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Friday, March 28, 2014

Planet Gaffe...I mean Biden





Newly discovered planet on outskirts of the solar system nicknamed Biden after the vice-president


Tracked: Astronomers used a camera on a ground telescope to find Biden, pictured here in November 2012. They asserted the distance from Biden to the Oval Office is actually greater than Planet Biden is from the sun.

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By Associated Press Reporter

PUBLISHED: 15:12 EST, 26 March 2014 | UPDATED: 16:24 EST, 27 March 2014

A frozen pink world, lurking in the far reaches of the solar system, has been nicknamed Biden after the American vice-president. 

The planet, which is seven and a half billion miles from the Sun, was found by astronomers searching an area of space beyond Pluto. 

Although it won't officially be named for a while, dwarf plant '2012 VP113' is being referred to as VP, or Biden, by scientists as they continue their research. 




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Thursday, March 27, 2014

Smidgen








The story below kills me. In short order Mastro digs up 250,000 documents and emails on Christie for a meaningless lane closure (it is meaningless compared to IRS corruption that may lead to the WH). Meanwhile, Issa and his crew are still dicking around with "Smidgen". The other day Jason Chaffetz asked one of Smidgen's attorneys for her emails and was told he won't get them for 2 years! Why is this investigation taking so long? One can only conclude from Smidgen if truthful testimony concerning her work for the IRS would tend to incriminate her then indeed she must be a criminal.

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Christie Lawyers Release Internal Report On Bridgegate



BY ANGELA DELLI SANTI & GEOFF MULVIHILL, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK (AP) — A law firm hired by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie said Thursday that the governor was not involved in a plot to create gridlock near a major bridge as part of a political retribution scheme.

The taxpayer-funded report released by former federal prosecutor Randy Mastro relies on interviews with Christie and other officials in his administration and 250,000 documents, many of them emails and text messages.

"We found that Gov. Christie had no knowledge beforehand of this George Washington Bridge realignment idea," Mastro said at a news conference.

He also said the lane closures were not reflective of the way the governor's office generally operates. "We found that this was the action of the few," he said. "This is not reflective of the whole."

His report comes out ahead of any results from independent investigations by federal prosecutors and a special committee of state lawmakers. Some of the key figures would not cooperate with Mastro's investigation, leading Democrats to question the credibility of the report and its thoroughness.

Defending the report at the news conference, Mastro said his team was able to review a trove of documents, including emails and text messages among Christie, Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, top governor's office staff and former staffers. "We believe we have gotten to the truth or we wouldn't be reporting it," he said.

He also said his team was sharing information with federal prosecutors.

The September closure of lanes near the bridge that caused four days of massive gridlock in the community of Fort Lee have become a major scandal for Christie, a possible 2016 Republican presidential contender. Christie said on a radio show Wednesday that the events will not affect his decisions about his political future.

The report, issued at Mastro's New York law office, concludes that former Port Authority of New York and New Jersey official David Wildstein and ex-Christie aide Bridget Kelly were behind the closures and that they were targeting Fort Lee Mayor Mark Sokolich. But it did not conclude why they wanted to hurt the Democrat and said there was no evidence that it was because he refused to endorse Christie for re-election last year.

The report says that Sokolich himself brought up the possibility of endorsing Christie but ultimately decided against it. The report says that even after that decision, the mayor remained on a list of Democrats whom Christie was considering appointing to various boards.

Mastro said Wildstein seemed to have "bizarre political and personal animus" against a variety of people.

Mastro says that Kelly, who did not cooperate with the report, tried to cover her tracks when Christie began asking what happened last year by asking a colleague to delete an email about the plot. But the other staffer retained the email anyway, the report says.

Mastro also says that Wildstein suggested he mentioned traffic issues in Fort Lee to Christie at public event during the lane realignment. But he says Christie did not recall it being brought up and if it was, it would not have registered as significant to Christie — something Christie has said before.

