A Laugh To Sooth Your New Year Woes
The holidays are over THANK ALL THAT IS GOOD, and it is now time to get back to normal entertainment as opposed to the fantasy type (Say like the old man in a red suit and his flying reindeer or the manger baby wrapped in swaddling clothes.) If you are of sound mind and in need of a good laugh or two, please read the columnist from The Atlantic magazine, Jeffrey Goldberg’s . A Laugh Out Loud and I mean LOUD. thinkingblue
PS: Peace
Ask Jeffrey Goldberg
Back in my day, I was a campus radical. Now my son, who is an Ivy League graduate but mostly unemployed, wants to get more involved in Occupy Wall Street. Based on my history, it’s hard for me to tell him this is a bad idea, but I’m not impressed with this movement’s lack of focus and I think he would better serve his future by getting a job and moving out of our home. I know what I sound like, but I think that since my wife and I still support him financially, he should take what I have to say into consideration, Am I wrong? H.L., Los Angeles, Calif.
–
Dear H.L., Your son’s desire raises several problems, not least of which is that he already lives in a socialist paradise—namely, your house—and so maybe he should stop complaining about the unfairness of life. I’m not critiquing his wish to see the world bettered for others, but might I make a couple of suggestions? Most Ivy League graduates are unaccustomed to pepper spray; perhaps he should spray himself in the face once or twice, to test his tolerance. He should also resist the urge to bring high-end camping equipment to protests—this will make him look fey and elitist.
~~~
I am a single woman in my 30s, and I would like to have a baby on my own. I don’t want to go to a sperm bank —too anonymous—and I’m lucky because I have four very acceptable guy friends, any of whom I think would be a willing donor if I choose to go that route. I’ve made lists of their various attributes, and they all basically, even out in the end. The only place where they really differ is in their level of academic achievement, specifically where they went to college. Two went to Ivy League schools (Harvard, Columbia), one went to Duke, and one went to a second-tier state school, the University of Kansas. I assume their undergraduate choices had to do with their SAT scores (I don’t know how they did on standardized testing, and I think it might be rude to ask), so those choices do seem pertinent. How much should I weigh this in making my decision? D.S., New York, N.Y.
–
Dear D.S., To avoid making such a difficult decision, I suggest you collect sperm from all four men, combine the donations in a test tube, and inject this potent mixture using the traditional turkey-baster method. Whichever sperm outswims, outfights, or outfoxes the others will fertilize your egg, which is as it should be, because I think the most ruthless and mercenary sperm is axiomatically the best sperm for you. I suspect that the University of Kansas sperm will win this competition. Just look at the school’s football program: while not on a par with Auburn or LSU, it could crush Columbia or Harvard. As for Duke, I would guess that the sperm will be too drunk to compete.
~~~
Prompted by various books and movies, I’ve decided to make a bucket list of all the things I want to do before I die. The problem is, I don’t know how to limit myself. I have a fair amount of money, and a good amount of time left (I hope), but there are a million places to visit and a million things to do. How do you think I should organize myself in this endeavor? L.D., Miami, Fla.
–
Dear L.D., I understand why you are flummoxed by the variety of choices before you. My suggestion is that you focus your thinking by making a reverse bucket list of all the things you are positive you don’t want to do. I’ve made a reverse bucket list of my own that you may use as a model. Here are 25 of the things that I hope never to do:
1. Climb Mount Everest
2. See any movie or read any book about self-actualizing rich people who climb Mount Everest
3. See that movie about the guy who cuts off his arm in a ravine that isn’t even on Mount Everest
4. Spend three weeks in a Turkish prison—again
5. Read The Remarkable Millard Fillmore, by George Pendle
6. Adopt small African children for ornamental purposes
7. Obey indoor firearms regulations
8. Retire to Abbottabad
9. Take a photograph of my penis and then tweet it
10. Collateralize a debt obligation
11. Juice cleanse
12. Colon cleanse
13. Ethnic cleanse
14. Go on an ayahuasca bender
15. Create a coat of arms for my family
16. Purchase a Teutonic trophy wife
17. Play golf with John Boehner
18. Play golf
19. Make love at midnight in the dunes on the Cape
20. Swim with dolphins, because swimming with dolphins means swimming in dolphin shit
21. Spend a week in a monastery
22. Spend a day in a monastery
23. Join LinkedIn
24. Update my software
25. Write an advice column
~~~
Now get ready for another LOL!
OCCUPY WALL STREET – AMERICAN AWAKENING
OCCUPY WALL STREET 4TH WEEK UPDATE
OCCUPY WALL STREET WEEK SIX – We Shall Overcome
OWS – POLICE RAID OVER HEALTH CONCERNS
The Dirty Truth Behind The New Natural Gas – July 2010 – UPDATE 2012
After viewing the documentary GASLAND, I was mortified and ashamed of what our species is capable of. If you think this is a free country… THINK AGAIN! The Bush/Cheney administration did everything in their power to take away as many freedoms as possible so doors could be opened to allow THE CORPORATE “BEING” to have free reign on getting at any type of resource no matter who or what was in the way. I know it’s hard to believe that they would go so far as to ruin our planet if only to make another buck. But with every dollar, they get a nickel’s worth of power. The Power to Destroy. If you haven’t seen Avatar I recommend you rent it. It is a chilling glimpse into the future of what can happen to Mother Earth when all her natural resources are depleted. Think it a fairytale? (Another… THINK AGAIN!) Watch the trailer Gasland below and The Daily Show featuring the filmmaker of Gasland, Josh Fox. Stay enlightened, information may be the only weapon we have to help save our planet against The Corporate World who will kill every living creature upon it, if they are allowed too.
