Friday, November 09, 2012

The Most Dangerous Drug

At first, it looks real. A man wielding a knife yelling at two police officers.

"Want to take me on? I'll gut you man. I'll gut you right here."

Prince George's County police say this is their new reality.

"Sir, we're here to help you," one of the officers says back to the man. “Sir, lay on the ground. Drop the knife! Drop the knife! Taser! Taser!”

And then, just as the man lunges with the knife, this state-of-the-art training scenario freezes, offering a glimpse of something these officers all hoped they wouldn’t ever see again.

How Obama Won The Election

The Obama campaign's vaunted "ground game" lived up to its hype Tuesday night, taking Mitt Romney's team completely off-guard and exposing the GOP's deep structural weaknesses with the American electorate.

The front page story in The New York Times today details how the Obama campaign built up this superior field organization:

In Chicago, the campaign recruited a team of behavioral scientists to build an extraordinarily sophisticated database packed with names of millions of undecided voters and potential supporters. The ever-expanding list let the campaign find and register new voters who fit the demographic pattern of Obama backers and methodically track their views through thousands of telephone calls every night.

That allowed the Obama campaign not only to alter the very nature of the electorate, making it younger and less white, but also to create a portrait of shifting voter allegiances. The power of this operation stunned Mr. Romney’s aides on election night, as they saw voters they never even knew existed turn out in places like Osceola County, Fla. “It’s one thing to say you are going to do it; it’s another thing to actually get out there and do it,” said Brian Jones, a senior adviser.

The Cost of Thanksgiving Dinner, 2012

Shoppers often fret about what they perceive is the ever-rising costs for the goods they need to buy each day. This year, however, they have at least one holiday blessing to be thankful for: the cost of a turkey dinner and all the trimmings has risen only slightly from last year.

According to the American Farm Bureau Federation’s survey, turkey dinner and all the fixings will cost about $49.48, or just 28 cents more than it did last year.

Last year, consumers were hit with one of the biggest price increases for traditional Thanksgiving trimmings in years, after poor weather shrank the size of U.S. crops.

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Kick Off Thanksgiving Day At Pemberton Park’s Turkey Trek 5K

(Salisbury, MD) Gear up for your Thanksgiving feast at Pemberton Park’s 4th Annual Turkey Trek 5K on Thursday, November 22. The race will begin promptly at 9:00am and wind through Pemberton's beautiful forests, meadows and wetlands. The course is mostly flat, with one or two small hills - a perfect run (or walk) for participants of all levels.

Gift certificates and awards will be given to top-finishing males and females in seven different age groups. A prize will also be awarded to the participant dressed in the best Thanksgiving costume. Participants can enjoy healthy refreshments as well as pie and ice cream afterwards - it is Thanksgiving after all!

The registration fee for the Turkey Trek is $20 per person. Online registration is available at http://www.pembertonpark.org/annual-turkey-trek.html. (Online registration closes November 21 at 8pm.) On-site registration will also be available the morning of the event beginning at 7:30am.

All proceeds from the race will go towards Pemberton Historical Park's Environmental Education Programs.

Holder Not Sure If He’ll Stick Around For Obama Second Term

Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday he has not yet decided whether to remain in his Cabinet post during President Barack Obama’s second term.

Answering a question during an appearance at the University of Baltimore Law School, Holder said he would discuss the question with the president and with his family before making any decision about how long to remain as attorney general.

Before the election, Holder also said he did not know how long he might continue to serve if the president were to be re-elected.

Shipping Companies Expect Booming Business This Holiday Season

Americans are expected to ship a record number of packages this holiday season, and the good cheer extends to those delivering the goods.

"The Postal Service this year will deliver over 365 million packages this holiday season," the U.S. Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe announced in the nation's capital Thursday.

"That's up 20 percent over last year," he says.

Republicans Rage As The Great Burning Arrives

Republicans descend into civil war as Tea Party movement vows to drive party
further to the right ... The Republican Party was last night descending into a civil
war over control of its political future, as recriminations raged about its failure to
oust Barack Obama and take control of the US Senate. Some conservatives
warned colleagues that they risked annihilation by refusing to change and
appeal to the women, younger and ethnically-diverse voters who had stood by
Barack Obama since 2008. Yet many supporters of the Tea Party movement –
whose agenda was rebuked across the US – claimed Mitt Romney had actually
not been conservative enough, vowing to drive the party further to the Right. – UK Telegraph
Dominant Social Theme: Republicans are out of touch. Democrats are not. The Tea Party is dead.

