twandx's blog

http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/8700-a-club-of-liars-demagogues-and-ignoramuses

 

A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses

By Marc Pitzke, Der Spiegel Online

17 August 10

 

frica is a country. In Libya, the Taliban reigns. Muslims are terrorists; most immigrants are criminal; all Occupy protesters are dirty. And women who feel sexually harassed - well, they shouldn't make such a big deal about it.

Welcome to the wonderful world of the US Republicans. Or rather, to the twisted world of what they call their presidential campaigns. For months now, they've been traipsing around the country with their traveling circus, from one debate to the next, one scandal to another, putting themselves forward for what's still the most powerful job in the world.

As it turns out, there are no limits to how far they will stoop.

It's true that on the road to the White House all sorts of things can happen, and usually do. No campaign can avoid its share of slip-ups, blunders and embarrassments. Yet this time around, it's just not that funny anymore. In fact, it's utterly horrifying.

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Time Mag does it in covers.

http://readersupportednews.org/off-site-news-section/68-68/8627-focus-why-americans-are-stupid

Women in science are seldom remembered so thanks to Google for bringing this remarkable woman to our attention.

As anyone who attended a high school science class is aware, Curie and her husband Pierre are credited with the discovery of radium and polonium. Her work landed her two Nobel Prizes, one for physics in 1903 and another for chemistry in 1911.

Curie was born Maria Sklodowska in Warsaw, Poland in 1867. By age 11, she had lost her oldest sister to typhus and her mother to tuberculosis. Nonetheless, she graduated high school at age 15 but soon came down with a nervous disorder that was likely depression, according to the American Institute of Physics. She recuperated in the country for a year before returning to Warsaw and attending a "floating university" with her sister Bronya. It was illegal for women to attend universities in Warsaw at the time, so these classes met in secret at locations that changed regularly.

The sisters wanted to expand their studies in Paris, however, so Marie agreed to work and pay for her sister's classes and her sister did the same for Marie after she graduated. Marie made it to Paris just before she turned 24. She eventually earned a grant from the Society for the Encouragement of National Industry to study the magnetic properties of different steels, AIP said, and that led her to the lab of Pierre Curie.

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Miss Representation—a haunting new documentary, from first-time filmmaker Jennifer Siebel Newsom, about girls’ body image, self-confidence and leadership aspirations, and how they are intertwined with the way women are portrayed on television and in media. Making its debut on the Oprah Winfrey Network this Thursday, the film tackles Hollywood, TV news, advertising, politics—all against a backdrop of the young women who consume all of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6gkIiV6konY

Juxtaposing images of cat-fighting reality television stars with women’s-rights leaders; lip-plumped Housewives with “in” political leaders—and peppered with powerful interviews with Condoleezza Rice, Katie Couric, Nancy Pelosi, Jane Fonda, Gloria Steinem, and a dozen other women—Miss Representation makes the case clear: “We are teaching young women that their worth lies in their youth, their beauty and their sexuality,” says Newsom. “Not in their capacity to lead.” Ultimately, she says, the gap between women in media and women in real life is huge, and growing.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/10/20/miss-representation-on-own-why-does-the-media-hate-women.html

ahead and close up the ranks."

Beth Robinson chosen by Shumlin for state's high court

Written by Dave Gram, The Associated Press

Beth Robinson, a major force in Vermont's passage of gay marriage in 2009, was selected today to become Vermont's next Supreme Court justice. Gov. Peter Shumlin made the announcement at noon in Montpelier.
•11:27 PM, Oct. 18, 2011

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20111018/NEWS02/111018016/-1/HEADLINES01/Beth-Robinson-chosen-by-Shumlin-state-s-high-court

This was sent to me, I am forwarding it becausemath is not in my personal data base.  To me, SS has been alot like any insurence policy - you pay into it every month.  If something goes wrong, there it is; if not the money is lost.  But SS differs in a significant way - if one lives long enough it is a savings policy that pays off, keeping many elderly people off the dole.

Not much is made of this heroic, volunteer effort - an example of Americans working together without politics or politicians screwing things up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDOrzF7B2Kg&feature=player_embedded

Many arial shots of damage from flooding. 

http://www.mansfieldheliflight.com/flood/

To view or purchase a “I Am Vermont Strong T-shirt,” visit www.vermontstrong.mybigcommerce.com

All net profits will go to relief efforts
 

Shades of Gorge Orwell revisited.  For all who hated the Hopi/Changi incarnation, this vids for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=8_os8MnI-3g

[Stolen from Uppity who stole it from Widdershins]

Hillary Told You So

As Democratic disgust with Obama’s debt fumbling spreads, Clinton supporters recall her '3 a.m. Phone call' warnings—and angry, frustrated liberals are muttering that she should mount a 2012 challenge.

Aug 7, 2011 8:58 PM EDT
 
At a New York political event last week, Republican and Democratic office-holders were all bemoaning President Obama’s handling of the debt-ceiling crisis when someone said, “Hillary would have been a better president.”

“Every single person nodded, including the Republicans,” reported one observer.

At a luncheon in the members’ dining room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday, a 64-year-old African-American from the Bronx was complaining about Obama’s ineffectiveness in dealing with the implacable hostility of congressional Republicans when an 80-year-old lawyer chimed in about the president’s unwillingness to stand up to his opponents. “I want to see blood on the floor,” she said grimly.

A 61-year-old white woman at the table nodded. “He never understood about the ‘vast right-wing conspiracy,’” she said.

Looking as if she were about to cry, an 83-year-old Obama supporter shook her head. “I’m so disappointed in him,” she said. “It’s true: Hillary is tougher.”