—
UPDATE 2012 – I blogged this page almost 2 years ago, since then we have had Earth tremors and quakes in the Fracking areas that some experts believe are the direct result of Fracking. I know the Republicans want us all to feel that Corporations will do no harm, they care about us and our Earth. To that I say… THE SHIT OF THE BULL! Even in my own hometown there are people who are willing to destroy in order to gain BIG BUCKS for themselves… Go to this link to see how greed is on a steady course of destruction EVERYWHERE. http://www.youtube.com/user/liveoaklandfill
Please watch GASLAND and then watch the propaganda film on HOW WONDERFUL NATURAL GAS IS, brought to you by one of the United Corporations of America. 
thinkingblue
PS: 3 Cheers for Montana!!! Montana Supreme Court upholds election spending limits
GASLAND Trailer 2010
Ohio earthquake was not a natural event, expert says
2012 – CLEVELAND (Reuters) – A 4.0 magnitude earthquake in Ohio on New Year’s Eve did not occur naturally and may have been caused by high-pressure liquid injection related to oil and gas exploration and production, an expert hired by the state of Ohio said on Tuesday.
Ohio’s Department of Natural Resources on Sunday suspended operations at five deep well sites in Youngstown, Ohio, where the injection of water was taking place, while they evaluate seismological data from a rare quake in the area.
The wells are about 9,000 feet deep and are used to dispose of water from oil and gas wells. The process is related to fracking, the controversial injection of chemical-laced water and sand into rock to release oil and gas. Critics say that the high pressure injection of the liquid causes seismic activity.
Won-Young Kim, a research professor of Seismology Geology and Tectonophysics at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday that circumstantial evidence suggests a link between the earthquake and the high-pressure well activity.
“We know the depth (of the quake on Saturday) is two miles and that is different from a natural earthquake,” said Kim, who is advising the state of Ohio.
Data collected from four seismographs set up in November in the area confirm a connection between the quakes and water pressure at the well, Kim said.
“There is circumstantial evidence to connect the two — in the past we didn’t have earthquakes in the area and the proximity in the time and space of the earthquakes matches operations at the well,” he said.
A spokesman for Ohio Republican Gov. John Kasich, a strong supporter of oil and gas exploration in the state, said Ohio could announce a preliminary decision whether to continue the suspension of the wells as early as Wednesday.
The state was already looking into the cause of earlier seismic activity from 10 previous earthquakes, beginning in March, 2011.
According to Kim, this is not the first time Ohio tremors have been linked to human activities. “We have several examples of earthquakes from deep well disposal in the past,” Kim said.
A quake of 4.2 magnitude in Ashtabula, Ohio, on January 26, 2001, was believed to be due to deep-well injection, he said. And in 1987 there was an incident with a correlation to high pressure deep well injection, he said.
There are 177 so-called “class two” deep wells in Ohio, according to Tom Stewart, executive vice president of Ohio Oil and Gas Association. They all operate under federal guidelines spelled out by the Clean Water Act.
There is no evidence that the wells in Youngstown were operating at higher pressures than allowed, Stewart said.
“We haven’t seen anything from anyone at (the state agency) that would lead us to believe that the well was not operating properly,” he said.
Kim said that even though the wells have stopped pumping water into the rock, the area might not have experienced its last earthquake. “It could take a couple of years for the earthquakes to go away. The migration of the fluid injected into the rock takes a long time to leave,” Kim said.
Ohio’s Democratic Senator, Sherrod Brown, said the quick response by the state shows it is a serious issue.
“There are things we need to know about drilling and earthquakes,” Brown told Reuters on Tuesday.
Brown said he supports new energy exploration that brings jobs to the state but has questions about how companies will handle fracking and wastewater disposal. “They have got to answer the question of what they are going to do with the waste just like nuclear power,” Brown said.
(Editing by Greg McCune and Jim Marshall) MORE HERE – http://news.yahoo.com/ohio-earthquake-not-natural-event-expert-says-002703764.html
Natural Gas: The Energy to Move Forward
A Colossal Fracking Mess The dirty truth behind the new natural gas.
Related: A V.F. video look at a town transformed by fracking. Early on a spring morning in the town of Damascus, in northeastern Pennsylvania, the fog on the Delaware River rises to form a mist that hangs above the tree-covered hills on either side. A buzzard swoops in from the northern hills to join a flock ensconced in an evergreen on the river’s southern bank.
Stretching some 400 miles, the Delaware is one of the cleanest free-flowing rivers in the United States, home to some of the best fly-fishing in the country. More than 15 million people, including residents of New York City and Philadelphia, get their water from its pristine watershed. To regard its unspoiled beauty on a spring morning, you might be led to believe that the river is safely off limits from the destructive effects of industrialization. Unfortunately, you’d be mistaken. The Delaware is now the most endangered river in the country, according to the conservation group American Rivers.
A V.F. video look at a town transformed by fracking.
