The story of Nadya Suleman is contrived and calculated. My theory in all of this is that Ms. Suleman has been watching The Learning Channel and was seeing dollar signs when she was implanted with eight embryos and took fertility drugs to make sure that all the embryos took. I am sure it will be learned over the next few weeks that she has shopped her show around Hollywood looking to hit the lottery of life by getting her own show.

For reasons unknown to me, people seem to like to watch “Jon and Kate Plus 8” to see just how miserable these two idiots are with their eight children. Jon and Kate Gosselin thought it would be a good idea after already having twins through artificial insemination and fertility drugs to shoot for two more. Much to their surprise they had 6 embryos take and the rest is history.

Enter The Discovery Channel. A once great educational channel that has been turned into reality TV central. They own The Learning Channel that was once another great educational channel that has been morphed into a reality/fashion channel. I guess the powers that be at Discovery Channel think that the almighty dollar is far more important than education. Rather than teaching us about the world and the wonderful creatures contained therein, Discovery has decided that mindless behavior is far more entertaining and profitable.

So they put Jon and Kate Gosselin on The Learning Channel and like sheep being led to slaughter, the people line up to watch as these two idiots try to raise eight kids. Back to my theory. Ms. Suleman sees all this transpire and calls Discovery to tell them she has six kids and she is a single mom. Discovery Channel doesn’t bite. So Ms. Suleman and her dopey parents decide to take it to the next level. “Lets give birth to a baseball team.”

Enter the media. The Los Angeles Times as well as local talk show hosts John and Ken begin to scrutinize Ms. Suleman and her family. They start to question the family about how they intend to pay for these eight new arrivals. The media then learns that Ms. Suleman has six other children for a total of 14. She literally hit it right out of the park with the eight new babies. Surely the Discovery Channel would give her a show now. But the media attacks become relentless. They begin to ask the age old question . . . Why? Why would a woman that already has six children that she cannot afford have eight more?

Enter the taxpayer. Me and the rest of the poor schnooks here in California that are going to be financially burdened with having to take care of an entire platoon of children. The Taxpayers here in California are livid about this and now we are asking why Ms. Suleman would do such a thing. Is she trying to make her own army? Is Ms. Suleman trying to get an expansion team from the NFL for Los Angeles? Is she looking to start her own construction company and hire nothing but family to avoid payroll tax? Is Ms. Suleman out of her mind? How can someone that cannot afford the children she already has be allowed to have eight more children?

Again back to my theory. The Discovery Channel. There is probably already a show in pre-production. I would bet money on it. I would bet that it was The Discovery Channel that leaked the story to the press in the first place. I would also bet that they didn’t do any background research on Ms. Suleman and realize that it was going to get so much negative publicity. But who cares? A & E brought “Dog the Bounty Hunter” back from the dead after his racially insensitive remarks about black people. In fact old Dog has turned speaking at churches and schools into a whole cottage industry and making a fortune off of it.

So here is how this will play out. The Discovery Channel will lay low for six months or so, all the while shooting footage for their new show “Nadya plus 14″ which will show America the struggles and foibles of raising fourteen children. America being the nation of blithering idiots that we are will line up like sheep being led off to slaughter and watch every week being careful not to miss an episode. Unfortunately, we will never know how hard the taxpayer will take it in the seat because of confidentiality laws here in The People’s Republic of California. But I know one thing. The Discovery Channel will make millions. JD

So here is the “change” that President Obama promised us and guess what? It’s more of the same thing that President Bush offered us . . . only worse. I see no “change” in anything. The only difference I see is that Obama caved in to the teachers unions and supplied 41 billion dollars for teachers. That’s it. Everything else I see is just giving money to the unions across America that supported Obama’s campaign. This bill will by best estimates by the liberal think tanks create less than 100,000 jobs. So much for stimulus.

