Running a bit late this morning, since I couldn’t bear to drag my ass out of bed until six o’clock (plus I was pinned down under the covers by a dog who was looking pretty comfortable). That means I only get to watch the lo-cal news through one time, but it doesn’t look like much went on here yesterday anyway. There doesn’t seem to be much going on anywhere, really (except for that impending Iranian revolution thing, but there’s no live teevee of it, so that’s no fun, and if I have to hear a bunch of brainless twits continue to gush over “social networking” web sites much longer, I think I’m gonna puke). As Bill Maher said the the other night, finally, somebody found a use for Twitter.
I don’t know about you all, but I find it harder and harder to work up a good case of righteous indignation these days. I have to admire people who can still get themselves all worked up over shit. Like this person who finds PETA despicable, not because they dissed the President for swatting a fly, but because they’re a “celebrity misogynist cult” whose latest outrage (outrage!) is a new ad featuring Che Guevera’s granddaughter. Much to my surprise, it turns out that “pretty much” any activist group that isn’t specifically feminist is anti-feminist. I guess that gives me an excuse to quit taking care of the Single Payer NY website, since I’d hate to be anti-feminist and it’s a pain in the ass anyway.
The big problem with what (to my tiny little anti-feminist, misogynist brain) appears to be a pretty harmless ad (maybe a little too cutesy, with the carrot bandoleer and all) hoping to “inspire” a vegetarian revolution is that it “…is described titillatingly as “semi-nude†even though she is fully clothed….” Oh well. I guess the fact that she’s fully clothed is a bit of a bummer. Assuming that carrots count as clothes, that is.
My only suggestion for this outraged blogger is to change the default Bluehost favicon. You can have Sammy, if you want. Or just delete it from your root directory. I mean, c’mon. The blue waffle icon pretty much just screams “get back in the kitchen.”
Looks as though I’ve run out the clock here this morning, since Ratface Matt Lauer is on the teevee (he was apparently off last week), and Meredith Viera actually just compared the Jonas Brothers to the “young Beatles.” :barf: Damn, now I’m gonna have to brush my teeth again.
Americans are struggling to pay for healthcare in the ongoing economic recession, with a quarter saying they have had trouble in the past 12 months, according to a survey released on Monday.
Baby boomers — the generation born between 1946 and 1964 — had the most trouble and were the most likely to put off medical treatments or services, said researchers at Center for Healthcare Improvement, part of the Healthcare business of Thomson Reuters.
The study found that 17.4 percent of households reported postponing or delaying healthcare over the past year.
snip
Americans pay more per capita for healthcare than people in any other country, yet have high rates of infant mortality, diabetes, untreated heart disease and other conditions. Americans are often dissatisfied with their access to care.
http://www.reuters.com/article/euRegulatoryNews/idUSN2146504720090622
Of course, if you’re a REAL American you know this is the finest healthcare system in the world.
More than 98% of supposedly natural and environmentally friendly products on US supermarket shelves are making potentially false or misleading claims, Congress has been told. And 22% of products making green claims bear an environmental badge that has no inherent meaning, said Scot Case, of the environmental consulting firm TerraChoice.
The study of nearly 4,000 consumer products found “greenwashing” in nearly every product category – from a lack of verifiable information to outright lies.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/21/green-environment-ecology-congress-us-supermarkets
Interesting that this is from The Guardian (UK). I guess it wasn’t relevant enough for some US paper.
I have been enjoying listening to SederSider Johnson’s show every week at Blue Roots Radio, a nice combination of music I am surprised that I did not program myself and some news and views. Three streaming hours every week and updated on the weekend.
And speaking of Ohio, it’s been 40 years…
Burn on, big river, burn on!
All of Earth’s people, according to a new analysis of the genomes of 53 populations, fall into just three genetic groups. They are the products of the first and most important journey our species made — the walk out of Africa about 70,000 years ago by a small fraction of ancestral Homo sapiens.
One group is the African. It contains the descendants of the original humans who emerged in East Africa about 200,000 years ago. The second is the Eurasian, encompassing the natives of Europe, the Middle East and Southwest Asia (east to about Pakistan). The third is the East Asian, the inhabitants of Asia, Japan and Southeast Asia, and — thanks to the Bering Land Bridge and island-hopping in the South Pacific — of the Americas and Oceania as well.
snip
African populations today have greater genetic diversity — more variants in more genes — than Eurasians or East Asians, and Eurasians somewhat more than East Asians.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/21/AR2009062101726.html
:rofl2: :rofl2: :rofl2:
PJ… you never fail to crack me up….
:knit:
Gypsy’s :cake: is tomorrow!
Happy birthday, Gypsy. I bet the cake will be very good.
The Stanford study, by the Center for Research on Education Outcomes, used student achievement data from 15 states and the District of Columbia to gauge whether students who attended charter schools had fared better than they would if they had attended a traditional public school.
“The study reveals that a decent fraction of charter schools, 17 percent, provide superior education opportunities for their students,†the report says. “Nearly half of the charter schools nationwide have results that are no different from the local public school options, and over a third, 37 percent, deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their students would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools.â€
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/22/education/22duncan.html?ref=todayspaper
As charter schools have a population of students whose parents value school, while public schools, especially those from which the charter population is pulled, have too many children whose families don’t offer any support…or worse, they should be doing much better.
Two Metro trains collided on the Red Line. That aint good. One dead, so far.
"Officials have confirmed one fatality. There are numerous other injuries. Passengers are currently still trapped in the trains; emergency workers are using tools to cut them from the wreckage.[...]
Trains are not traveling between the Brookland and Fort Totten stations. Shuttle service is being established, but Metro spokeswoman Cathy Asato advised riders to completely avoid the Red Line this afternoon and evening.
[...]
Trains are operating between Glenmont and Brookland and between Shady Grove and Brookland stations and from Glenmont to Takoma Metrorail stations for the remainder of the day."
I rode the Red Line in and out of DC every day during my summer of hell. Brookland was my stop.
Of course, while I was looking at that story, the following headline caught my attention:
Woman Injured in Power Tool Sex Toy Encounter.
She was severely injured, so it isn’t funny, but, I must say, it makes autoerotic asphyxia seem tame by comparison.
Me and Granny just use the hammer drill (or the Sawzall, if it’s Christmas, and she’s been a very good girl).
Live video here (of the train crash, that is). They say it was a head-on. Sounds like one train derailed and hopped in front of an oncoming train. Bad timing.
#10- :rofl2:
The last time Sen. Pedro Espada, Jr. allied himself with the Republicans, Democrat Ruben Diaz, Sr. roundly defeated him in the general election by a nearly 2-1 margin in the heavily Democratic district. Seven years later, Espada is back on the Republican side of the aisle, and furious Democrats are eager to repeat the history of his defeat as well.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wires/2009/06/22/a-amarked-mana-espada-wil_1_ws_219156.html
Death toll up to 4 now.
geezus pj, you have me laughing all over the place (not at the train wreck, though).
I enjoy some of Twisty’s feminista writings. She pushes the envelope and the envelope needs pushing. That clause, however, over the top.
Has PETA shown any nude men? I don’t recall any, although I don’t exactly look for their ads. (I think I’d remember that one, though.)
Huffpo has a slide show of sexy Peta ads and there are some naked men.