The report also finds that a claim by Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer, that Christie's administration told her that Superstorm Sandy would be tied to a private redevelopment plan, is "demonstrably false." A spokesman for Zimmer did not immediately return a call.

Mastro calls for Christie's office staffers to cease using personal email accounts for official business, eliminating the office where Kelly had worked and appointing an ethics officer in the governor's office. He also recommends major changes to the structure of Port Authority, an agency jointly run by the states of New York and New Jersey.



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Monday, March 24, 2014

This should be in the Constitution









When I first heard the term "two America’s" it came from John Edwards. I remember watching the lying, two-faced, SOB, peddling his “two-America’s”  bullshit wearing well worn blue jeans with his selves rolled up, contrarily sporting a $600 haircut, in some backwater town in Louisiana…that was just before he got on his private jet to fly back to his 28,000 sq. ft. mansion in Chapel Hill, NC. 



Chapel Hill



Beach house


Edwards handed the ball off to Barry and he is adhering dutifully to the George Bernard Shaw principle.


"A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul."

This is the insidious nature of the two-America's.

Read this hard hitting article below which puts America in its true perspective.  


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On a tip from Ed Kilbane
Senior National Correspondent




In early January 2014, Bob Lonsberry, a Rochester talk radio personality on WHAM 1180 AM, said this in response to Obama's "income inequality speech": 





Two Americas


The Democrats are right, there are two Americas.


The America that works, and the America that doesn't. 


The America that contributes, and the America that doesn't. 


It's not the haves and the have nots, it's the do's and the don'ts.


Some people do their duty as Americans, obey the law, support themselves, contribute to society, and others don't. That's the divide in America.


It's not about income inequality, it's about civic irresponsibility. 


It's about a political party that preaches hatred, greed and victimization in order to win elective office.


It's about a political party that loves power more than it loves its country. That's not invective, that's truth, and it's about time someone said it.


The politics of envy was on proud display a couple weeks ago when President Obama pledged the rest of his term to fighting "income inequality." He noted that some people make more than other people, that some people have higher incomes than others, and he says that's not just.


That is the rationale of thievery. The other guy has it, you want it, Obama will take it for you. Vote Democrat.


That is the philosophy that produced Detroit. It is the electoral philosophy that is destroying America.


It conceals a fundamental deviation from American values and common sense because it ends up not benefiting the people who support it, but a betrayal.


The Democrats have not empowered their followers, they have enslaved them in a culture of dependence and entitlement, of victim-hood and anger instead of ability and hope.


The president's premise – that you reduce income inequality by debasing the successful – seeks to deny the successful the consequences of their choices and spare the unsuccessful the consequences of their choices.


Because, by and large, income variations in society is a result of different choices leading to different consequences. Those who choose wisely and responsibility have a far greater likelihood of success, while those who choose foolishly and irresponsibly have a far greater likelihood of failure. Success and failure usually manifest themselves in personal and family income.


You choose to drop out of high school or to skip college – and you are apt to have a different outcome than someone who gets a diploma and pushes on with purposeful education. 


You have your children out of wedlock and life is apt to take one course; you have them within a marriage and life is apt to take another course.


Most often in life our destination is determined by the course we take. 


My doctor, for example, makes far more than I do. There is significant income inequality between us. Our lives have had an inequality of outcome, but, our lives also have had an in equality of effort. While my doctor went to college and then devoted his young adulthood to medical school and residency, I got a job in a restaurant.


He made a choice, I made a choice, and our choices led us to different outcomes. His outcome pays a lot better than mine.


Does that mean he cheated and Barack Obama needs to take away his wealth? No, it means we are both free men in a free society where free choices lead to different outcomes.


It is not inequality Barack Obama intends to take away, it is freedom. The freedom to succeed, and the freedom to fail. 


There is no true option for success if there is no true option for failure.


The pursuit of happiness means a whole lot less when you face the punitive hand of government if your pursuit brings you more happiness than the other guy. 