It is becoming ever more clear that the Obama stimulus package is anything but. A quick review reveals an anti-business, pro-welfare abomination designed to reward special interest groups and promote welfare. The ultimate result will be to prop up uncompetitive businesses and siphon huge sums into State bureaucracies, health care paperwork, environmentalist and academia coffers. Services that are already among the most ill-run in America, with virtually no accountability. The disbursements look like this:

Spending

· $32 billion to transform the nation’s energy transmission, distribution, and production systems by allowing for a smarter and better grid and focusing investment in renewable technology.

Expect to see no practical application of this money. Most will stay in Washington, some will drift into wind farm and solar projects that will be shot down by environmentalist NIMBY.

Grade: FAIL

· $16 billion to repair public housing and make key energy efficiency retrofits.

Because government housing has proven to be such a bargain.

Grade: FAIL

· $6 billion to weatherize modest-income homes.

Expect fraud on a Katrina level.

Grade: FAIL

· $10 billion for science facilities, research, and instrumentation.

Academic welfare. Global Warming redux.

Grade: FAIL

· $6 billion to expand broadband internet access so businesses in rural and other under served areas can link up to the global economy.

This hoax has already cost well over a billion dollars. In one instance, $100 million was paid to bring broadband to 44 homes that already had private service.

Grade: FAIL

· $30 billion for highway construction.

Bridges to nowhere. We need bridge and highway repair.

Grade: FAIL

· $31 billion to modernize federal and other public infrastructure with investments that lead to long term energy cost savings.

When a budget item is so meaninglessly described, you know that it is BS. This is bureaucracy and a slush fund for Obama. This is where he will be the Chicago Pol. Look at this budget for sign of corruption and payoffs.

Grade: FAIL

· $19 billion for clean water, flood control, and environmental restoration investments.

First, when an expense does not earn money, it is not an investment. It is an expense. These are expenses. Flood control is corporate welfare to the max. Environmental restoration is a worthwhile goal. To bad no one in Washington realizes that often the best method is to clear, plant, fence, and come back in 20 years. Putting dirt in drums merely preserves the toxins and can use up of this money in a single year. If the government were to restock fisheries and forests, that would be one thing. We could even accept sewer repair, maintenance, and secondary treatment. But this item smells.

Grade: FAIL

· $10 billion for transit and rail to reduce traffic congestion and gas consumption.

We suspect this meant ‘gasoline’ consumption. Welfare to the states to prop up a service that cost a lot of money to go where you do not want to be. Nevertheless, if spent properly on hard assets, DBKP gives it a passing grade.

Grade: PASS

· $41 billion to local school districts through Title I ($13 billion), IDEA ($13 billion), a new School Modernization and Repair Program ($14 billion), and the Education Technology program ($1 billion).

Right down the rat hole. Need we say more? Reward the teachers and the nut cases that run modern education.

Grade: FAIL

· $79 billion in state fiscal relief to prevent cutbacks to key services, including $39 billion to local school districts, public colleges, and universities distributed through existing state and federal formulas. Fifteen billion to states as bonus grants as a reward for meeting key performance measures, and $25 billion to states for other high priority needs such as public safety and other critical services, which may include education.

Same old crap. Since when is it our responsibility to fund school districts in other states plus hand out bonus rewards for actually doing your job. This does nothing for the economy, the stated purpose of this travesty.

Grade: Massive Failure

· $15.6 billion to increase the Pell grant by $500.

My favorite. Bloated institutions will merely raise their tuition. Simple solution, end tenure. This would lower the cost of education by billions.

Grade: FAIL

· $6 billion for higher education modernization.

More climbing towers, Muslim only gyms, anti- American/Jews/Capitalism/Free Speech Rallies? Bigger Bongs? Massage Chairs in the Entertainment Lounge? Caviar?

Grade: FAIL

· $20 billion for health information technology to prevent medical mistakes, provide better care to patients, and introduce cost-saving efficiencies.

Because government paperwork has proven to be such a cost saver to date?

Grade: FAIL

· $4.1 billion to provide for preventative care and to evaluate the most effective health care treatments.