That’s because large swaths of land—private and public—in the watershed have been leased to energy companies eager to drill for natural gas here using a controversial, poorly understood technique called hydraulic fracturing. “Fracking,” as it’s colloquially known, involves injecting millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals, many of them toxic, into the earth at high pressures to break up rock formations and release natural gas trapped inside. Sixty miles west of Damascus, the town of Dimock, population 1,400, makes all too clear the dangers posed by hydraulic fracturing. You don’t need to drive around Dimock long to notice how the rolling hills and farmland of this Appalachian town are scarred by barren, square-shaped clearings, jagged, newly constructed roads with 18-wheelers driving up and down them, and colorful freight containers labeled “residual waste.” Although there is a moratorium on drilling new wells for the time being, you can still see the occasional active drill site, manned by figures in hazmat suits and surrounded by klieg lights, trailers, and pits of toxic wastewater, the derricks towering over barns, horses, and cows in their shadows.
The real shock that Dimock has undergone, however, is in the aquifer that residents rely on for their fresh water. Dimock is now known as the place where, over the past two years, people’s water started turning brown and making them sick, one woman’s water well spontaneously combusted, and horses and pets mysteriously began to lose their hair.
Craig and Julie Sautner moved to Dimock from a nearby town in March 2008. They were in the process of renovating their modest but beautifully situated home on tree-canopied Carter Road when land men from Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas, a midsize player in the energy-exploration industry, came knocking on their door to inquire about leasing the mineral rights to their three and a half acres of land. The Sautners say the land men told them that their neighbors had already signed leases and that the drilling would have no impact whatsoever on their land. (Others in Dimock claim they were told that if they refused to sign a lease, gas would be taken out from under their land anyway, since under Pennsylvania law a well drilled on a leased piece of property can capture gas from neighboring, unleased properties.) They signed the lease, for a onetime payout of $2,500 per acre—better than the $250 per acre a neighbor across the street received—plus royalties on each producing well.
Drilling operations near their property commenced in August 2008. Trees were cleared and the ground leveled to make room for a four-acre drilling site less than 1,000 feet away from their land. The Sautners could feel the earth beneath their home shake whenever the well was fracked.
Within a month, their water had turned brown. It was so corrosive that it scarred dishes in their dishwasher and stained their laundry. They complained to Cabot, which eventually installed a water-filtration system in the basement of their home. It seemed to solve the problem, but when the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection came to do further tests, it found that the Sautners’ water still contained high levels of methane. More ad hoc pumps and filtration systems were installed. While the Sautners did not drink the water at this point, they continued to use it for other purposes for a full year.
“It was so bad sometimes that my daughter would be in the shower in the morning, and she’d have to get out of the shower and lay on the floor” because of the dizzying effect the chemicals in the water had on her, recalls Craig Sautner, who has worked as a cable splicer for Frontier Communications his whole life. She didn’t speak up about it for a while, because she wondered whether she was imagining the problem. But she wasn’t the only one in the family suffering. “My son had sores up and down his legs from the water,” Craig says. Craig and Julie also experienced frequent headaches and dizziness.
By October 2009, the D.E.P. had taken all the water wells in the Sautners’ neighborhood offline. It acknowledged that a major contamination of the aquifer had occurred. In addition to methane, dangerously high levels of iron and aluminum were found in the Sautners’ water.
The Sautners now rely on water delivered to them every week by Cabot. The value of their land has been decimated. Their children no longer take showers at home. They desperately want to move but cannot afford to buy a new house on top of their current mortgage.
“Our land is worthless,” says Craig. “Who is going to buy this house?”
Josh Fox was a guest on The Daily Show Monday night,
WATCH Josh Fox on The Daily Show:
RNC Document Mocks Donors, Plays on ‘Fear’
Thom Hartmann on Freespeech TV
Please sign this very important petition “demand question time” (of our political leaders) HERE.. We really need more dialog from those at the top… The Republicans have got to be made to realize they can’t hide behind “NO” any longer! thinkingblue
MOVE TO AMEND
NEWS UPDATE: MONTANA
Montana Supreme Court upholds election spending limits
In a 5-2 opinion, the Montana court’s majority concluded that the state’s long history of well-funded natural resource extractors, small population and historically inexpensive political campaigns allow it to demonstrate compelling government interest in regulating corporate financial muscle. Even one of the justices who dissented — saying that the U.S. Supreme Court left no room for states to exempt themselves — argued forcefully against the broad corporate latitude encompassed in the Citizens United decision.
“Corporations are not persons. Human beings are persons, and it is an affront to the inviolable dignity of our species that courts have created a legal fiction which forces people — human beings — to share fundamental, natural rights with soulless creatures of government,” Justice James C. Nelson wrote in his reluctant dissent.
“Worse still, while corporations and human beings share many of the same rights under the law, they clearly are not bound equally to the same codes of good conduct, decency and morality, and they are not held equally accountable for their sins. Indeed, it is truly ironic that the death penalty and hell are reserved only to natural persons,” he wrote.
Let’s keep our heads, while we continue to watch THE THEATER OF THE ABSURD!!!
“A SEARCH FOR TRUTH WILL FIND INJUSTICE.”thinkingblue
OCCUPY WALL STREET – AMERICAN AWAKENING
OCCUPY WALL STREET 4TH WEEK UPDATE
OCCUPY WALL STREET WEEK SIX – We Shall Overcome
OWS – POLICE RAID OVER HEALTH CONCERNS
New Year Thoughts For 2012
Something to ponder on this first day of a New Year.