Even if the other guy sat on his arse and did nothing. Even if the other guy made a lifetime's worth of asinine and shortsighted decisions.


Barack Obama and the Democrats preach equality of outcome as a right, while completely ignoring inequality of effort.


The simple Law of the Harvest – as ye sow, so shall ye reap – is sometimes applied as, "The harder you work, the more you get." Obama would turn that upside down. Those who achieve are to be punished as enemies of society and those who fail are to be rewarded as wards of society.


Entitlement will replace effort as the key to upward mobility in American society if Barack Obama gets his way. He seeks a lowest common denominator society in which the government besieges the successful and productive to foster equality through mediocrity.


He and his party speak of two Americas, and their grip on power is based on using the votes of one to sap the productivity of the other. America is not divided by the differences in our outcomes, it is divided by the differences in our efforts. It is a false philosophy to say one man's success comes about unavoidably as the result of another man's victimization.


What Obama offered was not a solution, but a separatism. He fomented division and strife, pitted one set of Americans against another for his own political benefit. That's what socialists offer. Marxist class warfare wrapped up with a bow.


Two Americas, coming closer each day to proving the truth to Lincoln's maxim that a house divided against itself cannot stand.









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Sunday, March 23, 2014

She who laughs last...











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Saturday, March 8, 2014

The real 1%






Two standouts:


If OWS had any brains... then again.. I'm becoming redundant.





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Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Vlad vs Barry






Putin warns West against sanctions, says Ukraine interim leader 'not legitimate'



Of course in this situation I'm pulling for Barry. Never thought I would utter those words. That said, I sure as hell would feel more confident if someone like a JFK, a Reagan, a Truman, or a Bush were president right now.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday blamed what he called an "unconstitutional overthrow and seizure of power" by Ukraine's opposition for the ongoing crisis in Crimea and rejected Western threats to punish Russia with sanctions by claiming that they will backfire if imposed. 

Putin spoke at a news conference at his residence outside Moscow as U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry was en route to Ukraine to show his support for that country's interim government. That leadership has accused Moscow of a military invasion in Crimea. The Kremlin, which does not recognize the new Ukrainian leadership, insists it made the move in order to protect Russian installations and its citizens living there. 

Putin said Tuesday that Moscow reserved the right to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine by any means necessary, but added that force would be used only as a last resort. 

Putin's remarks were his first public comments on the situation in Ukraine since its former President, Viktor Yanukovych, fled the capital, Kiev, February 22. The Russian leader accused the West of using Yanukovych's decision in November to ditch a pact with the 28-nation European Union in favor of closer ties with Russia to encourage the months of protests that drove him from power.

"Of course people wanted change," Putin said of the protests in Kiev's Independence Square. "But [people] cannot impose illegal change ...you need to use only constitutional means."

Putin went on to say that Ukraine's interim president, parliament speaker Oleksandr Turchynov, was "not legitimate. From the legal perspective it is Mr. Yanukovych who is president." Yanukovych fled Kiev one day after reaching an agreement with leaders of the opposition that was brokered by the foreign ministers of France, Germany, and Poland. Earlier this week, Yanukovych was granted protection by Russia. 

As part of the change of power in Ukraine, early elections have been scheduled to take place May 25, but Putin said that Russia would not recognize the results of those elections if they were held under what he called "such terror as we see now."

Putin said that Yanukovych has no political future and claimed that the former Ukrainian leader would have been killed if Russia had not granted him protection. Yanukovych is wanted by Ukraine's interim government on charges of planning the mass murder of civilians during the recent protests. At least 82 people were killed in Kiev in clashes between protesters and security forces prior to Yanukovych's flight into Russia. 

Putin echoed remarks made by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Monday at a United Nations forum in Geneva in which Russia's top diplomat said that the price of halting Russian action in Crimea was reinstating the terms of the February 21 agreement, which called for early elections and limited Yanukovych's powers, but did not remove him from office. 