First, understand what is being called for: A REDUCTION IN MEDICAL SERVICES DESCRIBED AS A POSITIVE. Once that is understood, understand that they are trying to screw you–but want you to pay for a study on how best to kill you off.

Grade: FAIL

· $43 billion for increased unemployment benefits and job training.

Increased welfare.

Grade: FAIL

· $39 billion to support those who lose their jobs by helping them to pay the cost of keeping their employer provided healthcare under COBRA and providing short-term options to be covered by Medicaid.

Another form of welfare.

Grade: FAIL

· $20 billion to increase the food stamp benefit by over 13% in order to help defray rising food costs.

Food stamp use has been going down for years. Rather than be happy, Liberals want to crow that it is going up. So they increase it 13% over the inflationary index. Wonderful.

Grade: MASIVE FAIL

-Save Public Sector Jobs and Protect Vital Services: We will provide relief to states, so they can continue to employ teachers, firefighters, and police officers and provide vital services without having to unnecessarily raise middle class taxes.

Frankly, we need the States to dramatically reduce public sector jobs, particularly social workers, home heating specialists, and the myriad other jobs, including many teachers, that are simply redundant such as six men watching one fix a pipe, or two police officers paid overtime to direct traffic.

· $87 billion for a temporary increase in the Medicaid matching rate.

Another form of welfare.

Grade: FAIL

· $4 billion for state and local law enforcement funding.

State Welfare.

Grade: FAIL

Only one item “passed” on the criteria set forth in the Stimulus package bill. Otherwise, it is a bizarre and unnecessary spending package that will create a minuscule number of jobs and actually decrease productivity.

IT IS A FRICKIN DISASTER.

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If the Goracle wants to stop global warming perhaps he should go on a diet. How much air is he consuming at that enormous weight? Not to mention the tremendous dumps he takes and flushes down the toilet. Geez

The lawmakers gazed in awe at the figure before them. The Goracle had seen the future, and he had come to tell them about it.

What the Goracle saw in the future was not good: temperature changes that “would bring a screeching halt to human civilization and threaten the fabric of life everywhere on the Earth — and this is within this century, if we don’t change.”

The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry (D-Mass.), appealed to hear more of the Goracle’s premonitions. “Share with us, if you would, sort of the immediate vision that you see in this transformative process as we move to this new economy,” he beseeched.

“Geothermal energy,” the Goracle prophesied. “This has great potential; it is not very far off.”

Another lawmaker asked about the future of nuclear power. “I have grown skeptical about the degree to which it will expand,” the Goracle spoke.

A third asked the legislative future — and here the Goracle spoke in riddle. “The road to Copenhagen has three steps to it,” he said.

Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) begged the Goracle to look further into the future. “What does your modeling tell you about how long we’re going to be around as a species?” he inquired.

The Goracle chuckled. “I don’t claim the expertise to answer a question like that, Senator.”

It was a jarring reminder that the Goracle is, indeed, mortal. Once Al Gore was a mere vice president, but now he is a Nobel laureate and climate-change prophet. He repeats phrases such as “unified national smart grid” the way he once did “no controlling legal authority” — and the ridicule has been replaced by worship, even by his political foes.

“Tennessee,” gushed Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican from Gore’s home state, “has a legacy of having people here in the Senate and in public service that have been of major consequence and contributed in a major way to the public debate, and you no doubt have helped build that legacy.” If that wasn’t quite enough, Corker added: “Very much enjoyed your sense of humor, too.”

Humor? From Al Gore? “I benefit from low expectations,” he replied.

The Goracle’s powers seem to come from his ability to scare the bejesus out of people. “We must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization,” he said. And: “This is the most serious challenge the world has ever faced.” And: It “could completely end human civilization, and it is rushing at us with such speed and force.”

Though some lawmakers tangled with Gore on his last visit to Capitol Hill, none did on the Foreign Relations Committee yesterday. Dick Lugar (Ind.), the ranking Republican, agreed that there will be “an almost existential impact” from the climate changes Gore described.

