Radiohead ticket holders who couldn’t get into the DC concert this weekend due to flooding should email their grievances to customerservice@nissanpavilion.com [via DCist]
More: continued here
Earlier today, Brooke in Charleston, West Virginia sent out this message:
I live in Charleston, West Virginia. And I voted for Barack Obama today.
So did my wife. And my mother-in-law, my father-in-law, my Presbyterian pastor and his wife, my friend the retired Episcopalian priest and his wife, my bank teller, my boss, my co-worker, the lady who runs the business on the second floor of our building and her husband, the waitress at my favorite restaurant, at least two dozen of my neighbors, my State Senator, my United States Senator, my company’s tech guy, my college Sociology professor, a couple who runs a bed and breakfast in Sutton, WV and several of their staff, several first time voters from my church’s youth group, several more church members, the cooks at The Purple Fiddle in Thomas, WV, a local Municipal Judge and his wife, and the older lady who exited the polling place alongside my wife and I this morning.
These folks represent black and white, rich and middle class, young and old, religious and not… just like every other town in America. As Barack says, we are not as divided as our politics suggest. That being said…
Yes West Virginia Can!
More: continued here
A gentlemen who ignored flight attendants requests that he get off his cellphone was met by police when the flight landed at Dallas’ Love Field. Joe David Jones, 50, of Austin was ticketed for disorderly conduct, says the Associated Press.
Apparently, airlines can be fined up to $25,000 if passengers don’t get off the phone, and passengers themselves can be fined as well. The passenger could not be reached for comment by the AP, but a business associate said that Mr. Jones’ father was having a heart attack and and he was on the phone with the hospital.
“He expresses regret for the inconvenience that it caused the airline and its passengers, but he felt compelled because of the life and death nature of it to make that call,” Clayton said in a story for Monday’s online edition of the Austin American-Statesman.
Southwest passenger cited for refusing to get off cell phone [Houston Chronicle]
(Photo: Zonaphoto)
More: continued here
Barack is speaking at an economic town hall in Cape Girardeau, Missouri right now. You can watch live on CNN, or online at CNN.com.
A gun exploded in a customer’s hands and the manufacturer doesn’t seem to care, according to a graphic post by f3rr37 in the FivesevenForums. He wrote, “On the 2nd round I realigned my sights, slowly pulled the trigger, and all hell broke loose. I saw bits and pieces of the top of the slide cover blow. My first reaction was, “Oh crap what just happened.” My second reaction was, how are my hands?” F3rr37 sough medical attention and two days later contacted Five-seveN customer support. After a series of followup calls, Five-seveN said they were sending out a pre-paid packing slip for the gun and would inspect it, destroy it, and give f3rr37 a “deep discount” on a new gun. A month later, none of these promises have materialized. F3rr37 thinks the problem with the gun is that it fired “out of battery,” and that the problem with Five-seveN is that they just wish he would go away. Which is odd, considering that they are supposed to have a great reputation for being customer friendly. F3rr37 pledges, “Until they make this right, I will never buy another FN product again and will continue to share my experience with what happens when a FiveseveN fires out-of-battery.”
FN FiveseveN Warning [FivesevenForum]
More: continued here
On May 2, high winds, heavy rain and flood water claimed thousands of lives and damaged hundreds of thousands of homes in southwestern Myanmar. Cyclone Nargis is the worst storm to hit Asia since 1991 and the worst to hit Myanmar since 1926.
On Saturday, May 10, severe storms and tornadoes ripped across the central U.S., destroying homes in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Georgia. Media reports indicated that twenty-three people were killed by the storms, and at least 150 more were injured.
And on Monday, May 12, at 2.28 p.m. Beijing time, a major earthquake, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, jolted southwestern China’s Sichuan Province. Several lower-scale earthquakes and aftershocks followed in the same area. According to the latest reports, more than 12,000 people have died and many more have been injured or are missing. Many schools were destroyed, including one that had at least 900 students in it. As authorities reach more remote areas, these numbers are expected to rise.
Throughout this campaign, we have seen time and again that when ordinary people reach out and act together, they can make a difference. Right now, your donations can help the Red Cross and its humanitarian partners provide shelter, supplies and access to clean drinking water to survivors in Myanmar and China, as well as families in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Georgia.
Visit RedCross.org to find out how you can help.
More: continued here
Last week the best radio show ever, This American Life, tackled the housing and credit crisis by talking to some of the real people involved with packaging junk no-proof loans into “sensible” investments. In the words of host Ira Glass and friends, it all comes back to “The Giant Pool Of Money.” [This American Life]
More: continued here
Barack Obama just delivered these remarks (as prepared) in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. He was introduced by Senator Claire McCaskill…
It’s great to be here in Missouri with my good friend Claire McCaskill. This is a state that voted for change when you sent Claire to the Senate in 2006; you voted for change in February when we surprised the pundits and pulled out a victory; and this is a state where we will compete to win when I am the Democratic nominee for President.