The 10 Smartest Pot Smokers on the Planet… Cool Enough to Admit It
I 
the beginning description on this piece…
EXCERPT: {{{You’ve probably seen those “Above The Influence” anti-drug commercials in which they show worst scenario outcomes to people smoking weed. Really depressing sh*t. They always make the person out to be an accidental murderer, or homeless, jobless, friendless. No prospects of anything positive on the horizon. Well, we have a list of the smartest people who ever admitted to smoking pot as a nice complement to the most successful people who owned up to puffin’ dope. Suck it, ATI.}}}
When are we as a population going to demand that our government stop pushing their legal (LETHAL) dope on us…
EXAMPLES BELOW:
MIRAPEX – for “Restless Leg Syndrome”
“…hallucinations may occur…”
“…increased gambling, sexual, or other overpowering urges…”
ABILIFY – bipolar disorder, schizophrenia
“coma or death…And trouble swallowing.”
FLOMAX – decreases symptoms from having an enlarged prostate (mainly frequent urination)
* runny nose
* dizziness
* decrease in semen
ALLI – weight loss aid
“These changes may include gas with oily discharge, an increased number of bowel movements, an urgent need to have them, and an inability to control them.”
VERAMYSYT – “treats allergy symptoms with a gentle fine mist that is scent-free.”
“nasal sores, glaucoma, cataracts and nasal fungal infection”
More disturbingly, ads for Veramyst used to say, “The way VERAMYST works is not entirely understood.”
ORTHO-NOVUM – birth control pill
“…benign but dangerous liver tumors. These benign liver tumors can rupture and cause fatal internal bleeding. In addition, some studies report an increased risk of developing liver cancer.”
ADVAIR – asthma treatment
“asthma related death”
CHANTIX – anti-smoking aid
“Nausea, sleep disturbance, constipation, flatulence, and vomiting.”
{{{That doesn’t sound so bad, except “sleep disturbance” is more like psychotic nightmares that persist even after you stop taking the pill.}}} MORE HERE
…and make common-sense drugs LEGAL??? It will be a Happy New Year 2012 when they first legalize medical marijuana (DUH)
and then the recreational kind. thinkingblue
Francis Crick – As a founding member of Soma, a legalize cannabis group, he also experimented pot, which he believed helped to remove the filters of abstract thought. 
The 10 Smartest Pot Smokers on the Planet… Cool Enough to Admit It
Steve Jobs
It’s been reported the Apple co-founder smoked pot and took LSD in his first semester at Reed College in Portland, Oregon in 1972. Since dropping out from the school, he’s only gone on to become one of the most successful and wealthiest people in America. In 1984, he received the National Medal of Technology from President Ronald Reagan. In 2007, Fortune Magazine named him the most powerful person in business and then California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger inducted him into the California Hall of Fame. Fortune also named him CEO of the Decade in 2009 while Forbes ranked him #57 on their list of the World’s Most Powerful People that same year. The Financial Times named Jobs its person of the year for 2010.
I’m not sure, but I don’t think you can have those kind of accolades being dumb. Plus, the guy’s a Beatles fan, dated Joan Baez, and sold one of his houses to Bono from U2. That’s some hip, hip company, my friend.
Carl Sagan
Astronomer, astrophysicist, cosmologist, pothead.
It’s hard to argue for pot slowing you down when you look at Carl Sagan’s record. Apparently a confirmed and admitted stoner, among his many achievements are a Pulitzer Prize, an Emmy, a best-selling novel, as well as more than 500 science papers and articles. He was a founding member of the Planetary Society, and he won a pipe load of scientific awards. Hardly surprising, he is said to have believed in the validity of stoned insights. I believe in them too, it’s just that Carl’s revolved around the origins of the cosmos, not which bagel store is open at 3 in the morning.
Stephen Jay Gould
Paleontologist, biologist, science historian.
Most famous scientific contribution was the theory of punctuated equilibrium, which says that most evolution is marked by long periods of stability. Kind of like most of us after a good bong hit. One of the most influential and best read writers of popular science, Gould became an advocate for medical marijuana following his diagnosis with cancer. He claimed it had an “important effect” on his recovery. He also testified in court to the benefits of marijuana, and is quoted as saying “it is beyond my comprehension that any humane person would withhold such a beneficial substance from people in such great need simple because others use it for different purposes.”
Gould used pot to help retain his health for twenty years, the same period during which he wrote The Structure of Evolutionary Theory, not what you might call an insignificant work.
Francis Crick
Won a Nobel Prize for figuring out the double-helix structure of DNA. Rumor has it that he was on acid at the time. Crick wasn’t the first to see twin twisted monsters coming at him during an acid plunge, but he was the first to recognize as an important scientific discovery. As a founding member of Soma, a legalize cannabis group, he also experimented pot, which he believed helped to remove the filters of abstract thought.
Margaret Mead
Ok, so it’s probably not totally accurate to describe Margaret Mead as a pothead, but she was a major proponent for marijuana, so we’re going to widen the definition a bit.
When she died in 1978, Mead was possibly the most famous Anthropologist on the planet. Time had named her Mother of the World in 1969. She authored or co-authored around 40 books, received 28 honorary doctorates, and was President of both the American Anthropological Association and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Most famously, she testified before Congress on the legalization of marijuana. She testified on lots of stuff, but it’s this one everyone remembers. Afterwards, she was called a dirty old lady, crazy, and no doubt many other things.
Andrew Weil
Had a mushroom named after him. Do we need to know any more? Well, yes, we do. Although he looks like he’s been binging on an all-night high, Dr. Weil has medical and biology degrees from Harvard, is a naturopath, as well as a widely acknowledged expert on medicinal herbs, alternative medicines, and mind and body interactions. He was on the cover of Time, has written a bunch of books, and used to write for High Times. He talks about the advantages of stoned thinking, as well as an innate need to alter consciousness. Is that him or us? Whatever, it’s clearly worked for him.
