IF the oil that would flow through the Keystone pipeline is for US consumption...

Why are they piping it to the gulf of Mexico?


Build a fucking refinery in North Dakota.

10 companies profiting most from war

Recession-proof

Sales for the world's 100 largest arms producers amounted to $411 billion in 2010, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. That was up 1% from the year before, a modest rise that was held in check by the drawdown of foreign forces in Iraq.

Military budgets have been largely unaffected by the economic downturn, said Susan Jackson of SIPRI, a peace research group.

Since 2002, arms sales among the 100 largest providers of military equipment and services have increased 60%, SIPRI said in a release last month.

The 10 biggest arms producers accounted for more than half of the 2010 sales. The composition of those sales reflects the state of modern warfare, as battles are now often fought with remote surveillance and air strikes instead of ground combat.

Of the 100 companies on the list, 44 are based in the United States. Sales by the U.S. companies accounted for more than 60% of arms sales revenue in 2010.

The top seven U.S. arms producers are also among Uncle Sam's 10 biggest contractors.

Click here for the list... http://money.msn.com/investing/10-companies-profiting-most-from-war

gesto_de_amor1 - Great video about love...

gesto_de_amor1

The Video That Won First Place At Cannes .
It only takes about 15 seconds to watch and you'll see why it won.
There is no explanation needed.

Why are rich people such jerks?

More money can mean more character flaws, according to research indicating that wealthy people are more likely to lack ethics, generosity and compassion.


3/14/2012 3:34 PM ET.|By Liz Weston, MSN Money

My husband and I were waiting for a dinner reservation on the front porch of a Colonial Williamsburg restaurant when another guest, after finding out where we were from, launched into a diatribe about how awful California and Californians were.

The woman, who was from Spokane, Wash., went on and on about her dislike. My husband, a fourth-generation Californian, was genuinely baffled by her vehemence. I grew up in Washington state but had encountered this before. So, I asked in seeming innocence, where in California did you visit? The answer: Anaheim. She was basing her opinion of 37 million people and the nation's third-largest state on a single visit to a theme park.

In much the same way, many of us have opinions about the very rich, and the very poor, even though we may have personally encountered few of either. We may form our views mostly based on what our parents told us, what we see in the news media and the opinions of people we like or admire.

Research sometimes upholds our stereotypes and sometimes contradicts them:

•If you believe that the poor are lazy, for example, you might be surprised by Census Bureau statistics showing that the majority of people under the poverty line are too young, too old or too disabled to work.
•If you believe the poor are less educated, though, research seems to back you up. Households where the adults have lower levels of education tend to be in lower income brackets, and more likely to move down economically, than households where adults have higher levels of education, Census Bureau statistics show.


http://money.msn.com/family-money/why-are-rich-people-such-jerks-weston.aspx

The price of a life? In Afghanistan, it's as little as $210

KABUL (Reuters) - In Afghanistan, if NATO forces kill a member of your family, it is better in terms of money if they come from Germany or Italy than the United States or Britain.

In the cold calculation of how much to pay for victims of the decade-old war, British forces have doled out as little as $210, while German forces have paid as much as $25,000, according to a study by the human rights NGO CIVIC.

Civilian casualties caused by NATO forces hunting insurgents are a major source of friction between the Afghan government and its Western backers - all the more so after a lone U.S. soldier gunned down 16 Afghan villagers at the weekend.

"They have to ask themselves the question how much is one's life worth? You can't put a price on it," Rafi Nabi, 33 and unemployed, said in a market in the Afghan capital.

"If one were to kill an American and offer to compensate their death with money, they wouldn't accept it."

http://news.yahoo.com/price-life-afghanistan-little-210-111521184.html

I didn't fuck it up

I didn't cause this fucking deficit, old people who got sick didn't cause this deficit, hungry children whose homes were foreclosed on illegally didn't cause this fucking crisis, your damned war profiteering did, tax cuts for the super rich did, corporate welfare did.

I didn't wreck the economy, the fucking bankers did.

I honestly don't give a shit about "Shared Sacrifice" because I didn't fuck it up. I didn't crash the economy, neither did teachers or public union workers or anyone like that. The people who earn less now than their fathers did 30 years ago didn't fuck this up.

You know who fucked this up? The very, very rich people! The politicians who are OWNED by very, very rich people. You fucked this up, not me, so you need to go first on the "Let's sacrifice" diving board, because I am not in any position to sacrifice and you, dear rich people, have ALL THE FUCKING MONEY.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/06/30/989835/-Dear-Beltway-Insiders-while-you-make-pretty-speeches-I-m-being-cut-to-shreds

Did you know you can still recommend a locked thread?

You might be a Red Neck if..

Seven Reasons The Job Gains Could Last This Time

Companies are generating waves of jobs, and unemployment is down.

The same thing happened last year around this time. Then everything faded to black starting with the earthquake in Japan, which struck a year ago Sunday.

Does a happier ending await the job market this time? Economists seem to think so.

For reasons ranging from progress on Europe's debt crisis to a slowly improving housing market to slightly less gridlock in Congress, the economy and the job market appear better able to withstand setbacks than they were in 2011.

"The internal dynamics of the U.S. economy look pretty good right now," says Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Asset Management.

U.S. employers added 227,000 jobs in February, the third straight month of 200,000-plus job growth. The unemployment rate remained 8.3 percent, but it was 9 percent as recently as September. By all measures, the job market is strengthening by the month.
http://www.mbtmag.com/news/2012/03/seven-reasons-job-gains-could-last-time?et_cid=2529511&et_rid=82488838&linkid=http%3a%2f%2fwww.mbtmag.com%2fnews%2f2012%2f03%2fseven-reasons-job-gains-could-last-time

Political Reality: How Real is Game Change?

By Jake Tapper, Richard Coolidge & Sherisse Pham