The Va GOP has both Houses of the General Assembly and the Governorship -- stop if you have heard this one before



Republican-sponsored bills to prohibit mandated project-labor agreements (PLAs) for state-funded infrastructure projects are making their way through both houses of the General Assembly.

House Bill 33, sponsored by 66 state delegates, seems a shoo-in for passage. The bill would ensure that state agencies, or construction managers acting on their behalf, would neither require nor prohibit project-labor agreements for state-financed public-works projects.

But not everyone is dead-set against the idea of project-labor agreements.

“I don’t have a gut reaction one way or the other,” Del. Mark Keam (D-35th) told the Sun Gazette at his Richmond office. “So far, it works well. I’d like to keep PLAs as an option on the table and let people negotiate. I think PLAs work. They’re fine. There are benefits to it. If it isn’t broke, why change it?”

http://www.sungazette.net/arlington/news/va-republicans-train-fire-on-union-requirements-for-public-works/article_06e6ea70-4b34-11e1-a278-0019bb2963f4.html

Prominent attorney Matthew P. Geary, whose candidacy for Henrico County's chief prosecutor rattled the establishment but ended in defeat two months ago, was found dead Sunday of what police said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Geary, 42, was found by family members, who notified police about 1 p.m. Sunday. Henrico authorities said Geary had moved into a home in the 2200 block of Lauderdale Drive in western Henrico on Saturday with the help of his parents and siblings.

Geary's campaign ran into trouble after a highly orchestrated attack on his character by Republican leaders, including U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor, R-7th. The leaders revealed that Geary had engaged in an affair with a married woman in recent years.

The Janis-Geary battle split the Republican ticket, although Janis was obligated to run as an independent. The split helped usher in Taylor as the first woman in county history to win the commonwealth's attorney's post and the first Democrat to win it in some 20 years.

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/local-news/2012/jan/30/tdmain01-lawyer-matthew-geary-found-dead-in-henric-ar-1649089/

There has been a lot of talk about whether Gingrich’s recent language, including his performance at last week's South Carolina debate and his earlier declaration that Barack Obama has been America's best "food-stamp president," amounts to a coded appeal to racist sensitivities. The answer is simple: yes.

In this, Gingrich joins a line of Republicans stretching back at least to Richard Nixon. From that president's trumpeting of "law and order" (i.e., “I will get these black demonstrators off the streets.”) to Ronald Reagan’s denunciation of “welfare queens” (i.e., “I will stop these lazy black women from living high on your tax dollars.”) to George H.W. Bush’s use of Willie Horton (i.e., “Elect me or this scary black man will get you..”) the GOP long ago mastered the craft of using nonracial language to say racial things.

Let’s be clear. To the degree Gingrich’s argument is that stubborn, intergenerational poverty is often fed by habits and ways of life inimical to the building of wealth, he is exactly right. But those habits and ways afflict the white hollows of Appalachia as much as the black heart of urban America, and when Gingrich defines poverty solely as blackness, he is not critiquing poverty, but race.

One of my students shared this parable: A rich white man sits with a poor white man and poor black man at a table laden with cookies. The rich white man snatches all the cookies but one, then turns to the poor white man and says, “Watch out for that darky. I think he wants to take your cookie.”

It works every time.

Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/29/136907/commentary-newt-gingrich-and-the.html#storylink=cpy

should I be worried?

Detroit - Doctors in Detroit, Michigan are now advocating an offbeat way to treat nosebleeds. All you need to do is stick a "nasal tampon" made from salted, cured pork up your nostrils.
A group of doctors working at Detroit Medical Centre in Michigan have published their findings in the Annals of Otology, Rhinology and Laryngology. The bacon tampon technique was recently used to treat a young girl with a rare blood disorder and chronic nosebleeds.


"Cured salted pork crafted as a nasal tampon and packed within the nasal vaults successfully stopped nasal hemorrhage promptly," the doctors wrote. "To our knowledge, this represents the first description of nasal packing with strips of cured pork for treatment of life-threatening hemorrhage in a patient with Glanzmann thrombasthenia."


Surprisingly, this use of "medical pork" isn't new: doctors had previously used the technique to treat different disorders in 1940, 1953, and 1976.


Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/318499#ixzz1kbtCqJPE

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-auto-drone-20120126,0,740306.story

The Navy is testing an autonomous plane that will land on an aircraft carrier. The prospect of heavily armed aircraft screaming through the skies without direct human control is unnerving to many.




The X-47B marks a paradigm shift in warfare, one that is likely to have far-reaching consequences. With the drone's ability to be flown autonomously by onboard computers, it could usher in an era when death and destruction can be dealt by machines operating semi-independently.

"Lethal actions should have a clear chain of accountability," said Noel Sharkey, a computer scientist and robotics expert. "This is difficult with a robot weapon. The robot cannot be held accountable. So is it the commander who used it? The politician who authorized it? The military's acquisition process? The manufacturer, for faulty equipment?"

The X-47B will not only land itself, but will also know what kind of weapons it is carrying, when and where it needs to refuel with an aerial tanker, and whether there's a nearby threat, said Carl Johnson, Northrop's X-47B program manager. "It will do its own math and decide what it should do next."

I can't wait to see this news media twisting reality show! I really really can't!

Who WON? Who lost?

What drastic changes were made in THIS debate?

Where ... for the LOVE OF GOD ... is the free advertising time?

The More Americans That Go On Food Stamps The More Money JP Morgan Makes


In the video posted below, JP Morgan executive Christopher Paton admits that this is "a very important business to JP Morgan" and that it is doing very well.

So what happens if you have a problem with your food stamp debit card?

Well, you call up a JP Morgan service center. When you do this, there is a very good chance that you are going to be helped by a JP Morgan call center employee in India.

That's right - it turns out that JP Morgan is saving money by "outsourcing" food stamp customer service calls to India.

http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-more-americans-that-go-on-food-stamps-the-more-money-jp-morgan-makes

Report: Tressell has interviewed with Colts TWICE

On Friday, my CBSSports.com colleague Ryan Wilson asked the question: “Would the Colts interview Jim Tressel for a coaching job?”

Apparently the answer to that question is yes. Not only that, but it’s a resounding yes.

As WBNS-TV in Columbus is reporting (via the Cleveland Plain Dealer), Tressel already has had two interviews for the chance to replace Jim Caldwell, and the second one occurred Friday when owner Jim Irsay flew to Sarasota, Fla., where Tressel has a home, to talk with the former Ohio State coach.

Either way, this decision should be done seven days from now.

http://eye-on-football.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/22475988/34499676

“If I ever see a mob killing, I hope the Witness Protection Program moves me to Williamsburg, because I don’t think any self-respecting gangster would ever go there.”

http://first-world-problems.com/