Kary Mullis
Another Nobel Prize winner, another stoner. Mullis tried heavier drugs than just pot. He invented the polymerase chain reaction, which if it’s slipped your mind, is the one that allows duplication of parts of DNA. He says acid helped him to develop it, perhaps along with pot, which he allegedly smoked just before his first trip. While most of us have trouble figuring out how a chair works when we’re high, this guy was working out how to mimic nature.
Oliver Sacks
If you’ve seen “Awakenings” with Robin Williams, you already know something of Oliver Sacks’ work. He’s a neurologist, the film based on his book of the same name. He also wrote The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Sacks is an Oxford graduate and professor of neurology at Columbia Medical Center. He’s been referred to as the poet laureate of medicine, and received numerous awards and honorary doctorates in the field of neurological science. Not bad for a man who’s admitted to using marijuana on a more that recreational level, seeing it as a potential gateway to other minds and other consciousnesses.
Richard Feynman
Physicist who helped design the atomic bomb. Well, nobody said anyone on this list was wise, just smarter than average. Feynman used pot to enhance his out of body experiences while in a sensory deprivation tank. When he came out, he won a Nobel Prize for his theory of quantum electrodynamics.
Sergey Brin
He has a BS from the University of Maryland, a MS from Stanford and took PhD courses at Stanford before putting that on hiatus to co-found Google with Larry Page. His dad’s a math professor at the University of Maryland. His mom’s a research scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. His wife, Ann Wojcicki, is a biotech analyst who graduated with a B.S. in biology from Yale in 1996. She and Brin are working with leading researchers to help doctors, patients, and researchers analyze the human genome data and try to repair “bugs” as if DNA were HTML. He was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering, which is “among the highest professional distinctions accorded to an engineer” and received the Marconi Foundation Prize, the “Highest Award in Engineering”. Like Jobs (see above), he’s among the wealthiest in the world.
I can only imagine the first time he described DNA as HTML to someone, he/she must’ve been like, “are you high?” To which, he responded, “No! Why? You holdin’?”
MORE HERE -http://coedmagazine.com/2011/02/02/the-10-smartest-pot-smokers-on-the-planet-cool-enough-to-admit-it/
Behind The Facade Of Holiday Cheer, Lies A Callous Reality
Behind The Facade Of Holiday Cheer, Lies A Callous Reality
What to post on the days before Christmas? There’s so much out there in THE INTERNET CLOUD it is hard to choose. I wanted a holiday story that would send warm fuzzies to others, you know the thing you’re expected to do during “TIS THE SEASON TO BE JOLLY. My first choice was “White House Christmas trees then and now”… But when I opened that headline I thought… HO HUM, how boring (since aging, cynicism has taken over many of my thinking brain cells)… After rejecting THAT one and FAST, I, out of sad curiosity, opened this headline: “9-year-old NYC boy chokes in school cafeteria” http://news.yahoo.com/9-old-nyc-boy-chokes-school-cafeteria-154913556.html
NEW YORK (AP) — Family members and a witness say a New York City fourth grader choked on meatballs during lunch earlier this month while school cafeteria workers stood by. The boy later died. The New York Post (http://nyp.st/td2pmw ) reported Saturday that 9-year-old Jonathan Jewth fell to the ground during lunch Dec. 5 at Public School 47 in the Bronx. He was unconscious before help arrived.A parent at the school, Andrea Perez, told the newspaper she saw the boy choking but cafeteria workers did nothing. She said at one point they yelled at him to put his fingers down his throat.”He was on the ground and not moving after a while,” Perez said through a Spanish-speaking translator. “Nobody was paying attention and they didn’t know how to give aid, nobody knew what to do.”She said she did not know how to resuscitate the boy so she called 911 and started screaming for help. Another parent tried to help the boy, the newspaper reported. Jewth was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center. Jonathan’s family told the newspaper he suffered brain damage and died Monday. Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott said his death was a tragedy. Education officials haven’t responded to requests for comment about the family’s and Perez’s account. Tearful mourners bid farewell to 9-year-old Jonathan Jewth
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/tearful-mourners-bid-farewell-9-year-old-jonathan-jewth-article-1.993188
Reading the article made me at first think: HOW COULD THE SCHOOL WORKERS STAND AROUND AND WATCH A LITTLE BOY CHOKING AND DO NOTHING? How in the world could a little boy die in the middle of a busy school cafeteria? Then I thought about how our Nation has become MEANER THAN A JUNK YARD DOG…
Oh, from all appearances, there’s the usual Christmas ‘Loving and Sharing Theme’ going on… but a closer look will tell a different story… The holidays at the end of each year are mainly full of propagandized greed by the United Corporations of America. Buy this, Buy that, GIVE THIS GIFT OF LOVE (and give us the $$$) it’s enough to make you “CRY AUNT”!
I don’t know the exact moment our country became Grinch (or Gingrich) like, I think maybe it always was there from the moment the Europeans moved in and kicked out the original owners. Perhaps, we humans are incapable of genuine empathetic caring… Maybe we’ve evolved into MEAN with loving tendencies weaned from our nature by propaganda machines running FULL BLAST 24/7.
