March 29, 2013

2 billion "birds" will soon perish..(some will be infused with vodka)

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/03/peep-infused-vodka-and-other-things-to-do-with-2-billion-gelatinous-birds/274484/



Peep-Infused Vodka, and Other Things to Do With 2 Billion Gelatinous Birds
"Use everything about the Peep."

James Hamblin Mar 29 2013, 12:23 PM ET


In this 60th year of the Peep, two billion will come into existence. The New York Times Magazine had an exposé last spring that got into the trenches on how industrial Peep farming makes that possible. Turn a blind eye, though. Be thankful for the bounty and use it to its fullest.

Nicole Weston at Baking Bites stole the hearts and sensibilities of the Internet this week with "How to Make Peep-Infused Vodka."

Consider a mildly inspiring Peep sunflower cake.

Or a very inspiring Trojan Peep cake, 200 times the size of a normal Peep and containing multitudes. Everyone will be horrified.
inside peep cake 615.jpg
(Instructables)

Peepsicles, if only so you can say that word over and over

Peep tea

Peep sushi


snip

March 28, 2013

Every time I hear someone on the news telling about a massive "arsenal"

that is unearthed in a post-massacre search, I think about all those sad old people who are humiliated and publicly shamed when their hoarding is exposed in the news. There is no limit to the excoriation they suffer for what is obviously a mental illness/combined with misguided altruism. Every aspect of their life is exposed for all to see, as crews of people dismantle their lives, and confiscate/destroy/discard their belongings.

Some collect newspapers/magazines,others collect stray animals, some even collect everything.

The "stuff" they hang onto is surely dangerous to some extent, (stacks of stuff can fall on them) but the amount of grief they endure and the public shaming, is so extreme when it's compared to people who are into extreme weapons-hoarding. They are somehow righteous because they have a constitutional right to collect things that when used in the way they were intended to be used, can (and often do) kill and maim ......loved ones, themselves, and of course random strangers.

Maybe it's time to cut unarmed hoarders some slack..

March 26, 2013

Seattle boom an inconvenient truth for Republicans

Seattle boom an inconvenient truth for Republicans
http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020628294_westneat24xml.html?prmid=obinsource
All those jobs in liberal, high-tax Seattle get Republicans to thinking about the meaning of their economic policies. Not.

By Danny Westneat

Seattle Times staff columnist

In a dramatic reversal, Republicans responded to the news that Seattle has become one of the nation’s top jobs factories by openly questioning everything they’ve said over the years about job creation and how to grow the economy.

“Of all places,” said Reince Priebus, the national Republican chairman, who is leading the GOP in a soul-searching exercise. For years you heard the word ‘Seattle’ and the first thing you thought was: pot smokers and gays,” he said. “Well, the joke’s on us, because it turns out all those pot smokers and gays have jobs.”

A new jobs report showed Seattle businesses are on a hiring spree that has driven the city’s unemployment rate well below the rest of the state, to one of the lowest for big cities in the U.S. The realization that neither the city’s high taxes nor its endless bureaucratic red tape seem to have dampened this explosion of capitalism at all has already begun to shake up the local political scene.

Sen. Rodney Tom, leader of a mostly GOP coalition in the state Senate, said he was mulling switching parties. Again. “The whole point of joining with Republicans was to fight Seattle and its values,” Tom said at a press availability. “But while I’m fighting Seattle, businesses are moving there. It doesn’t make any sense.” At his side was Sen. John Braun, R-Centralia, who made news earlier this year for trying to cancel a Seattle sick-leave policy that Republicans had dubbed a “job-killing nightmare.”

He announced that due to Seattle’s job-creation record, he had reworked his bill so it would extend Seattle’s policies to the rest of the state instead.

snip

March 22, 2013

Christine Todd Whitman has the marriage issue solved

Yesterday I saw her on some show, and she actually suggested what I have believed to be the answer, for a very long time..

"Marriage" is two things..

(paraphrasing from her interview)

People legitimize their togetherness at a courthouse.."I choose this person to inherit, to make legal decisions for me when I cannot, to coparent any children we may have/adopt, to receive survivorship benefits I have, etc."

THEN

IF THEY WANT TO, they go to any church that will have them, and have a religious ceremony and the frills that go with it.

It solves almost all the problems

March 22, 2013

Chicago announces mass closing of elementary schools

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/22/us-usa-education-chicago-idUSBRE92K1CI20130322




By James B. Kelleher and Mary Wisniewski

CHICAGO | Thu Mar 21, 2013 8:28pm EDT

(Reuters) - Chicago will close 54 schools and 61 school buildings by the beginning of the next academic year in the country's third-largest public school district, a move that union leaders called the largest mass closing in the nation.

The district will shutter 53 elementary schools and one high school by August, primarily in Hispanic and African-American neighborhoods. The district, which has a $1 billion annual deficit, has said it needs to close underutilized schools to save money.


Enrollment in Chicago Public Schools has fallen 20 percent in the last decade, mainly because of population declines in poor neighborhoods. The district said it can accommodate 511,000 students, but only about 403,000 are enrolled. It said that nearly 140 of its schools are more than half empty.

