Tuesday Open Thread

Why did I sign up for this job again?

Last thread seems full.

Jay Carney hard at work finding that unicorn.

Open thread.

Forsaken in #Benghazi

When you accept a good man’s loyalty and service …

I can’t help wondering: did Ambassador Stevens die knowing he had been forsaken by his personal friend and boss whom he’d served loyally for four years? That he’d been given up to the enemy by the government he’d served all his life?

That they would lie about who killed him and why? That they would deny that they denied him any aid?

God rest your soul, Ambassador Stevens.

God have mercy on theirs.

… you owe him more than to be abandoned to this grisly death.

Politics over science: Selling Plan B to 15 year olds

Via yahoo

WASHINGTON (AP) — In a surprise twist to the decade-plus effort to ease access to morning-after pills, the government is lowering the age limit to 15 for one brand — Plan B One-Step — and will let it be sold over the counter.
Today, Plan B and its generic competition are sold behind pharmacy counters, and people must prove they’re 17 or older to buy the emergency contraception without a prescription. A federal judge had ordered an end to those sales restrictions by next Monday.
But Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration approved a different approach: Plan B could sit on drugstore shelves next to condoms, spermicides or other women’s health products — but to make the purchase, buyers must prove they’re 15 or older at the cash register.

But not next to Sudafed. Because people might buy Sudafed to commit drug crimes, but will never buy Plan B to cover up statutory rape or sexual abuse.
Also, “surprise twist”? FDA succumbs to intersection of current admin politics & Pharma lobby. Yeah, I’m so surprised.

The FDA said the Plan B One-Step will be packaged with a product code that prompts the cashier to verify a customer’s age. Anyone who can’t provide such proof as a driver’s license, birth certificate or passport wouldn’t be allowed to complete the purchase. In most states, driver’s licenses, the most common form of identification, are issued at age 16.

How long will that be implemented? I’m sure it will be seen as an undue burden on 15 year olds who can’t afford ID. And are only girls/women allowed to buy it? Of course not.

The FDA said Tuesday that Teva had provided data proving that girls as young as 15 could understand how Plan B works and use it properly, without the involvement of a health care provider. Teva plans to conduct a consumer-education program and indicated it is willing to audit whether stores are following the age requirement, the agency said.

Just laughing at that paragraph. So much comedy.

Bonus:
From the Manufacturer-supplied full product information:

Ectopic pregnancies account for approximately 2% of all reported pregnancies. Up to 10% of pregnancies reported in clinical studies of routine use of progestin- only contraceptives are ectopic. A history of ectopic pregnancy is not a contraindication to use of this emergency contraceptive method. Healthcare providers, however, should consider the possibility of an ectopic pregnancy in women who become pregnant or complain of lower abdominal pain after taking Plan B One-Step. A follow-up physical or pelvic examination is recommended if there is any doubt concerning the general health or pregnancy status of any woman after taking Plan B One-Step.

I wonder if that will be in Teva’s educational program.

I had a bunch of tweeted rants on this topic this morning, but lucky for y’all, Twitter seems to be glitchy, so I won’t list them here.

Escape Hollywood by Reading Subtitles

FAITH

 
I’ve started watching more foreign streaming videos instead of Hollywood shows, because, really, their politics & indoctrination is so annoying. Grrr. The problem is I have no one to discuss it with here! So I’m gonna fix that by occasionally reviewing some favorites and hoping that gets a bunch of you all hooked *evil laugh*.

I’m liking a lot of kdramas (South Korean dramas). Kdramas are typically  serialized novels that run twice weekly and have a beginning, middle, end all plotted in advance.  You can watch them for free legally – all you need is the internet and a willingness to read subtitles. I’m going review one I just marathoned through and really enjoyed. I think it’s probably a good first drama for Westerners for reasons I’ll explain in a bit.

Faith

Faith is a historical time-travel fantasy set in 1351, during the Goryeo period, when  Korea was a vassal state of the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty. The main characters in the drama are all real historical figures: King Gongmin, Queen Noguk, General Choi Young are  names that Korean kids learn about in school. The twist is that mortal need makes King Gongmin order Choi Young into a legendary heaven’s portal to bring back Heaven’s Doctor to save his Queen’s life. The portal is actually a time portal, and he enters 2012 Seoul (which he thinks is Heaven) and kidnaps a plastic surgeon from a medical conference to take back with him.

This drama has some of my favorite elements – historical fantasy, time travel, swords, characters who act true to their period, court intrigues, political and literal backstabbing, humor, over-the-top villains who are still sympathetic, and people who are facing inner conflicts that mirror their external struggles. I’m actually not a big romance watcher, but I ended up totally buying the love story that slowly unfolds between the captain & the doctor. I won’t lie, I was reaching for the tissues by the end.

