Wednesday, March 26, 2008

The Company Hillary! Keeps

From Wikipedia so you know it may or may not be total BS.

Susie Tompkins Buell, a United States former entrepreneur and a liberal political donor. Buell is often described as Hillary Clinton's best friend.

In 1967, Tompkins Buell and Jane Tise co-founded the Plain Jane clothing label. Tompkin Buell's new husband Douglas Tompkins recommended changing the name to Esprit.
The early sensibility of Esprit was seen as flowing from the personalities and interests of its founders. They were once described as "a pair of San Francisco hippie merchants who sold clothing over a North Beach massage parlor".

Esprit de Corp. was found by the National Labor Relations Board to have illegally interrogated and intimidated $2-an-hour Chinese workers, and then to have shut down a factory to keep them from unionizing. The Department of Labor found that an Esprit contractor doctored payroll records and refused to pay overtime.

Tompkins Buell led a 1990 leveraged buyout that allowed her to gain control of Esprit, and also earned her a profit of about $150 million. The buyout left Esprit deeply in debt. In two years it went into technical default on its outstanding loans and in 1997, Tompkins Buell relinguished all ownership of and involvement in the company to a consortium of investors.

In March 1997, Tompkins Buell sued the new owners of Esprit for $3 million she said they owed her in reimbursement for tax payments

A San Francisco hippie who illegally interrogated and intimidated $2-an-hour Chinese workers, refused to pay overtime, took $150 million in profits resulting in a company deep in debt that lead to a default on its loans and then sued to get someone else to pay her taxes.

Sounds like a democrat to me.
Bryan Suits interviews Jim McDermott

I have had this .mp3, all 24 minutes worth, of an interview Bryan Suits conducted of my Congressman Jim McDermott since early 2003. This interview is just prior to Iraq War 2.0.
Click here to listen to Bryan Suits interviewing Jim McDermott

The audio has some gaps, not sure why. I bring this up now because of the item over at Ace's that claims Saddam may have paid for McDermott's trip to Bahgdad prior to the war.

Note the following:
Jim McDermott is unaware that Bryan Suits, a talk show host on a political talk radio station, is an officer in the National Guard or that he is not old enough to have been in the Vietnam war.

After saying over and over that he has never said he was a Vietnam veteran, he then repeatedly says when I was in the (Vietnam) war.

He refers to the United States as "they".

It sounds like the Congressman may have "drank his dinner".


A little background. Bryan Suits use to be on Seattle Radio stations KIRO and KVI but was let go only to be picked up by Southern California talk radio powerhouse KFI. The first time I ever heard Bryan on the radio, he was on KIRO. I was just flipping through stations and heard this guy talking about McDermott and claiming that McDermott had never claimed to be a "Vietnam Veteran". To quote Kieth Jackson... Whoooa Nelly... earlier that week, I had personally heard Jim McDermott, while in Bahgdad, hence "Bahgdad Jim", give an interview on ABC's "This Week" were he said, and I quote,
I believe that sometimes they give out misinformation. Lyndon Johnson did it in the Vietnam War. Both David and I were in that war, and there was no Gulf of Tonkin incident.

So I emailed Bryan the next day and let him know this fact and pointed him to the transcript. That was the first of what turned out to be many, many emails and a few face to face meetings where alcoholic beverages may or may not have been consumed.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Seattle Public Library Announcement

The Seattle Public Libraries will be closed this Sunday due to "historically low usage". Or as the rest of us call it, "Easter".

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Obama's Endorements

The New Black Panther Party. Not sure these are the kinds of people you want an endorsement from.

The NBPP lists on its Web site a 10-point plan for full employment for black Americans as well as housing, education, free health care and an end to the death penalty.

In addition, it demands slavery reparations, the release of all black prisoners from American jails, trials of blacks only by all-black juries, an end to all black cooperation with police departments, exemption for blacks from the all-volunteer U.S. military and a separate country for African-Americans.


Exemption from the all volunteer military... what does that mean?
The Brady Campaign Says The Citizens of Washington DC Are Dangerous

I was listening to the Supreme Court oral arguments regarding the 2nd amendment case. Afterwards, there were statements made by both sides of the debate. One statement was by a spokesman for the Brady Campaign. He said, and this is not an exact quote, but should be very close, that the Brady Campaign, which supported the Washington DC ban on handguns was in favor of reasonable restrictions on dangerous people owning guns.

So let's understand what they are saying, they are in favor of reasonable restrictions, the DC law BANS HANDGUNS, on dangerous people, the DC law applies to all citizens.

So if I am understanding what was said, the Brady Campaign thinks a total ban on handguns is reasonable and the citizens or Washington DC are dangerous.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Boeing Tanker Contract Reaction

Sounds like Boeing is surprised that being the only "American" company bidding on the tanker deal is not enough to overcome submitting an inferior bid.

As a former Boeing employee who worked almost exclusively on Air Force related projects, I was more than a little surprised by the news. Reading the reports though, it sounds like Boeing was relying on being based in America as the main selling point. The 767 did not appear to be the strongest platform and had some performance issues when compared to the Airbus proposal. It will be interesting to follow the reaction as news of why Boeing lost leaks out.

One note of interest, in all that I have read in the news, not once has my representative, the Congressman from Seattle, Jim McDermott's name been mentioned once. I am guessing the reason is if he had been asked for comment about the Boeing tanker deal, the comment would have been something along the lines of "Boeing, Tanker deal? What are you talking about?"

Of course I could be wrong.