There have been no reports of fighting or casualties since the Russian troop deployments in Crimea began this past Friday. However, there have been signs of increasing tension as pro-Russian troops fired warning shots to ward off protesting Ukrainian soldiers at the Belback Air Base in Sevastopol.

Putin denied that the troops guarding Ukrainian military installations across Crimea were regular Russian troops, claiming that they were "local self-defense forces." Many of the uniforms on those troops lack identifying insignia, but their vehicles and uniforms appear to be Russian. Putin shrugged the accusation off Tuesday, saying "The post-Soviet space is full of such uniforms."

Earlier Tuesday, the Kremlin said Putin had ordered tens of thousands of Russian troops participating in military exercises near Ukraine's border to return to their bases. The massive military exercise in western Russia involving 150,000 troops, hundreds of tanks and dozens of aircraft was supposed to wrap up anyway, so it was not clear if Putin's move was an attempt to heed the West's call to de-escalate the crisis.

In Brussels, meanwhile, the ambassadors of NATO's 28 member nations will hold a second emergency meeting on Ukraine on Tuesday after Poland, which borders both Russia and Ukraine, invoked an article calling for consultations when a nation sees its "territorial integrity, political independence or security threatened," the alliance said in a statement.

President Barack Obama has said that Russia is "on the wrong side of history" in Ukraine and its actions violate international law. Obama said the U.S. was considering economic and diplomatic options that will isolate Russia, and called on Congress to work on an aid package for Ukraine.

In response, Putin said that the West should be bear in mind that it will also suffer damage from potential sanctions, which he called "counterproductive and harmful."

Earlier Tuesday, Russia's agricultural oversight agency issued a statement declaring a reversal of its earlier decision to lift the ban on imports of U.S. pork. It said the existing U.S. system of checks don't guarantee its safety.

Putin's economic advisor, Sergei Glazyev, said that Russia can develop financial ties with other nations to offset any potential Western sanctions.

The European Union's foreign ministers on Monday threatened Moscow with halting talks on visa liberalization and negotiations on further economic cooperation unless Russian troops on the Crimean peninsula pull back over the next three days.

The bloc's heads of state and government will hold an emergency meeting on the situation in Ukraine on Thursday that will decide on imposing the sanctions if there is no de-escalation on the ground, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said.





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Monday, March 3, 2014

What happens... when you don't do a kilo a month?




The only thing Barry knows about a Shirley Temple is… it's his favorite drink.




Check out Shirley's résumé:


(Sadly, in the long list of her credentials there was a absence of drug use)



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Rest easy Mrs. Black. You entertained our nation, especially the greatest generation of them all, for decades. We are sorry our president's priorities are so ass-backwards.... 


WE will remember you none-the-less...






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Sunday, March 2, 2014

Ukraine mobilizes after Putin's 'declaration of war'






I'm starting to get a little nervous. This good turn real ugly..real soon…and look who we have calling the shots.




Jokes aside... you don't bring a community organizer to fight the KGB. 

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(Reuters) - Ukraine mobilized for war on Sunday, after Russian President Vladimir Putin declared he had the right to invade, creating the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the Cold War. 



"This is not a threat: this is actually the declaration of war to my country," said Ukraine's Prime Minister Arseny Yatseniuk, head of a pro-Western government that took power when Russian ally Viktor Yanukovich fled last week.



Putin obtained permission from his parliament on Saturday to use military force to protect Russian citizens in Ukraine, spurning Western pleas not intervene.



Russian forces have already bloodlessly seized Crimea - an isolated Black Sea peninsula where Moscow has a naval base. On Sunday they surrounded several small Ukrainian military outposts there and demanded the Ukrainian troops disarm. Some refused, although no shots were fired.



Ukraine's security council ordered the general staff to immediately put all armed forces on highest alert, the council's secretary Andriy Parubiy announced.



The Defense Ministry was ordered to conduct a call-up of reserves - theoretically all men up to 40 in a country with universal male conscription, though Ukraine would struggle to find extra guns or uniforms for significant numbers of them.