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Hurricane Photos Ocean City

Cancer Benefit This Sat. Nov.10th

Cancer Benefit this Sat. Nov.10th 2012 at 7944 Bethel Road in Willards MD 21874 for Rob I. Hill. Starts at 2pm. Adults $20.00, Ages 16-5 $10.00, and 5 and under FREE. Price includes Whiteys BBQ, Desserts, Drinks, Bouncy houses, Horse and Pony Rides, Face Painting, Firetruck Rides, LIVE BAND,etc. Live and Silent Auctions Shotguns, Hunting gear, Horse items, Home Decor, Gift Certificates etc. Event open to the Public!

Today's Fill In The Blank 11-9-12

The reason Obama won was _____.

QUOTES OF THE DAY 11-9-12

“In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again.”
― Edward Gibbon

“The five marks of the Roman decaying culture:

Concern with displaying affluence instead of building wealth;

Obsession with sex and perversions of sex;

Art becomes freakish and sensationalistic instead of creative and original;

Widening disparity between very rich and very poor;

Increased demand to live off the state.”
― Edward Gibbon

“Corruption, the most infallible symptom of constitutional liberty.”
― Edward Gibbon

“As long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters.”
― Edward Gibbon

“War, in its fairest form, implies a perpetual violation of humanity and justice.”
― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

The value of money has been settled by general consent to express our wants and our property, as letters were invented to express our ideas; and both these institutions, by giving a more active energy to the powers and passions of human nature, have contributed to multiply the objects they were designed to represent.”

― Edward Gibbon, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Vol. 1

“The most worthless of mankind are not afraid to condemn in others the same disorders which they allow in themselves; and can readily discover some nice difference in age, character, or station, to justify the partial distinction.”

― Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Burger King Home Delivery: The Last Nail In The Coffin Of Real Food?

The contrast, in my burger-starved boyhood, between our apartment and the bright lights of Burger King was so stark it was almost cruel. If only Burger King had delivered back then! The chain’s home-delivery experiment, which has been expanding very slowly — first in a few mid-Atlantic states and most recently in southern Florida — is the first by any major restaurant chain that doesn’t have the word “pizza” in its name. There are big logistical issues to work out. But Burger King, which charges a small delivery fee, claims that proprietary new technology will keep the burgers hot and the fries crispy en route. The company has been quietly rolling out the program to make sure it can fulfill the immense demand its delivery service will no doubt unleash.

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How The Gay-Marriage Victories Are (Slowly) Transforming The Notion Of Family

On Wednesday, Colleen Ozolitis, and her wife, Lee Ann Martinson, drove together to their son’s Seattle preschool to share their family’s good news.

“We’re going to tell him we won and that all this work we’ve done means that in Washington, his moms can get married,” says Ozolitis, who served as the statewide volunteer coordinator for Washington United for Marriage, which led this state’s effort to get same-sex marriage approved. “I think he’ll understand.”

AQUA BAR - CITY CENTER - DOWNTOWN PLAZA

Put That In Your Pipe And Smoke It

Facts Do Not Support Official Story in Border Patrol Agent's Killing

On Wednesday, the Pima County Medical Examiner's office released the autopsy report for U.S. Border Patrol Agent Nicholas Ivie, who was killed last month near Naco, Arizona.

In the report, Pima County Forensic Pathologist Cynthia Porterfield stated that Ivie died from "a penetrating gunshot wound of the head," and that a "small caliber copper jacketed projectile" was recovered from his brain.

On October 2, Ivie, was killed and another agent was wounded in what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claims to have been a 'friendly-fire' incident.

Public School Teachers Spend Billions Of Their Own Funds On Student Needs

Meryl Johnson, a Cleveland, Ohio, high school English teacher, estimates that she spends $400 to $500 a year on supplies for her students. "I have a pretty extensive classroom library because of all the books I've bought over the 41 years I've been teaching," she begins. "At times I've bought sets, 35 or 40 copies of one text, for my students. Why? Because there's so much red tape to go through if you ask the district to buy them."