‘The Selfish Gene’ By Richard Dawkins – Tells about a theory that we human animals had developed a Selfish Gene, during our evolutionary journey in order to guarantee our species’ survival. Below is a summary of this astonishing and enlightening Dawkins’ work.
Introduction
We are all just a colony of genes, also to be thought of as survival machines, gene vehicles or “lumbering robots” created by and for the benefit of our genes. We are the vehicles and the genes inside of us are the selfish replicators seeking immortality. This is the same for all living organisms. Of course the genes are not really selfish in the sense that they have a consciousness. However, genes that survive and reproduce are able to live and increase their number, and genes that don’t survive and reproduce are eliminated and no longer exist. Genes can therefore be thought of as having a selfish “desire” for immortality through survival and reproduction and as Dawkins states: “The predominant quality to be expected in a successful gene is ruthless selfishness”.
What is a Gene?
A gene is NOT DNA and it is NOT a Chromosome. Richard Dawkins explains that a gene is somewhere between a Cistron, which is an extremely small segment of DNA that is is involved in producing proteins, and a Chromosome, which is a very long DNA molecule which contains hundreds or thousands of genes. A gene could be said to be a playing card or a page in a book and a Chromosome could be said to be a deck of playing cards or an entire book. Genes are the fundamental unit of natural selection because they are the most potentially immortal of all of the other known biological self replicating units (i.e. individual organisms, groups of organisms or even chromosomes because of their constant mutation and re-arrangement between sexually reproduced generations). After this foundation has been established, this book is mostly a study of the biology of selfishness and altruism based on the Selfish Gene Theory.
Selfish Behavior in Nature
Richard Dawkins begins by presenting some examples of animals behaving selfishly in nature including:
Female praying mantises eating the heads off of male praying mantises during copulation
Black Headed Gulls eating their neighbors babies right out of their nests
Penguins pushing each other into “unknown and potentially dangerous water” as test guinea pigs
Altruistic Behavior in Nature
He then gives several examples of animals who seem to be behaving altruistically in nature including:
Small birds giving alarm calls to their flock when they see a predator, even at the risk of drawing attention to themselves.
The parents of ground nesting birds who appear to predators as if they have broken their wing and distract the predator away from their nest at high risk to themselves.
Gazelles who leap out in front of predators in order to distract them away from the heard in an act called “strotting”
Kamikaze worker bee’s stinging intruders and then dying
Siblings, parents and children looking out for each other and helping one another to survive and reproduce.
Survival of the Stable
Richard Dawkins then introduces a principle called “survival of the stable”. He explains that in nature things eventually finds a stable state and once something has found a stable state, it has a tendency to stay that way. This is the case of most species in a population. They have found an Evolutionary Stable Strategy (ESS) that allows their genes to survive in their current environment. The stable prevails.
READ MORE: http://www.broderickboyd.com/2009/06/selfish-gene-by-richard-dawkins-summary.html
Although Richard Dawkins possesses a genius ability to convey his enormous intellect and learning in a way that the average person can understand; still it may be a bit confusing or disjointed for those of us who are not Ethologists and Evolutionary Biologists but you can draw a conclusion that in order to survive and evolve for millions of years there must have been an element built-in (like a gene dubbed, SELFISH).
But let us return to the trapped habit laden world where we spend most of our time reading stories like that of school workers watching and doing nothing as a young child chokes to death. I blame a lot of the callousness that has gripped our country on politics and marketing. Most politicians will do anything to gain or retain power and by anything I mean NASTY STUFF… They use fear to promote hatred which subsequently turns us working folk, against each other, or worse, by telling us that empathy is for wimps and the weak. I found this website that IMHO, says it best:
Newspeak and the Corruption of Politics By Ernest Partridge, Co-Editor of The Crisis Papers
http://www.crisispapers.org/essays6p/newspeak.htm
All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer. I should expect to find … that the German, Russian and Italian languages have all deteriorated in the last ten or fifteen years, as a result of dictatorship. George Orwell (1946)
“Politics and the English Language”Language is the constant yet unnoticed current that conveys our thoughts. Thus, in the game of politics, the party which controls the language controls the contest.
Newt Gingrich knows this, GOP strategist Frank Luntz knows this, and George Orwell, their apparent mentor, knew this.
So why don’t the Democrats know this?I don’t mean to suggest that we are necessarily captive to the currents of language. Like a skilled navigator, one can factor the currents of language into the calculations of one’s judgment; But only if a person or a party takes the trouble to pause and take notice of the language.
Regrettably, the Democrats have not. For a party that is allegedly preferred by intellectuals, the Democrats have been tactically naïve and stupid, prisoners of their discredited habits. To be sure, astute scholars such as George Lakoff and Geoffrey Nunberg have offered the Democratic Party chiefs the key to their jail cells and have shown them the way out, but they have been told, in effect, “Thanks, but no thanks.” And Noam Chomsky is regarded as “too extreme” and an embarrassment. Never mind that he is the foremost linguist of our time.
Newspeak Lives!In “The Principles of Newspeak,” an appendix to his novel, 1984, George Orwell wrote this as a warning. The Right has apparently adopted it as its strategy. Thus we find “Newspeak” at work in Newt Gingrich’s self-explanatory memo, “Language as a Political Weapon.” And GOP strategist Frank Luntz has played the English language like Itzhak Perlman plays his Strad.
“Liberalism,” then and now.Consider, for example, what the word-meisters of The Right have done to the word “liberal.”