The controversial decision to close dozens of schools follows a bitter strike by Chicago teachers last September, fought partly over the Chicago Teachers Union's accusation that Mayor Rahm Emanuel was undermining community schools in poor areas of the city. The school board must approve the closings and will vote on the matter May 22.

The 61 closings account for about 10 percent of elementary school facilities, according to the school district.

snip

March 16, 2013

Rick Snyder once said he might not run for re-election (2011)..

Has he announced his intentions yet?

If he runs and is defeated, is the gerrymandering so hopelessly skewed that the legislature will stay in the R column?

If a dem wins and has a non-compliant legislature, they would be in the same spot as Pres. O is now.

What Snyder has done can be UNdone, but it can only happen if the republicans are not fully entrenched in the statehouse.

I hope there's some serious ground work being done there.. and in Ohio..and in PA..

There is no reason on earth why republicans should be allowed to cruise in every so often and totally screw things up..

March 14, 2013

Buy as many guns as you like .... but

In my town there is a roving "auto-checkpoint". The location varies, but they stop every car and you have to produce valid driver's license, registration AND insurance. If you cannot do it, there is a parking lot full of tow trucks on hand to impound your vehicle.

It's a drag and a half to get "caught" in this thing, but it does three things:

1..It gets unlicenced, uninsured, unregistered cars/drivers off the road for a while
2. It generates income for the community by virtue(?) of the fines to be paid
3. It probably scares people into getting registration, licensing updates and insurance

Nuisance aside, it makes people aware of the vehicle laws and nudges people to either comply or become a passenger.

I KNOW that driving is not a constitutional right, but neither is killing/maiming another (and that is a definite end-result of a weapon used in the manner it is designed to be used).

I do not see well-regulated militias starting up anytime soon, but gun ownership is apparently not only constitutionally, but divinely designated, so why not at the very LEAST, make their acquisition and ownership more in line with modern living?

There was a time when auto ownership was all that was required to get out there and drive your brains out.. Somewhere along the line, the mayhem that was created by "some" necessitated a more common-sense approach to these potentially deadly possessions.

So...

buy a weapon, but first:

pass a REAL background check..one that's on FILE and can be re-checked,updated as necessary

buy insurance for potential mayhem caused by the possession

register/re-register/re-license every 2 years (like smog checks for cars)
.........proves continued insurance
.........proved continued location of the possession

the insurance should be a broad liability policy that would be sufficient to cover burial/medical care/damages ... for each weapon

I am not suggesting that door-to-door sweeps be done to "get the guns", but when there is a domestic violence report, a crime committed, a protective order issued, any guns would be "impounded" until the situation is resolved.

March 14, 2013

Living A Nightmare Since They Sold Their Business To A Chinese Company

Be careful what you ask for

http://www.businessinsider.com/vision-china-and-dmg-lawsuit-2013-3

Linette Lopez | Mar. 14, 2013, 2:56 PM | 3,563 | 12



AP/Sang Tan
It's the worst case scenario for an investor: You make a deal and your counterparty refuses to pay. Time to go to Court.

Terrible, of course, but a group of American investors are living a nightmare that takes that scenario one step farther. Despite having gone to Court and winning every judgement here in the States, they still can't get their money.

Somehow, it's stuck in China.

snip

And "they" can do this because it's incredibly hard to get a Chinese company's money out of the country and in the hands of foreign investors without the company's cooperation. VisionChina argues that moving the money is up to China's State Administration of Foreign Exhange (SAFE), and that SAFE isn't having it. The Court's response to that argument has basically been... prove it. So in the midst of the SEC's investigation into Chinese auditing firms, and the media hype around Chinese shorts, VisionChina's problem hasn't even been discussed.

March 14, 2013

Chris Hayes has been tapped to replace outgoing host Ed Schultz

By DYLAN BYERS |
3/14/13 9:44 AM EDT
http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/03/msnbcs-chris-hayes-to-replace-ed-schultz-159293.html

MSNBC's Chris Hayes has been tapped to replace outgoing host Ed Schultz in the 8 p.m. weeknight slot, according to network sources.

In just a year and a half, Hayes has generated a cult following as host of the weekend program "Up with Chris Hayes," which takes a progressive policy wonk's approach to the news. He will now host a show directly ahead of his mentor Rachel Maddow, MSNBC's marquee name, and, at age 34, will be the youngest primetime host in cable news television.

The move, first reported by Brian Stelter of the New York Times, was confirmed by sources for POLITICO. MSNBC is expected to make a formal announcement later today, and would not reply to a request for comment
Schultz announced on Wednesday night hat he would be ending his weeknight program and moving to a two-hour slot on Saturday and Sunday evenings. Schultz, a talk radio personality, has served as an MSNBC primetime host since 2009, and became best-known as an advocate for unions, labor and the middle class. His new show will air on weekend nights from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. -- a relative no-man's land for cable news programming.

Like former MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan, Schultz suggested that the move was his choice and that he wanted "to get out with the people and tell their stories." Sources at MSNBC told POLITICO that Schultz was more likely pushed out to make way for new -- and younger -- talent. By tapping Hayes, MSNBC is continuing its push to bring cable news to a younger demographic.

snip

March 12, 2013

Black smoke at night...boring Pope or No Pope game

Why not use a t-shirt cannon & shoot sparkly confetti? It would be much more festive..

red confetti for.... no pope

silvery confetti..... pope