Johnson speaks matter-of-factly and does not try to mask her impatience with the bureaucratic roadblocks that impede classroom management. "If you go through the school system's channels, by the time the books get approved and are ordered, the school year is over," she continues. "This has been a long-standing problem."

How long does it take for the heat to kick in

on your vehicle in the winter?

Big Money Breakdown: Why 2012 Is the Most Expensive Election Ever

While the Obama campaign relied heavily on a groundswell of small donations from grassroots support, Romney's war chest came from anonymous big-money donors under the unfettered provisions of Citizens United.

The 2012 election season will be the most expensive in history. The Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) estimates total spending to total about $6 billion, topping the next most expensive election by $700 million.

Outside spending by nonprofits and super-PACs is a driving force behind the record-setting numbers. The CRP estimates spending by these "independent" outside groups will top $970 million, and with spending by traditional political action committees (PACS) included, that total outside spending tops $1 billion.

Orioles Make Thank You Sing-A-Long Video For Fans

The Orioles are making a huge impact on their fans today, and it's not from a game!

The Birds recently posted a sing-a-along video to their website to thank their fans for their support throughout this year's season.

It's not too busy yet but give it a few hours and the Wicomico Youth & Civic Center will be packed. Don't forget to go to this free event this weekend and see some of the most exotic and talented dogs in the world.

Obama Back At The Wheel As US Economy Heads For A Fiscal Cliff

Barack Obama has less than two months to broker a deal with the Republicans to prevent crippling budget cuts

Politics in the US is about to go from knife-edge to cliff-edge. The closely fought battle for the White House is over but the battle to prevent the US economy nosediving back into recession is about to begin.

Barack Obama has less than two months to broker a deal with the Republicans on Capitol Hill to prevent budget cuts worth $607bn (£380bn) of national output kicking in on 1 January.

The fiscal cliff was barely mentioned during the presidential race, but the world is now going to hear about little else.

Why? Because jumping off the fiscal cliff is seen by Wall Street, the City and the International Monetary Fund as the biggest threat to the global economy over the next year, dwarfing even the risk that a Greek exit from the eurozone would start the unravelling of monetary union.

America, despite the rapid growth of China in the past two decades, remains the world's biggest economy, accounting for just under 20% of global output.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in Washington has estimated that the planned tax increases and spending cuts would reduce US gross domestic product by 4% in 2013, dwarfing the scale of George Osborne's austerity programme, which has involved budget tightening of 0.5-1% of GDP per year. To emulate in Britain what could be in store for the US, the chancellor would have to halve the NHS budget or put 10 pence on the basic rate of income tax.

Ocean City area residents continued efforts this week to help victims of Hurricane Sandy.

Truckloads and carloads of supplies and clothes were taken to Crisfield, the most heavily damaged municipality in the state.

Volunteers with “Sandy Clean Up Help” sought donations and people responded by donating clothes and other items that nearly overwhelmed drop-off sites. At South Moon Under in Ocean City, bags of donations, primarily clothing, lined the perimeter of the store. At The Globe in Berlin, donations filled the upstairs area. Donations at both sites were picked up Tuesday.

FEDERAL WORKERS WANT PAY RAISE IN OBAMA'S SECOND TERM

With President Obama safely re-elected to a second term, federal workers feel comfortable to make their demands known. As debate rages over lowering the federal deficit, they want a pay raise.

As CNN's Money magazine reports:

[Union president Colleen M.] Kelley said her No. 1 issue right now is getting federal worker salaries unfrozen on Jan. 1, even if that means working out a deal later in the year and making pay hikes retroactive to Jan. 1.

In the midst of that, federal workers are also nervous about the fiscal cliff , which includes $1.2 trillion worth of spending cuts over a decade if Congress fails to act by Jan. 1. Some 277,000 workers -- 14% of the federal work force -- could lose their jobs in the next 12 months if the U.S. cannot avoid the cliff, according to a study by the Center for Regional Analysis at George Mason University.

What will you be doing this weekend?

Thought For The Day

Man Pleads Guilty To Identity Theft

A Salisbury man has pleaded guilty to using information stolen from clients of a residential mental health program to open bank accounts.

Thirty-three-year-old Christopher Devine pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bank fraud and aggravated identity theft on Thursday. He will be sentenced March 1.