As such, the Goracle, even when questioned, was shown great deference. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), challenging Gore over spent nuclear fuel, began by saying: “I stand to be corrected, and I defer to your position, you’re probably right, and I’m probably wrong.” He ended his question by saying: “I’m not questioning you; I’m questioning myself.”

Others sought to buy the Goracle’s favor by offering him gifts. “Thank you for your incredible leadership; you make this crystalline for those who don’t either understand it or want to understand it,” gushed Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who went on to ask: “Will you join me this summer at the Jersey Shore?”

The chairman worried that the Goracle may have been offended by “naysayers” who thought it funny that Gore’s testimony before the committee came on a morning after a snow-and-ice storm in the capital. “The little snow in Washington does nothing to diminish the reality of the crisis,” Kerry said at the start of the hearing.

The climate was well controlled inside the hearing room, although Gore, suffering from a case of personal climate change, perspired heavily during his testimony. The Goracle presented the latest version of his climate-change slide show to the senators: a globe with yellow and red blotches, a house falling into water, and ones with obscure titles such as “Warming Impacts Ugandan Coffee Growing Region.” At one point he flashed a biblical passage on the screen, but he quickly removed it. “I’m not proselytizing,” he explained. A graphic showing a disappearing rain forest was accompanied by construction noises.

The Goracle supplied abundant metaphors to accompany his visuals. Oil demand: “This roller coaster is headed for a crash, and we’re in the front car.” Polar ice: “Like a beating heart, and the permanent ice looks almost like blood spilling out of a body along the eastern coast of Greenland.”

The lawmakers joined in. “There are a lot of ways to skin a cat,” contributed Isakson, who is unlikely to get the Humane Society endorsement. “And if we have the dire circumstances we’re facing, we need to find every way to skin every cat.”

Mostly, however, the lawmakers took turns asking the Goracle for advice, as if playing with a Magic 8 Ball.

Lugar, a 32-year veteran of the Senate, asked Gore, as a “practical politician,” how to get the votes for climate-change legislation. “I am a recovering politician. I’m on about Step 9,” the Goracle replied, before providing his vision.

Prospects for regulating a future carbon emissions market? “There’s a high degree of confidence.” The future of automobiles in China and India? “I wouldn’t give up on electric vehicles.” The potential of solar power in those countries? “I have no question about it at all.”

Of course not. He’s the Goracle.

Gee I can’t imagine why Starbucks is laying off personnel. Wall Street has been laughing at this company for years for opening up a Starbucks on every corner. I predict bankruptcy within the year. Besides, a person would have to be a fool to pay five dollars at a Starbucks for what they can get for a dollar fifty at the local 7-11. JD

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) — Starbucks Corp., the world’s largest chain of coffee shops, said it will cut 6,700 jobs and close 300 more stores after reporting first-quarter profit that fell more than analysts estimated.

The company plans to close 200 locations in the U.S. and 100 overseas, in addition to the 600 Starbucks said it would close last year. The workforce reduction will eliminate 6,000 café positions and 700 corporate jobs, the Seattle-based chain said today in a statement.

Chief Executive Officer Howard Schultz warned in December that Starbucks’ profit would be less than analysts’ estimates at the time as sales in established stores worsened in November. Customers pinched by job losses and falling home prices are cutting back on premium coffee. The firings and closings announced today further accelerate Schultz’s plan to trim costs.

Schultz also asked the board to cut his annual base pay to less than $10,000, or the minimum required to maintain benefits for him and his family, spokeswoman Deb Trevino said today in a telephone interview. His base pay was about $1.2 million in 2008. Starbucks is also selling a corporate jet, bringing the fleet to one plane following a similar sale late last year.

“The only grown-up attitude and thing for them to do in this environment” is to adjust to the declining revenue, Sharon Zackfia, an analyst with William Blair & Co. in Chicago, said today in a Bloomberg Television interview. “You have to give this company credit for coming up with ways to bolster their margin even though same-store sales are down.”

