SEMARANG, Indonesia — Bennett Model helped pioneer the exporting of garments from China in 1975, the year before Mao Zedong died, and ever since, his New York fashion company has searched for other countries, from Guatemala to Vietnam to Indonesia, capable of supplying top retailers like Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus.

The relentless search for new locations has taken on more urgency after the deadliest industrial accident in the global garment industry’s history, a multistory factory collapse in Bangladesh that left 1,127 people dead. Buying from Bangladesh, said Mr. Model, “has been politically incorrect ever since problems started there, so a lot of major players had already been looking for alternatives.”

When a senior executive from one of the largest American mass-market retailers called him last week with worries about suppliers in Bangladesh and plans for a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia to seek alternatives, Mr. Model was ready with advice: “I told him to add a stop in Indonesia.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/16/business/global/after-bangladesh-seeking-new-sources.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130516&_r=0


Too bad they closed all the factories in the United States, safe factories! Greedy bastards!

That was February 18, 2010. A week later, the agency's scrutiny of the Tea Party began. Here's what happened leading up to the two events.



Sean Higgins of the Washington Examiner raises an interesting question.

"What kicked off the Internal Revenue Service's targeting of Tea Party groups?" he asks. "The Treasury Department's Inspector General apparently knows but the rest of us cannot. His report on the scandal includes three timelines of events, but in each case, the first item in the timeline has been redacted."

"The mystery date was apparently February 25, 2010," he concludes from reading the reports. "...The reference to February in both appendixes indicates something particularly noteworthy happened then in the evolution of the IRS's policy. What was it?"

On the theory that media reports might have been involved (since the agency says media reports led to the end of the special scrutiny of Tea Party and other conservative groups in February 2012), I went back and read through some of the national newspaper coverage on the Tea Party groups in mid-to-late February of 2010.

There was a big David Barstow piece in the New York Times on Feb. 12, 2010, examining the political aspirations of Tea Party and other groups: "Tea Party Lights Fuse for Rebellion on Right." Within the first five paragraphs, it mentions the Tea Party, the Sandpoint Tea Party Patriots, Friends for Liberty, Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project, the John Birch Society, and Oath Keepers, described as "a new player in a resurgent militia movement."

And Sarah Palin is mentioned as well, hmmm?

The rest of the article:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/05/remember-when-andrew-joseph-stack-flew-a-plane-into-a-texas-irs-building/275887/



So yes there was a reason the Teabaggers were under extra scrutiny!!!!

Anna Pierre, North Miami Mayoral Candidate Who Claims She Was Endorsed by Jesus Christ, Comes in Last

A North Miami mayoral candidate who said she secured an endorsement from on high finished far back in Tuesday's election.

The top two vote-getters, Kevin Burns and Lucie Tondreau, advanced to a June 4 runoff for mayor, city spokesperson Pam Solomon said. Former mayor Burns received 2,254 votes (33.2 percent) in Tuesday's election, while Tondreau had 1,870 votes (27.6 percent), according to unofficial Miami-Dade Elections Department results.


http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/Anna-Pierre-North-Miami-Mayoral-Candidate-Claims-She-Was-Endorsed-by-Jesus-Christ-207341981.html?gt1=43001

I guess Jesus didn't want her to be mayor after all.

Here's the story budget wonks will tell from today's Congressional Budget Office report: The deficit is poised to shrink to its lowest level since 2008. Good news? Yes, if you're a deficit hawk. Bad news? Yes, if you think (as I do) the deficit is falling too quickly, especially at a time of high unemployment and declining household debt.

Here's the story I wish more people would talk about: Our incredible shrinking Medicare projections. Since August, CBO has now revised down its projections of mandatory health care spending by nearly $500 billion, as Michael Linden pointed out. Since the 2010 CBO report, projected Medicare spending between 2013 and 2020 has fallen by just over $1 trillion ... or 16%.

Here's the graph comparing 2010's Medicare projection to 2013's ...


See why here: http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/dont-look-now-but-our-medicare-spending-projections-are-plummeting/275849/

BELIZE CITY - A construction company has essentially destroyed one of Belize's largest Mayan pyramids with backhoes and bulldozers to extract rock for a road-building project.

The head of the Belize Institute of Archaeology says the destruction was detected late last week.

Only a small portion of center of the pyramid mound was left standing.

http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/2-300-year-old-mayan-pyramid-bulldozed-1C9911749?gt1=43001

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/us/after-plant-explosion-texas-remains-wary-of-regulation.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130510&_r=0#h[]




What does it take to convice people that regulations are necessary for safety? How many towns must be blown from the map?

http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/05/congresss-doomed-misguided-attempt-to-help-working-families/275718/

Fortunately, it may not pass the Senate and if it does, Obama threatens to veto.

If this does pass, it will allow employers to work people endless hours at peak times and virtually lay them off at times of lower needs, all without paying for the extra hours or the trouble of actually laying them off. The American worker gets screwed again!

A Tragic Mess That Is Not Getting Any Better

Europe's unemployment inequality is simply astonishing. Germany's jobless rate for young people is 8.2 percent. In Greece, it's 54.2 percent.

Elevated and lasting unemployment is an awful thing, anywhere, and for anyone. But it is awful in a special way for young people, cutting them off from networks and starting salaries at the moment they need to forge connections and begin to cobble together a career.

A new study from the International Labor Organization takes a global tour of youth joblessness and finds that what's gone up won't come down in the next five years. The youth unemployment rate* among the richest countries is projected to flat-line, rather than fall, before 2018. As a result, the global Millennial generation could be uniquely scarred by the economic downturn. Research by Lisa Kahn has showed that people graduating into a recession have typically faced a lifetime of lower wages.





http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/05/the-global-youth-jobless-crisis-a-tragic-mess-that-is-not-getting-any-better/275696/

By Andrew Rafferty, Staff Writer, NBC News

Three brothers have been arrested after three women who disappeared in separate incidents about a decade ago were found alive in a house in Ohio, police said.

A neighbor told how he came to the women’s rescue after hearing screams coming from the house in Cleveland.

Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michele Knight went missing between 2000 and 2004 when they were aged between 14 and 20. Berry's mother died in 2006, not knowing whether her daughter was alive or dead.

Three male suspects, including a 52-year-old man, were arrested, Cleveland Police said in a statement. Reuters reported they were brothers, citing police.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/05/06/18091211-three-ohio-women-found-alive-after-being-missing-for-a-decade-3-men-arrested?lite



UPDATE: Adding local link for this story: http://www.newsnet5.com/generic/news/local_news/amanda-berry-gina-dejesus

Why one legislator voted against the repeal:





http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/05/05/louisiana_and_creationism_law_allowing_religion_to_be_taught_in_school_survives.html