Webster’s Dictionary gives us this traditional definition of “liberal:”
“From the latin, liberalis – of or pertaining to a freeman. Favoring reform or progress, as in religion, education, etc.; specifically, favoring political reforms tending toward democracy and personal freedom for the individual. Progressive.”
Throughout our history, up to the late twentieth century, “liberal” has been an honored word, applied approvingly by our founders. George Washington, for example, wrote: “As mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see American among the foremost nations of justice and liberality.”
Today, however, the propaganda mills of the right, and especially the regressive screech merchants of AM radio and cable TV, have turned the word “liberal” into an epithet, like a piece of rotten fruit to be hurled at the candidate or political commentator willing to be called a “liberal.” Remember the 2004 GOP ads? “Brie-eating, chardonnay-drinking, latte-sipping, French-speaking, Volvo-driving, New York Times reading, elite liberals.” The word connotes “tax and spend,” “welfare cheats,” bureaucratic interference in “free enterprise,” and a weak military. To Ann Coulter, it means nothing less than “treason.”
Thus it is no surprise that when pollsters ask the ordinary citizens to describe their political orientation, “conservative” comes out ahead, followed by “moderate,” with “liberal” a poor third.
And yet, when the same citizens are asked their opinions on Social Security, Medicare, environmental protection, public education, economic justice, racial tolerance, and the separation of church and state, by substantial majorities they endorse the traditional liberal agenda. In short, the American public remains liberal, even though it has been persuaded to despise and reject the word “liberal.” And that should be regarded as good news by The Left, for it is the ideology and the program that matter. “Liberal” is merely a word.
Recall the quotation from Orwell:“… a thought diverging from the principles of [the Party] – should be literally unthinkable… This was done partly by the invention of new words, but chiefly by eliminating undesirable words, and by stripping such words as remained of unorthodox meanings…”
Now try to explain and defend the “liberal” ideas of Franklin Roosevelt, Adlai Stevenson, and the Kennedys. You can no longer do so simply by casually dropping the word “liberal” in conversation and debate. The word “liberal” has been spoiled by the relentless assault upon it by The Right, and thus today it has become useless and even harmful in ordinary discourse. In Orwell’s words, right-wing propaganda has succeeded in “eliminating” this “undesirable word,” “liberal,” thus making its original meaning simply “unthinkable.” And there is no word available yet to take its place. So what is the (old-definition) liberal to do? The remedy is simple: drop the word “liberal” and give the program a new name: “progressive.” Unfortunately, it will take some time for this new word for old ideas to take hold in the general population.
The Right has learned its lesson well from its mentor, George Orwell.
Who is a “Conservative.”
Imagine that you meet a visitor from abroad who is fluent in English and well acquainted with American history. However, he knows nothing about contemporary American politics and its rhetoric, and he is eager to learn about it.
You explain that there are two contending political ideologies:
One ideology is out to uproot the founding documents of our republic, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and take our society and economy back to the condition it was in over a hundred years ago. The other steadfastly endorses and defends those founding documents, and defends the gains in economic and social justice painfully obtained throughout the history of the American republic.
You then tell the visitor that one of these ideologies calls itself “conservative.” Which one would he reasonably conclude that you were referring to? If he selects the second, he is in agreement with Webster’s, which thus defines “conservative:” “The practice of preserving what is established; disposition to oppose change in established institutions and methods.”
How then should one describe this first ideology, which advocates and strives to achieve a return to an earlier condition of the economy and society. Clearly “conservative” won’t do. How about “regressive.” That’s what I’ve chosen, and I urge that you do likewise. If the Democrats were to adopt “regressive” to describe the policies of the Republicans, and if they were to use the word “regressive” persistently in their publications, speeches, and media appearances, it might have a devastating effect on the GOP.
In fact, “liberal vs. conservative” is a false dichotomy. It is possible to be both, and indeed a thoughtful progressive is both. Janus-like, the progressive looks both backward and forward in time: backward, by cherishing and preserving the priceless legacies of the past; and forward, identifying injustices to be set right and anticipating problems that must be faced and dealt with. http://www.crisispapers.org/essays6p/newspeak.htm
In any case, how sad for us Americans to live a life of perpetual fear and hate due to the megalomaniacs amongst us whose only objective is winning in order to gain POWER, MONEY and become SLAVE MASTER over us all.
Happy Holidays! 
thinkingblue.com
PS: One more word from The Summery of Richard Dawkins’ of THE SELFISH GENE.
The “A for Andromeda” Analogy
This is another analogy for why genes function the way they do, based on the book “A for Andromeda” by John Elliot and Fred Hoyle. In this book, an intelligent society, 200 light years away from earth devises a plan to communicate with other intelligent civilizations across space. They reason that since it will take a very very long time to communicate with a distant intelligent society (with earth it would take at least 400 years just to get back a response from a message sent out) they came up with a solution. They devise a code that was then transmitted as a constant stream of data out into the universe. 200 years later the data is picked up by humans on earth. The signal is decoded and discovered to be a computer program. The scientists who discovered it then develop the program and find out that it contains instructions to build a more advanced computer with more advanced software. The government soon finds out about the project and takes over and the “Andromeda Computer” is build. They soon find out, however, that the Andromeda computer does not have completely altruistic intentions and soon begins controlling the minds of those around it. It also directs them to construct a new life form which eventually, with the computer’s help, works to destroy the human race and take over the earth. The machine and the lifeforms created with it’s assistance are soon destroyed by the main character and the story ends shortly thereafter. This whole story is a good example of how our genes work like the broadcasted signal from Andromeda to create us, their lumbering robot machines, to do their bidding.