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and whether I am allowed to post.  However, rather than deprive you all of viewing the pile of trash the Baptist volunteers with FEMA took out of my basement, I'll jump right in to test the pic posting and avitar.  This shows about half of the stuff they bagged along with all the partitioning.  All now residing in the town landfill.  R.I.P.

Yup!  Right here in the "People's Republic of Vermont" in the year of our continuous sexism 2011

Click here to let the members of the Barre Development Review Board know that there is no place for sexism or discrimination in their decision-making process.

Article published Jul 11, 2011
Barre midwife’s home clinic nixed; mayor’s parking lot OK’d
By David Delcore
Staff Writer

BARRE — Somewhere in Haiti, a local midwife is steaming now that the Development Review Board unanimously denied her request to operate an office in her Colby Street home because, among other things, her neighbors are concerned that pregnant women aren’t well-equipped to back up on their steep road.

Contacted by cellphone Friday, Katherine Bramhall, who said she met last week with the minister of health in Haiti to discuss maternal mortality and the potential for opening birthing clinics there, was livid. She learned of Thursday’s decision by text message and said she will appeal.

“It was crap, actually,” she said. “It was a stacked jury.”

Former First lady Betty Ford dies at 93

 

By CONNIE CASS - Associated Press,LINDA DEUTSCH - Associated Press | AP – 2 hrs 38 mins ago..
.
.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Betty Ford said things that first ladies just don't say, even today. And 1970s America loved her for it.

 

According to Mrs. Ford, her young adult children probably had smoked marijuana — and if she were their age, she'd try it, too. She told "60 Minutes" she wouldn't be surprised to learn that her youngest, 18-year-old Susan, was in a sexual relationship (an embarrassed Susan issued a denial).

 

She mused that living together before marriage might be wise, thought women should be drafted into the military if men were, and spoke up unapologetically for abortion rights, taking a position contrary to the president's. "Having babies is a blessing, not a duty," Mrs. Ford said.

 

The former first lady, whose triumph over drug and alcohol addiction became a beacon of hope for addicts and the inspiration for her Betty Ford Center in California, died at age 93, family friend Marty Allen said.

 

Family spokeswoman Barbara Lewandrowski said Betty Ford died Friday at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage. Other details of her death were not immediately available.

 

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Lots of sturm und drang everywhere over this verdict.  Especially from people who have no idea of the chemistry and protocol used in scientific tests.  Because of the hours and years of TV shows indicating how crime is always solved and the culprit confesses, the bleeding hearts that wanted Casey's head on a pole are sure "justice was denied" to a 2-year old.

I did not follow this closly - did try to listen to opening and closings and some of the experts.  However, I kept away from the media's pre-judgements and focused on the attorneys.  I was delighted that the defense had women on their team and bet that they were instrumental in using the word slut in connection with Casey, right up front, to spike the prosecution's guns.

Every thinking woman would be disgusted by the way the prosecution went after Casey's slutty behavior.  Every thinking woman knew that a father who partied and slept around would be given a positive title - it would be expected that a man needed to have female company.  Our society thinks hightly of the "playboy" and a "lothario" is imortalized in our culture.  No one would think any less of a single father for the actions that the prosecution brought up to castigate Casey.

Creeper's sure to like this one and all who enjoy music and cats.  Link button just makes the screen freeze white so I'm just giving the link.

Rossini’s Le duo des chats
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EjtVDG0drG0&feature=player_embedded

For years, Lucy Lawless played Xena, Warrior Princess on TV - now comes Monique Lawless to again show the true metal of womankind.  Enough of this letting boyz be boyz and endangering us all while ripping off stores and making all of us pay more to make up for the thieving, out of control bastards.

Five-finger discount wasn't to her liking
 
3 men arrested after woman tries to thwart alleged heist at Walmart
 
By ROBERT STANTONHOUSTON CHRONICLE
 
June 20, 2011, 9:13PM
 

Monique Lawless, an Alvin Walmart shopper who tried to stop an alleged theft Sunday, says she would probably do the same thing again, even though police recommend getting a good description instead.
It wasn't her beer.

 
Monique Lawless had nothing personal at stake when she saw three men leaving a Walmart store in Alvin with three cases of beer they didn't pay for. She was a customer, not an employee, of the store.

 
Yet Lawless, who stands just under 5 feet tall and weighs 125 pounds, took off in pursuit of the three much larger men.

 
"I'm just sick of the lawlessness," the 42-year-old Alvin woman said. "They knew their chances of getting caught were slim to none. Those kids would have gotten away with it, celebrated their theft and probably continue to do it."

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While I was picking peas this AM, I was reminded of how my mother and her sister used to roam around old cemetaries looking for this art expression.  You can find more by googling but at the end I have a link to what some of the rich and famous had put on their stones.

Here lies
Ezekial Aikle
Age 102
The Good Die Young.

 

Here lies Ann Mann,
Who lived an old maid
But died an old Mann.
Dec. 8, 1767

 

Here lies
Johnny Yeast
Pardon me
For not rising.

 

Here lies the body
of Jonathan Blake
Stepped on the gas
Instead of the brake.

 

Here lays Butch,
We planted him raw.
He was quick on the trigger,
But slow on the draw.

 

Sacred to the memory of
my husband John Barnes
who died January 3, 1803
His comely young widow, aged 23, has
many qualifications of a good wife,
and yearns to be comforted.

 

Sir John Strange
Here lies an honest lawyer,
And that is Strange.

 

I was somebody.
Who, is no business
Of yours.

 

Here lies Lester Moore
Four slugs from a .44
No Les No More

 

I told you I was sick!

 

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