"If President Putin wants to be the president who started the war between two neighboring and friendly countries, between Ukraine and Russia, so: he has reached this target within a few inches. We are on the brink of disaster," Yatseniuk said in televised remarks in English, appealing for Western support.



THREAT TO EASTERN UKRAINE



At Kiev's Independence Square, where anti-Yanukovich protesters had camped out for months, thousands demonstrated against Russian military action. Placards read: "Putin, hands off Ukraine!"



Of potentially even greater concern than Russia's seizure of the Crimea are eastern swathes of the country, where most of the ethnic Ukrainians speak Russian as a native language.



Those areas saw violent protests on Saturday, with pro-Moscow demonstrators hoisting flags at government buildings and calling for Russia to defend them. Kiev said the protests were manufactured by Russia, accusing Moscow of sending hundreds of its citizens across the border to stage them.



Putin's declaration that he has the right to invade his neighbor - for which he quickly received the unanimous approval of his senate - brought the prospect of war to a country of 46 million people on the ramparts of central Europe.



"President Obama expressed his deep concern over Russia's clear violation of Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, which is a breach of international law," the White House said after the leaders spoke for 90 minutes on Saturday.



Ukraine has appealed for help to NATO, and directly to Britain and the United States, as co-signatories with Moscow to a 1994 accord guaranteeing Ukraine's security after the breakup of the Soviet Union.



NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen accused Russia of threatening peace and security in Europe before NATO ambassadors met in Brussels to discuss their next steps.



Washington has proposed sending monitors to Ukraine under the flags of the United Nations or Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, bodies where Moscow would have a veto.



So far, the Western response has been largely symbolic. Obama and other leaders suspended plans to attend a G8 summit in Sochi, where Putin has just finished staging his $50 billion winter Olympic games. Some countries recalled ambassadors.



"This is probably the most dangerous situation in Europe since the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968," said a Western official. "Realistically, we have to assume the Crimea is in Russian hands. The challenge now is to deter Russia from taking over the Russian-speaking east of Ukraine."



NO MATCH



Ukraine's tiny armed forces would be no match against the might of its superpower neighbor. Britain's International Institute of Strategic Studies estimates Kiev has fewer than 130,000 troops under arms, with planes barely ready to fly and few spare parts for a single submarine.



Russia, by contrast, has spent billions under Putin to upgrade and modernize the capabilities of forces that were dilapidated after the breakup of the Soviet Union. Moscow's special units are now seen as equals of the best in the world.



In Crimea, Ukraine's tiny contingent made no attempt to oppose the Russians, who bore no insignia on their uniforms but drove vehicles with Russian plates and seized government buildings, airports and other locations in the past three days. Kiev said its troops were encircled at least three places.



Igor Mamchev, a Ukrainian navy colonel at a small base near the regional capital Simferopol, told Ukraine's Channel 5 television a truckload of Russian troops had arrived at his checkpoint and ordered him to surrender.



"I replied that, as I am a member of the armed forces of Ukraine, under orders of the Ukrainian navy, there could be no discussion of disarmament. In case of any attempt to enter the military base, we will use all means, up to lethal force.



"We are military people, who have given our oath to the people of Ukraine and will carry out our duty until the end."



Dmytro Delyatytskiy, commander of Ukrainian marines barricaded into a base in the Crimean port of Feodosia, told the same television station by telephone he had refused a Russian demand that his troops give up weapons by 10 a.m.



"We have orders," he said. "We are preparing our defenses."



Elsewhere on the occupied peninsula, the Russian forces appeared to be assuming a lower profile on Sunday after the pro-Moscow Crimean leader announced overnight that the situation was now "normalized". Russians had vanished from outside a small Ukrainian guard post in the port of Balaclava that they had surrounded with armored vehicles on Saturday.



A barricade in front of the Crimean regional parliament had been dismantled. A single armored vehicle with two soldiers drove through the main square, where people snapped photos.