Colorado Legalizes Marijuana: Your Move Eric Holder

The one election outcome I actually cared about yesterday went the way I wanted it. I am referring to Colorado’s Amendment 64, which regulates marijuana in a similar manner to alcohol. It is basically full legalization of pot for adults over 21. It essentially:

Makes the personal use, possession, and limited home-growing of marijuana legal for adults 21 years of age and older;

Establishes a system in which marijuana is regulated and taxed similarly to alcohol; and

Allows for the cultivation, processing, and sale of industrial hemp.

I’m proud to say that my state of Colorado led the way nationally by becoming the first state to legalize marijuana (although Washington passed a similar measure shortly after). I supported this Amendment and voted yes on it for several reasons.

1) Based on personal experience as well as observations of others I believe that marijuana is a much more benign drug than alcohol, and in fact I think its benefits to society outweigh the negatives. Like with anything in life, moderation is key.

Reexamining Democracy

Over the last several decades of American political life the idea of liberty has taken a back seat to that of democracy. Liberty involves human beings governing themselves, being sovereign citizens, while democracy is a method by which decisions are reached within groups. In a just society it is liberty that is primary – the entire point of law is to secure liberty for everyone, to make sure that the rights of individuals to their lives, liberty and pursuit of happiness is protected from any human agent bent on violating them. Democracy is but a byproduct of liberty. Because we are all supposed to be free to govern ourselves, whenever some issue of public policy faces the citizenry, they are all entitled to take part. Democratic government rests, in a free society, on the right of every individual to take whatever actions are needed to influence public policy.

Because freedom or liberty is primary, the scope of public policy and, thus, of democracy in a just society is strictly limited. The reason is that free men and women may not be intruded on even if a majority of their fellows would decide to do so. If one is free, which means a self-governing person, then even the majority of one's fellows lack the authority to take over one's governance without one's consent. This is what the US Declaration of Independence means when it mentions that government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed: In a just society no one loses his or her authority for self-government without giving it up as a matter of choice. No one gets to do surgery on you, no matter how wise and competent, without your giving your consent, and the same is true, in a just system, about imposing duties and obligations on people. They must agree to this. If they do not, they aren't to be ordered about at all. The only apparent exception is when it comes to laws that protect everyone's rights. One may indeed be ordered not to kill, rob, rape, burglarize and assault other persons, even if one fails to consent to this. And when the legal authorities do this job of protecting individual rights, they may order one to abstain from all such aggressive actions. So one might say that the US Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, was meant mostly to be a defensive document, constraining and not expanding the authority of government.

DID THIS DIRTY TRICK GET OBAMA RE-ELECTED?

Did the suppression or lack of voter ID laws aid President Obama’s victory over Mitt Romney?

Obama did not win a single state that requires photo IDs to vote, although he was victorious in four states that require non-photo identification – Washington, Colorado, Ohio and Virginia. Those states accept as legitimate identification current utility bills, bank statements and paychecks.

Obama won several closely contested states that do not require any voter identification, including Minnesota, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Wisconsin and Nevada.

The states that Obama lost that do require photo identification do not traditionally vote Republican. Tennessee, for example, voted Democrat in the 1972, 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. Georgia, which also requires photo ID, voted Democrat in the 1976, 1980 and 1992 presidential elections.

GOP Implodes After Romney Loss

Republicans went into Tuesday's election fully confident that Mitt Romney would defeat Barack Obama.

In the three months leading up to the election — and even in the dark days of the "47 percent" video leak — virtually every Republican strategist and conservative politico I spoke to was certain that Romney would pull off a victory. Arguments to the contrary were resoundingly dismissed as "a lot of Nate Silver spin."

Instead, the GOP got totally routed Tuesday, losing the White House in an electoral college landslide and squandering what was once a prime opportunity to retake control of the Senate.

It turns out that Republicans had based their projections on two misguided assumptions:

1. That Obama could never win in such a poor economy. Historically, no incumbent since FDR has ever won reelection when the unemployment rate

was above 7%, or when the consumer-confidence index was below 95 (it was at 72 in October).

But history only predicts the future until it doesn't anymore. Even as polls continued to show Obama ahead or tied the issue, Republicans kept pointing to grim economic numbers as evidence Romney was going to win the race. Exit polls Tuesday found that while 77% of the electorate has a negative outlook on the economy, more than half of voters, 53%, blame the problems on former President George W. Bush, rather than on Obama.