One of the reasons I picked Faith to be your gateway drug to kdrama is that the time-travel set-up means that Goryeo is just as alien to the surgeon as it is to us, Americans, and we discover it through her 21st century eyes. Another reason is that the story could be seen as a variation of one of my favorite books, Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander. Maybe the biggest reason I picked Faith is because it has wonderfully strong women characters. Damsels can be a failing in kdramas and I so love that Faith beats this stereotype.

I watched Faith for free on DramaFever. DramaFever has a huge collection of subtitled Korean, Japanese, Chinese and Spanish/Latino shows, including ones currently airing in their countries of origin. So if Faith is not your cup of tea, there are hundreds of others to try.

I actually watched via the DramaFever android app (they also have iOS, Google, and Roku apps, and I think you can get them via Hulu.) The app worked well once I figured out that there is a menu button and that keeping my finger down brings up a pop-up list of actions.  I signed up for a free account; supposedly they are ad-supported but I haven’t really seen any ads yet. I think it might be that newbies get the first week ad-free or something like that.)

So, thanks for reading my review. Talk about what shows, foreign or Hollywood, books, anything.

Open Thread.

Hillary testifies on #Benghazi

Live on C-Span-3

I don’t know how to embed but here’s the link

Senate Foreign Relations Cmte. Hearing (right-click to copy direct link)

TCH Book Club 2013

We have two books nominated to the book club, and they both look promising. I went ahead and looked them up in my local library, and of course they only have one of them. So that makes the “which goes first” question easy – the one that is more readily available goes to the top of the pile.

So, our tentative TCH Book Club order of discussion will be:

The Joy of Hate by Greg Gutfield

Dirty Words on Clean Skin by Anita Finlay

Agenda 21 by Glenn Beck with Harriet Parke – (I just used my vmtatorial powers to add this to the list) Beck put his name on this dystopic thriller and  the UN-as-Cthulhu premise seems interesting.

I did promise y’all a poll, and here it is:

Open thread!

#TCHBookClub Nominate our next read

Time to suggest what book we can bite into next. Including a link to goodreads or amazon etc would be helpful.

I will put the suggestions into a poll in a another post.

After you have suggested a book or commented on someone’s suggestion, you are free to talk about anything (open thread).

HP admits it was conned out of $10B by Autonomy, stock crashes

HP debacle: Dude on left made massive doodoo, lady on the right gets to clean it up

This is all over the financial news today, but ZDnet explains it best in layman’s terms.

HP took a massive charge related to its purchase of Autonomy and indicated that it bought the company based pumped up and fraudulent accounting.

In its fourth quarter earnings report, HP recorded a charge of $8.8 billion in its software unit. Then HP dropped this bomb:

The majority of this impairment charge is linked to serious accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and outright misrepresentations at Autonomy Corporation plc that occurred prior to HP’s acquisition of Autonomy and the associated impact of those improprieties, failures and misrepresentations on the expected future financial performance of the Autonomy business over the long-term.

In other words, HP not only bought a clunker for $10 billion and decimated its balance sheet. HP bought Autonomy under false pretenses.

The company’s fourth quarter report was a mixed bag. HP reported a fourth quarter loss of $6.9 billion, or $3.49 a share, on revenue of $30 billion, down 7 percent from a year ago. Non-GAAP earnings, which exclude the massive Autonomy writedown were $1.16 a share.

Wall Street was expecting earnings of $1.14 a share on revenue of $30.4 billion.

For fiscal 2012, HP reported a net loss of $12.7 billion, or $6.41 a share, on revenue of $120.4 billion.

HP CEO Meg Whitman reiterated that HP is a multiyear turnaround project.

HP itself is not using the “FRAUD” word, but talking heads are using it. The tricks Autonomy used included giving it’s value-added resellers money to buy it’s products, and calling that money “marketing.”

Autonomy is a British company, and I think HP will seek legal redress in the UK as well as in SEC. This boneheaded deal from a year go, much criticized at the time for overvaluing an acquisition, was the brainchild of former HP CEO Leo Apotheker, who was forced to resign one month after the deal went thorugh. Meg Whitman will have her hands full trying to clean this mess up.

Expect HP’s stock price to take a massive, massive beating today.

In other news, France got it’s AAA rating downgraded by Moody’s.  Join the party, France.

Sarah Palin: Who’s running our country?

I’m gonna shoot ‘em in the cheetos

Sarah Palin:

Who is running our country? We’ve got a CIA Director sharing security info with his mistress using an unsecure gmail account. We’ve got the delusional Susan Rice blaming the death of an ambassador on a Youtube video. We’ve got Iran firing on one of our drones a week before the election. We’ve got the White House either ignorant of or covering up all of this. Who is minding the store? Everywhere we look we see the rank incompetence or corruption of the people who are supposedly running our country and our major institutions. Let’s hope that responsible reporters at Obama’s press conference today ask the right questions Americans deserve answers to.