Putin's justification - the need to protect Russian citizens - was the same as he used to launch a 2008 invasion of Georgia, where Russian forces seized two breakaway regions.



In Russia, state controlled media portray Yanukovich's removal as a coup by dangerous extremists funded by the West and there has been little sign of dissent with that line.



Russian officials have repeatedly described Ukraine's Russian speakers - some of whom have Russian passports - as facing urgent danger. Itar-Tass quoted Russian border guards as saying 675,000 people had fled Ukraine for Russia in the past two months and there were signs of a "humanitarian catastrophe".



Putin told Obama "there are real threats to the life and health of Russian citizens and compatriots on Ukrainian territory". Moscow reserved the right to intervene on behalf of Russian speakers anywhere they were threatened, Putin added, according to the Kremlin's readout of the phone call.



RUSSIAN FLAGS



So far there has been no sign of Russian military action in Ukraine outside Crimea, but Kiev officials accused Moscow of being behind a pattern of violent protests in other eastern cities as a pretext to launch a wider invasion.



Pro-Moscow demonstrators flew Russian flags on Saturday at government buildings in the cities of Kharkiv, Donetsk, Odessa and Dnipropetrovsk. In places they clashed with anti-Russian protesters and guards trying to defend the buildings.



Ukrainian parliamentarian Hrygory Nemyriya, a spokesman to foreign journalists for the new authorities, said the pro-Moscow marchers were sent from Russia. He described a pattern of "Russian citizens in Ukrainian provinces orchestrating the illegal seizure of government buildings".



The worst violence took place in Kharkiv, where scores of people were hurt on Saturday when thousands of pro-Russian activists, some brandishing axe handles and chains, stormed the regional government and fought pitched battles with a smaller number of supporters of Ukraine's new authorities.



In Donetsk, Yanukovich's home city, the local government has called for a referendum on the region's status, a move Kiev says is illegal. A pro-Russian "self-defense" unit, which staged a big protest on Saturday, scheduled another for Sunday.




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Saturday, March 1, 2014

Climate Change Deniers: Banned from Apple






As a shareholder and customer this article really pisses me off! Tim Cook's job as CEO is to keep the shareholders and customers happy. For starters I had to overlook the fact he's gay… and now he's going to preach to me about global warming? He recently lambasted Arizona over their anti-gay bill, which I thought was another bad (no-win) decision by Republicans but that's another story.


Mr Cook stay the hell out of politics! As CEO you should be more concerned why Apple stock has plummeted from 704 to 526. What's next…if he had a son he would  call him Climate Change?

We own 2 MBP's, 2 iPhones, and 1 iPad. Now with this utterly stupid ass comment he just effectively alienated 50% of the customers, and more importantly, the shareholders of Apple stock. Nice going Tim.

Whether you believe in global warming or not he should have kept is big mouth shut. My take… If global warming were real they wouldn't had to modify the name to climate change so it could "embrace" all contingencies coming and going no matter how absurd. 



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Tim Cook to Climate Change Deniers: Get Out of Apple Stock





Apple CEO Tim Cook has not been known for taking a strong stand on, well, just about anything. Caution has been the watchword of Cook's three-year tenure at the top of the world's wealthiest technology company. So far his legacy is largely comprised of incremental improvements in established products, tweaks to the supply chain, and more corporate transparency.

But Cook does care about the environment — and that became very clear on Friday, when the CEO had a terse exchange with an anti-environmental lobbying group.

Apple has made vast improvements in its use of renewable energy since Cook took over from Steve Jobs. More than three-quarters of the company's facilities worldwide, including all of its data centers and its Cupertino HQ, now run on solar, wind, geothermal or hydro power, up from about a quarter under Jobs. Last year, Cook hired Lisa Jackson, former head of the EPA, to lead the company's sustainability efforts.