In a massive reversal of the last two years of Ocean City politics, the four candidates of the city’s de-facto opposition bloc have claimed all of the available council seats, securing the positions of two incumbents as well as ousting two of their bitter rivals.

Council members Mary Knight and Doug Cymek succeeded in their reelection bids on Tuesday, while fellow incumbents Joe Hall and Council President Jim Hall were unseated by Dennis Dare and Joe Mitrecic.

In Ocean City’s first municipal election held in tandem with the national elections, final numbers saw at least twice as many votes cast than in previous elections. Dare was most favored with 1,952 votes, followed by Knight with 1,853; Mitrecic with 1,778; Cymek with 1,680; Jim Hall with 929; Bob Baker with 842; Joe Hall with 806; Sean Rox with 533; John Adkins with 314; and Philip Sayan with 304.

CALIFORNIANS VOTE THEMSELVES A $6 BILLION TAX INCREASE TO PROTECT GOVERNMENT UNIONS

Gotta love those Californians. Tax the rich some more and make it more expensive to buy shit and then hand it over to government union workers. This proposition won easily. The best part is that a tax increase passed on November 6 is being retroactively implemented as of January 1. I wonder how many more productive people will leave the State so the parasites and free shit army can wallow in their putrid socialist swamp of diversity and delusion.

Proposition 30:

Raises California’s sales tax to 7.5% from 7.25%, a 3.45% percentage increase over current law. (Under the Brown Tax Hike, the sales tax would have increased to 7.75%)
Creates four high-income tax brackets for taxpayers with taxable incomes exceeding $250,000, $300,000, $500,000 and $1,000,000. This increased tax will be in effect for 7 years.
Imposes a 10.3% tax rate on taxable income over $250,000 but less than $300,000–a percentage increase of 10.6% over current policy of 9.3%. The 10.3% income tax rate is currently only paid by taxpayers with over $1,000,000 in taxable income.
Imposes an 11.3% tax rate on taxable income over $300,000 but less than $500,000–a percentage increase of 21.5% over current policy of 9.3%.
Imposes a 12.3% tax rate on taxable income over $500,000 up to $1,000,000–a percentage increase of 32.26% over current policy of 9.3%.
Imposes a 13.3% tax rate on taxable income over $1,000,000–a percentage increase of 29.13% over current “millionaires tax” policy of 10.3%.
If this proposition is passed in November, 2012, the income tax will apply retroactively to all income earned or received since the first of the year (1 January, 2012).
Based on California Franchise Tax Board data for 2009, the additional income tax is imposed on the top 3% of California taxpayers.
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Don't Miss The Final Show Of The Year

Simply The Best

Seven all time great Maryland athletes were honored Thursday night by the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame at Michael's 8th Avenue in Glen Burnie.

Johnny Unitas, Carol Mann, Danny Ferry, Sharmba Mitchell, Mario Pino, Jim Kappler and Michael Federico were inducted as members of the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame's class of 2012.

In addition, Johnny Holliday received the John Steadman Lifetime Achievement Award.

The organization's 53rd induction ceremony was emceed by Pat O'Malley and Matt Noble.

Rep. Allen West is leading by more than 300 votes in Palm Beach County, Fla., a hopeful sign for the Tea Party favorite fighting for his political life after Tuesday’s election, a source told TheBlaze.

No winner has been declared in the congressional race between the Republican West and his Democratic opponent Patrick Murphy, though Murphy had a 2,456-vote lead in the unofficial vote total.

But a Republican observer who has been monitoring the counting process said West pulled ahead in Palm Beach County on Thursday as the initial count continues. Ballot printing errors led to ballots that could not be fed through scanners in some areas, so Florida election workers have been forced to reproduce their contents onto new ballots that can be read properly, the observer said. As the votes are counted for the first time, West has taken a slim lead.

Attention

Friday, November 09, 2012

AQUA BAR - CITY CENTER - DOWNTOWN PLAZA

Barack Obama has less than two months to broker a deal with the Republicans to prevent crippling budget cuts

With President Obama safely re-elected to a second term, federal workers feel comfortable to make their demands known. As debate rages over lowering the federal deficit, they want a pay raise.