Trimming Expenses

The additional measures increase the company’s plan to trim costs by $100 million this year, to at least $500 million, Starbucks said. Starbucks may save more next year as the store closings take effect, Chief Financial Officer Troy Alstead said on a conference call.

Sales at U.S. stores open at least 13 months dropped 10 percent in the first quarter. The company had a total of 16,875 stores, including franchised locations, as of Dec. 28.

“The pace of weakening in the business environment and the global economy has been accelerating,” Schultz said on the conference call today. “I’m far from pleased with our performance this quarter and I anticipate that our results could remain under pressure until the economy begins to recover.”

Starbucks rose 50 cents to $9.65 today in Nasdaq Stock Market composite trading. The stock has lost 51 percent in the past 12 months.

‘Slow Drip’

The coffee seller in July said it would close 600 company- operated stores in the U.S. and 61 shops in Australia. The move slashed 12,000 café positions, although about 70 percent of workers were able to transfer to nearby locations, resulting in about 3,600 jobs lost.

Net income dropped 69 percent to $64.3 million, or 9 cents a share, from $208.1 million, or 28 cents, a year earlier, the company said in the statement. Sales fell 5.5 percent to $2.6 billion in the period ended Dec. 28.

Excluding some restructuring costs, profit was 15 cents a share. The average of 16 analyst estimates compiled by Bloomberg was for profit of 17 cents a share on sales of $2.71 billion. The company doesn’t give quarterly forecasts.

The store closings announced last year are still being implemented, and the shutterings announced today will be carried out through the year that ends in September, Starbucks said. Half of the corporate cuts announced today will come from Seattle.

“I’m hoping 300 stores is enough, and that they’ve done what they need to do,” said Patty Edwards, a retail analyst with Storehouse Partners in Seattle. “Slow drip, even in coffee, isn’t necessarily the best thing. Sometimes you just need to get the pain over with.”

The distraught California dad who wiped out his family before killing himself said in a suicide note the mass murder was his wife’s idea.

“After a horrendous ordeal, my wife felt it better to end our lives and why leave the children in someone else’s hands,” Ervin Lupoe wrote in the note he faxed to a Los Angeles TV station.

After typing his name, Lupoe printed an anguished postscript: “Oh Lord my God is there no hope for a widow’s son?”

The letter, which appeared on the KABC-TV Web site Wednesday, reveals the writer clearly did not think so.

It also shed more light on why Lupoe shot his wife and kids execution style in the heads before shooting himself.

Lupoe was despondent because he and his wife were canned from their jobs as X-ray technicians at Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Medical Center.

He began his “tragic story” by introducing himself and his doomed spouse, Ana.

Then he listed their kids and their ages: Brittney, 8; twin daughters Jaszmin and Jassely, 5; and twins boys Benjamin and Christian, both “2 yrs 4 mo.”

“My wife and I were being investigated for misrepresentation of our employment to an outside agency,” Lupoe continued.

In a pre-Christmas questioning, Lupoe claimed an administrator told him: “You should not even had bothered to come to work today you should have blown your brains out.”

“It seems Kiaser (sic) Permanente want’s (sic) us to kill ourselves and take our family with us,” he wrote.

Kaiser Permanente confirmed the couple was fired “after an internal investigation” but gave no details. “We are confident that no one told him to take his own life or the lives of his family,” the statement said.

KABC-TV called the cops when they got the fax, which arrived around the time police dispatchers got a call from a man who said, “I just returned home and my whole family’s been shot.”

Police suspect the caller was Lupoe, who was found dead with a revolver by his side Tuesday at his home in Wilmington, a suburb wedged between the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The sight of so much carnage horrified even the most hardened police officers, witnesses said.

“The reaction on their faces was not a pretty sight,” neighbor Jasmine Gomez told CNN. “There was an officer who came out of the house throwing up.”

It was the fifth mass death of a family by murder or suicide in California – a state hit hit by the recession and mortgage meltdown – since last February.