There is a lot of talk these days about how the Democratic Party is divided. But I’m not worried, because I know that we’ll be able to come together quickly behind a common purpose. There’s too much that unites us as Democrats. There’s too much at stake for our country. And there will be a clear choice on November 4.
Now there’s one thing we know for sure about this election. The name George Bush will not be on the ballot. The name of my cousin Dick Cheney will not be on the ballot. But while the Bush-Cheney ticket won’t be up for reelection, the Bush-Cheney policies will, because John McCain is running for four more years of the same approach that has failed the American people.
There is a reason that a record number of Americans think that we’re on the wrong track. We’ve lost hundreds of thousands of jobs just this year. The cost of everything from health care, to a tank of gas, to college tuition has skyrocketed while wages have stayed stagnant. Millions of American families are facing foreclosure. We’re spending tens of billions of dollars fighting a war that should’ve never been authorized and never been waged.
Meanwhile, Americans have lost faith that Washington can or will do anything about problems they face day in and day out. Because the troubling statistics only begin to tell a story found in communities and at kitchen tables across the country. It’s a story of empty factories shut down forever because the jobs have been shipped overseas and nothing took their place. It’s the story told by a mother who can’t sleep because she can’t afford health care for her sick child; a father who lost his job but can’t afford a tank of gas so that he can look for a new one; a family that doesn’t know where they’ll be living in a month or a year because they’re about to lose a home.
It’s a story of an American Dream that is slipping away. And what the American people need at this defining moment is leadership that restores the fundamental American belief that you can make it if you try in this country – that your dreams matter more than the demands of special interests or the convenience of political posturing. That’s why I’m running for President. That’s why we’ll be united as Democrats. Because Washington has failed the American people, and this election is our chance to turn the page.
John McCain has served his country with honor, and I respect that service. But for two decades, he has supported policies that have shifted the burden on to working people. And his only answer to the problems created by George Bush’s policies is to give them another four years to fail. Just look at where he stands and you’ll see that a vote for John McCain is a vote for George Bush’s third term.
Four more years of George Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans who don’t need them and didn’t ask for them.
Four more years of a health care plan that works for the healthy and the wealthy while tens of millions go without care, and families struggle with rising costs.
Four more years of a President who supports privatizing Social Security.
Four more years of a war that has cost us thousands of lives and a trillion dollars without making us safer, while we run up a mountain of debt that is mortgaging our children’s future.
Four more years of a White House that is run by the kind of lobbyists who run John McCain’s campaign, while Washington tells the American people – “you’re on your own.”
Well we know that the American people cannot afford any more of the Bush-McCain program. Not this time. Not when the stakes are so high. Not when the opportunities are so great. We need a new direction in Washington. We need new leadership in the White House.
We know that government cannot solve all of our problems, and we don’t expect it to. We don’t want our tax dollars wasted on programs that don’t work or perks for special interests that don’t work for us. We understand that we cannot stop every job from going overseas or build a wall around our economy, and we know we shouldn’t.
But that is not an excuse to spend another four years doing nothing to reclaim the American Dream for working people. We’re the nation that built the largest middle class in history. We all have a stake in each other’s success. We can’t continue an economic program that rewards Wall Street at the expense of Main Street because then we all end up hurting. It’s time to end a failed approach that tries to build prosperity from the top down, and renew our common prosperity from the bottom up.
Instead of a tax code that rewards wealth and not work, we’ll provide an income tax cut of up to $1,000 for a working family, and eliminate income taxes altogether for any retiree making less than $50,000 per year.
Instead of more inaction on health care, we’ll finally bring this country together, stand up to the drug companies and insurance companies, and make health care affordable and accessible for every single American.
Instead of putting a secure retirement at risk, we’ll safeguard Social Security, we’ll protect pensions instead of CEO bonuses, and we’ll help all Americans save more so they can have a retirement that is dignified and secure.
Instead of gimmicks like a gas tax holiday that rewards the oil companies while doing nothing to lower gas prices in the long-term, we’ll raise fuel efficiency standards, invest in alternative energy, and create millions of Green Jobs that will free this country from our addiction to oil.
Instead of a blank check to fight an endless war in Iraq, we can end this war, restore our military, finish the fight against al Qaeada, and invest some of those dollars to put millions of Americans to work rebuilding our roads and bridges, laying down new rail lines and new broadband, and making sure that all of America can compete and win in the 21st century.
That’s the new direction we need in this country. The other party has already decided to run on the failed policies of the past; that’s why we need to be the party that stands for the future. Everywhere I go, I meet Americans who can’t wait another day for change. Change that refuses to let lobbyists drown out the voices of the American people.. Change that puts folks back to work. Change that finally delivers on the promise of health care you can afford, and an energy policy that makes sense. Change that leaves behind partisanship that stands in the way of progress, because we’re all in this together as Americans.
This is our chance to build a new majority of Democrats and Independents and Republicans who know that four more years of George Bush just won’t do. This is our moment to turn the page on the divisions and distractions that pass for politics in Washington, so that we can write the next chapter in the history of American prosperity for all Americans.
More: continued here