Here’s my question for the president: As our nation’s chief executive you claim to be unaware of the most important and tragic situations we’re facing; so, as a former chief executive, I’d like to know how long it takes for your staff to tell you things like: “Sir, your CIA Director is under investigation”?

- Sarah Palin

Go get ‘em, Sarahcuda!

In really unexpected news – McAfee on the lam

U.S. antivirus legend John McAfee wanted for murder in Belize
John McAfee, the estranged founder of the antivirus firm that bears his name, is wanted by the Belize police in connection with a murder, FoxNews.com has confirmed.

McAfee, whose very name is synonymous with security, is a prime suspect in the murder of American expatriate Gregory Faull, a well-liked builder from California who was shot Saturday night at his home in San Pedro Town on the island of Ambergris Caye, according to a series of exposes on tech blog Gizmodo. Vienne Robinson, assistant superintendent of the San Pedro police department in Belize, told FoxNews.com that police are actively searching for McAfee.

“We are looking for him in connection with the murder,” Robinson told FoxNews.com. “No one has been charged with murder yet,” she said, noting that there is one suspect already in custody.

The 52-year-old Faull was found by the housekeeper on the morning of Sunday, Nov. 11, lying face up in a pool of blood with an apparent gunshot wound on the upper rear part of his head, according to a police report posted on Gizmodo.

McAfee’s life has turned in recent years from cybersecurity to drugs, guns, prostitution and violence, explained Jeff Wise, a freelance reporter who broke the story for Gizmodo. “He will tell you he moved to Belize for the good life, for the country, to rescue the Belizean people from poverty,” Wise told FoxNews.com. In reality, McAfee became embroiled in bath salts and the quest for the ultimate high, he said.

Finally a scandal that has nothing to do with the election or Benghazi. I expect 24/7 breathless media news coverage on this.

Open thread.

Edit: more details at Gizmodo

Hero’s Welcome Overnight Thread

Surprise Military Family Welcome Home at South Carolina Football Game

Korean Invasion Overnight Thread

My kids are cray about this Korean boy band.

(They seem so 80s to me. )

Let’s make Mitt’s last tweet break twitter records

From the bottom of our hearts, Ann and I thank you for your support, prayers, efforts, & vote. We are forever grateful to every one of you.—
Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) November 10, 2012

Favorite and Retweet this. Let’s see how high it can go.

Saturday Morning Open Thread

Have at it.

CIA Director Petraeus resigns because of extra-marital affair?

From NBC News, WH propaganda arm

Central Intelligence Agency Director David Petraeus has resigned, citing an extra-marital affair, NBC News reported.

“Yesterday afternoon, I went to the White House and asked the President to be allowed, for personal reasons, to resign from my position,” Petraeus said in his resignation letter. “After being married for over 37 years, I showed extremely poor judgment by engaging in an extramarital affair. Such behavior is unacceptable, both as a husband and as the leader of an organization such as ours.”

“This afternoon, the President graciously accepted my resignation,” Petraeus said in the letter.

I smell #Benghazi connection. Stinky.

My immigrant gut tells me this is a #StolenElection

I was born in a dictatorship that was nominally “democratic.” The President, under international (ahem USA) pressure, would hold elections. There would be massive  crowds for the opposition challenger, than mysteriously the results would show overwhelming votes for the dictator. He never officially lost an election. The media would always cover this up for him – never criticized him.

I saw the crowds for Mitt Romney. I saw the handfuls of diehards for Obama. I saw the poll skewing – Obama needed to <i>exceed</i>  2008 turnout to break even with Romney. Did Obama exceed 2008 turnout? No he did not. Obama lost 9 Million voters! But in the key battleground states, he got more votes than Mitt Romney. Somehow Obama voters in battleground states were more pumped than ever to vote for Obama?

Think of a happy thought

We could use a happiness break.

I am so happy and thankful for my husband and my kids. The best ever.  Share a happy thought in this thread.

And look at the happy puppies!!!

 

My plan for surviving Omerica: I am going to think of a happy thought at least once a day or I’m going to go craxxxy.

“Let’s just keep going!” said America

Fasten your seatbelts.
Open thread.

What’s “I told you so” in Mayan?

Looks like 2013 is shaping up to be a year not worth putting on a calendar.

Open thread

Thank you, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan

America let a great leader slip through its fingers last night.

Mitt Romney’s concession speech here in case you missed.

I am proud to have voted for Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. God bless you and your families.