[...]. Smart alternatives to payday loans[...]…

FMA picks up the copyright slack. Inspired by Creative Commons, the Archive strives to provide its users with royalty-free, pre-cleared tracks for noncommercial projects, including podcasts, soundtracks, radio, and remixes.

It's curated by the pros. Explore eclectic selections from legendary Seattle station KEXP, Los Angeles-based nonprofit upstart Dublab, and New York City's Issue Project Room, among many others.

The music is yours. Stream your favorite tracks from the Web, or download high-quality MP3s; if you love what you hear, the site makes it easy to give back by either buying the albums or donating directly to an artist's “tip jar.”

Explore the Archive, check out WFMU's playlists, and read an interview with FMA managing director Jason Sigal.
http://freemusicarchive.org/

Chrysler's U.S. operation plans to close nearly 800 dealerships, about 25 per cent of its outlets, the company told a U.S. bankruptcy court Thursday.

But Chrysler Canada has no similar plans, a spokeswoman said. “We expect the total number across Canada to remain relatively stable (roughly 450),” Mary Gauthier said in a statement.

Chrysler said in a U.S. bankruptcy hearing that it plans to cut 789 of its dealers around the U.S. It has about 3,200 across the U.S., but doesn't have the sales to justify that number of outlets.

The company wants fewer, better financed dealers with better facilities.

Auto dealers are often pillars of their communities, providing well-paying jobs and supporting local cultural groups, teams and charities.

But the cuts at Chrysler and its competitors have been expected as the North American manufacturers shed plants and production jobs.

Chrysler is restructuring in bankruptcy protection.

No individual U.S. dealerships have been told their days are numbered, spokeswoman Kathy Graham said. The company will tell dealers before making any public comments.

In Canada, the Chrysler brands — Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge — have been consolidated already, so “virtually all” Canadian dealers sell all three, Gauthier said.

http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2009/05/14/chrysl…

http://silencedmajority.blogs.com/.a/6a00d83452…

Just when you think you've seen it all, dumbness-wise, from Michael Steele and the Republican National Committee, they do something even dumber:
A member of the Republican National Committee told me Tuesday that when the RNC meets in an extraordinary special session next week, it will approve a resolution rebranding Democrats as the “Democrat Socialist Party.”
When I asked if such a resolution would force RNC Chairman Michael Steele to use that label when talking about Democrats in all his speeches and press releases, the RNC member replied: “Who cares?”

Which pretty much sums up the attitude some members of the RNC have toward their chairman these days.
Steele wrote a memo last month opposing the resolution. Steele said that while he believes Democrats “are indeed marching America toward European-style socialism,” he also said in a (rare) flash of insight that officially referring to them as the Democrat Socialist Party “will accomplish little than to give the media and our opponents the opportunity to mischaracterize Republicans.”

Steele is a complete joke, as I've written many times. I once got to meet the man, and his lame TV persona isn't any different in person. He's being stripped of his power, especially after failing in nearly all of his early tests (like the NY-20 race). They'd fire him in a second, but they obviously don't want to get rid of an African-American man who just got elected to run the RNC. And his opinion on whether to go down this “socialist” road obviously carries zero weight.
Anyway, there's more stupidity going on at this special session of the RNC:

Continue reading »

http://crooksandliars.com/

1. What are “fast track rules”?

2. I understand Kennedy being absent, but why were Kerry and Mikulski? If they were present and voted “yea” and Reid voted “yea”, then there would be no need for “fast track rules”.

Republicans acknowledged beforehand that the vote was not a rejection of Hayes…instead were making a statement of opposition to Interior Secretary Ken Salazar's cancellation this year of leases for oil and gas drilling in Utah.

Vindictive, greedy bastids.

On a vote largely along party lines, Senate Republicans yesterday blocked President Obama's nominee for deputy interior secretary amid a fight over the agency's new rules on oil and gas drilling. The administration appointee was the first to be turned back on a floor vote.

The nomination of David J. Hayes, a natural resources lawyer with experience in federal lands issues, fell just short of the 60 votes needed to cut off debate and move to a final vote. This was the second time this year that the GOP held together on a major action to block the president's agenda or his nominees on a filibuster vote.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…

By Sarah Lovenheim
President Obama starts his day in New Mexico, also known as the Land of Enchantment. He holds a town hall meeting at Rio Rancho High School at 10 a.m. (local time) to discuss credit card reform. The president returns to Washington around 6 p.m. ET.

Check out our Federal City Digest for a rundown of noteworthy events around town.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/05/14/…

Deterred by immigration laws and the lackluster economy, the population growth of Hispanics and Asians in the United States has slowed unexpectedly, causing the government to push back estimates on when minorities will become the majority by as much as a decade.

Census data being released today also showed that fewer Hispanics are migrating to suburbs and newly emerging immigrant areas in the Southeast, including Arkansas, Tennessee and Georgia. Instead, Hispanics are staying in traditional gateway locations such as California.

The nation's overall minority population continues to rise steadily, increasing 2.3 percent in 2008 to 104.6 million, or 34 percent of the total population. But the slowdown among Hispanics and Asians continues to shift conventional notions on when the tipping point in U.S. diversity will come — estimated to occur more than three decades from now.

Thirty-six states had lower Hispanic growth in 2008 compared with the year before. The declines were in places where the housing bubble burst, such as Nevada and Arizona, which lost construction jobs that tend to attract immigrants.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/ar…

What triggered Cuban to go off? How could he have been so unbelieeevably rude?

. I am surprised the mother did not go off on Cuban…I bet you money Iverson's momma would have hauled off and slapped the spit out his mouth and it would have been ON!!!

I'm going to start e-mailing right now.

FMA picks up the copyright slack. Inspired by Creative Commons, the Archive strives to provide its users with royalty-free, pre-cleared tracks for noncommercial projects, including podcasts, soundtracks, radio, and remixes.

It's curated by the pros. Explore eclectic selections from legendary Seattle station KEXP, Los Angeles-based nonprofit upstart Dublab, and New York City's Issue Project Room, among many others.

The music is yours. Stream your favorite tracks from the Web, or download high-quality MP3s; if you love what you hear, the site makes it easy to give back by either buying the albums or donating directly to an artist's “tip jar.”

Explore the Archive, check out WFMU's playlists, and read an interview with FMA managing director Jason Sigal.
http://freemusicarchive.org/