inform its clients it was betting against the products which they were buying from Goldman Sachs.

Senator Carl Levin told the veteran banker that he "wouldn't trust" Goldman as he repeatedly asked whether the bank would disclose its position "when they're buying something you solicit them to buy, and then you're taking a position against them?"

"I don't believe there is any obligation" to tell investors, Mr Blankfein responded. "I don't think we'd have to tell them, I don't think we'd even know ourselves."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/7642325/Goldman-boss-Lloyd-Blankfein-denies-moral-obligation-towards-clients.html

Next is Brian Moynihan, whose Bank of America was caught in the robo-signing scandal and now wants to charge $5 a month debit card fee. Moynihan is helping inspire Americans to leave BofA and open accounts in credit unions.

Then there is Vikram Pandit, who recently said the sentiments of Occupy Wall Street are "completely understandable and that the "economic recovery is not what we all want it to be, there are a number of people in our country who cant achieve what they are capable of achieving and that's not a good place to be."

http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2011/10/12/n_vikram_pandit_protesters.fortune/

And finally, there is Jamie Dimon, who has been called "Obama's favorite banker" and served as Chairman of the Board of the New York Fed. Matt Taibbi writes:

...in 2008, in that moonlighting capacity, he helped orchestrate a deal in which the Fed provided $29 billion in assistance to help his own bank, Chase, buy up the teetering investment firm Bear Stearns. You read that right: Jamie Dimon helped give himself a bailout. Who needs to worry about good government, when you are the government?

Dimon, incidentally, is another one of those bankers who’s complaining now about the unfair criticism. “Acting like everyone who’s been successful is bad and because you’re rich you’re bad, I don’t understand it,” he recently said, at an investor’s conference.

Hmm. Is Dimon right? Do people hate him just because he’s rich and successful? That really would be unfair. Maybe we should ask the people of Jefferson County, Alabama, what they think.

That particular locality is now in bankruptcy proceedings primarily because Dimon’s bank, Chase, used middlemen to bribe local officials – literally bribe, with cash and watches and new suits – to sign on to a series of onerous interest-rate swap deals that vastly expanded the county’s debt burden.

Essentially, Jamie Dimon handed Birmingham, Alabama a Chase credit card and then bribed its local officials to run up a gigantic balance, leaving future residents and those residents’ children with the bill. As a result, the citizens of Jefferson County will now be making payments to Chase until the end of time.

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/a-christmas-message-from-americas-rich-20111222#ixzz1oRvO6cP7

More from Sanity Claus: No! No! No!

Michele Bachmann to Santa: All I want for Christmas is to win in Iowa

There Ain't No Such Thing as Sanity Clause

I was talking with a Jehovah's Witness about Santa Claus when he was making his round in my neighborhood. He remembered being disappointed and confused when he found out that there was no Santa Claus. I remember being skeptical 51 weeks of the year, but suspending disbelief every December. There was no sudden crisis of faith or outrage at being deceived. I now enjoy the rituals of Christmas and view Santa as the embodiment of the holiday season. When one rambunctious older brother told his mother during a visit to see Santa that I was "F-A-K-E" I told him that there are different ways of being real. Things like truth and justice might not literally exist in the real world, but they're still important ideas, just like Santa. The kid shrugged off my explanation, and his siblings didn't seem to notice his skepticism or my defense of the metaphorical existance of Santa.

The latest from the War on Christmas:

Eng, 58, was in the middle of a lesson about the North Pole Tuesday when one of her students pointed out that that was where Santa Claus lives.

The educator snapped that not only was there no Santa, but their parents are the ones who leave presents under the tree.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/no_santa_clod_so_sorry_FIZdIOcadOdhwf1n7UIxEL#ixzz1fyvOK750