None of that sits well with folks who don't think climate change is a big deal — such as the National Center for Public Policy Research, a conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C. and an Apple shareholder. At the company's annual shareholder meeting, the NCPPR urged Cook and the board to pledge that Apple wouldn't pursue any more environmental initiatives that didn't improve its bottom line.

"We object to increased government control over company products and operations, and likewise mandatory environmental standards," wrote NCPPR general counsel Justin Danhof in a statement before the meeting. "This is something [Apple] should be actively fighting, not preparing surrender."

Cook's response was blistering. First of all, he insisted, environmental efforts also make economic sense. Even so, "we do a lot of things for reasons besides profit motive," the CEO said. "We want to leave the world better than we found it."

Anyone who had a problem with that? They should sell their Apple shares. "Get out of the stock," Cook suggested. Danhof's proposal was voted down by shareholders.

It's a measure of the strength of Apple's position that Cook can afford to irritate such a large and powerful shareholder on a matter of principle. But it also offers hope for environmentalists frustrated by the lack of progress on climate change that — in Apple's drought-ridden home state, at least — now seems all too real. Greenpeace recently applauded Cook for working to reduce the number of "conflict minerals" in Apple products. Now it has one more reason to cheer.

Yeah...and if this f------ drought-ridden home state, was up to their eyeballs in water they'd blame it on climate change.








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The smile that says I'm free:








'Incredibly grateful' Kerry Kennedy beams as she is ACQUITTED of drugged driving in New York







THE KENNEDY GREAT ESCAPES: 

OTHER INFAMOUS CASES OF MURDER, RAPE AND DUI WHERE MEMBERS OF THE STORIED CLAN WERE ACQUITTED



Douglas Kennedy- Kerry's brother- Acquitted of harassment and child endangerment after kicking a nurse in the maternity ward as he tried to leave the hospital with his newborn child in 2012. Like Kerry, he brought up his father's assassination during his testimony in the courtroom, saying that he wanted to bring the newborn out of the hospital in order to spend time with it like he was never able to do with his father. 




Senator Ted Kennedy- Kerry's uncle- Infamously drove off a bridge in Cappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts in 1969, killing his passenger Mary Joe Kopechne. He fled the scene of the accident and didn't report it for nine hours, during which time Ms Kopechne died. He received a two month suspended jail sentence after pleading guilty to leaving the scene of a crime. 




Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy- Kerry's cousin- Crashed his car into a Capitol Hill barricade at 2.45am in May 2006. The then-Congressman from Rhode Island, who has a history of drug and alcohol abuse, initially claimed that he was disoriented due to Ambien- the same drug that was in Kerry's system at the time of her crash- but he also had reportedly been drinking. He went to rehab and made a deal with prosecutors that by pleading guilty to driving under the influence, he would be let off with one year's probation and a $350 fine. 




William Kennedy Smith- Kerry's cousin- Acquitted of rape after he was charged following a sexual encounter with a woman in Palm Beach in 1991. He was out at a bar with his uncle Ted and Ted's son Patrick (both mentioned above) when they met two young women. The group went back to the Kennedy's house in the area and William, then 30, went on a walk on the beach with one of the women, aged 29. She claimed he raped her while he said they had consensual sex. He was acquitted of all charges. He later had a sexual assault case brought on by a female coworker dismissed in 2005 and settled out of court when a second such case was brought that same year. 




Mary Richardson Kennedy- Kerry's deceased sister-in-law- Just days after her husband Robert Kennedy Jr filed for divorce, Mary was charged with drunk driving in May 2010. She pled guilty and had her license suspended, but was arrested for drugged driving a month later. The mother-of-four killed herself in May 2012. 




Michael Skakel- Kerry's cousin- Charged with the 1975 murder of his 15-year-old neighbor Martha Moxley and spent 11 years behind bars following a 2002 conviction but he has been released from jail while he awaits a new trial. A judge recently allowed him to have a GPS tracking device moved from his ankle to a different part of his body so that he can fit his foot in a ski boot.













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