In The Selfish Gene Richard Dawkins coined the term “meme” in his account of a selective explanation for cultural behaviors. A meme is a cultural unit (an idea or value or pattern of behavior) that is passed from one person to another by non-genetic means (as by imitation); “memes are the cultural counterpart of genes.” This theory serves as an explanation by bypassing biological fitness altogether. It is not necessary for an idea to truly be beneficial to the person who has it, it only need to have appeal, “fitness,” of it’s own right.
Sincere condolences’ to the Jewth family, there truly are no words that could ease the pain of losing one so young but many thoughts are with you in your time of sorrow.
Rick Perry ‘Strong’ More Dislikes On Youtube Than Rebecca Black ‘Friday’
The Republican Party has always represented HATE but during this presidential election period the GOP has gone over the cliff in the HATE category. Rick Perry is an example of this HATE and ANYONE who thinks of old Ricky Boy as ethical, straightforward and just a regular kind of a guy should hang their head in shame. By choosing to stand with this despicable disgraceful, dishonorable, embarrassing ignoramus, one is saying to the world “Hey world, I’m just as disgusting as Rick Perry!”
Why a person would want to go through their short lives as a miserable xenophobic … BTHOM?
Below is a video I put together using Rick Perry’s hateful propaganda film he dubbed ‘STRONG’… Strange he used the word STRONG when the only strength of this ad is its SMELL!
thinkingblue
Rick Perry’s ‘Strong’ Ad Surpasses Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’ With More Dislikes On YouTube
Rick Perry’s controversial anti-gay ad, titled “Strong,” has officially upset people.
The reaction has actually been so negative that the posting of the ad on YouTube has just achieved the record for the most dislikes on a single video. The clip surpassed Rebecca Black’s now infamous “Friday” music video to claim the top spot as YouTube’s most hated video.
Currently, Perry’s video has approximately 300,000 “dislikes,” while Black’s has a little over 253,000. However, at this point, while over 10 million people have viewed “Friday,” only about 750,000 have viewed Perry’s ad, meaning a stagering 40 percent of viewers have not only disapproved of the spot, but openly expressed their dislike online.
Needless to say, the Perry campaign isn’t happy. Their previous ad “Faith” is also posted on YouTube, doesn’t prominently display the “Likes” versus “Dislikes” count, and still has over 25,000 “dislikes.”
The video itself has been so controversial, that Perry’s own staff is divided over it. Sources close to the Perry campaign have told the Huffington Post that even top officials in the campaign were uncomfortable with the language of the ad. Nonetheless, it began running in Iowa on Wednesday.
The Perry campaign’s newest ad, “Repeal,” which touts Perry’s promise to “repeal Obamacare,” doesn’t give YouTube viewers the option of to Like, Dislike or even post comments below the video, as pointed out by the Perry Presidential blog, maintained by the Houston Chronicle and Hearst Newspapers.
You can watch both Rebecca Black’s “Friday” and Rick Perry’s “Strong” videos (below). Scroll past the clips to view a screenshots (take at press time) confirming the “dislike” counts on Perry’s ad vs. Black’s music video. More Here
RICK PERRY ‘STRONG’ MORE DISLIKES THAN REBECCA BLACK ‘FRIDAY’ ON YOUTUBE
STOP THE BILL THAT WILL DESTROY THE WHOLE FREAKEN INTERNET
REALITY FICTION – A STRANGE TALE OF POVERTY by STEPHEN KING
BIG GARBAGE DUMP RAMPED DOWN THROATS OF A SMALL TOWN
OCCUPY WALL STREET – AMERICAN AWAKENING
OCCUPY WALL STREET 4TH WEEK UPDATE
OCCUPY WALL STREET WEEK SIX – We Shall Overcome
To Newt Gingrich & All Idiots Who Make Light Of Poverty
To Newt Gingrich & All Idiots Who Make Light Of Poverty
This is reality, not a reality show
Herman Wouk Is Still Alive (A strange tale based on a true story by Stephen King)
I wish the hell Newt Gingrich would read this Stephen King’s short story and breathe in some of the foul air of poverty. But he knows the stink; he’s just playing the game that Republicans like to play. Feed them (their R disciples) what they want to hear and they will follow you as if you were a god. Now that’s one big STINK for sure. Anyway, this is an intriguing read based on a true story but get ready for some sadness because that’s 90% of what you get when born into poverty.
(“This is reality, not a reality show”.) With this ending quote, I have to wonder if the woman driving the van, contemplated in a moment of time her suicide and the murder of her friend and their 7 children. It’s a sad statement and an assertion I do not believe the Gingrichs and the Trumps of this world could ever understand. thinkingblue
Herman Wouk Is Still AliveSpecial Report: How Genius Works Brenda should be happy. The kids are quiet, the road stretches ahead of her like an airport runway, she’s behind the wheel of a brand-new van. The speedometer reads 70. Nonetheless, that grayness has begun to creep over her again. The van isn’t hers, after all. She’ll have to give it back. A foolish expense, really, because what’s at the far end of this trip, up in Mars Hill? She looks at her old friend. Jasmine is looking back at her. The van, now doing almost a hundred miles an hour, begins to drift. Jasmine gives a small nod. Brenda nods back. Then she pushes down harder with her foot, trying to find the van’s carpeted floor.
By Stephen KingImage credit: From The Portland Press Herald, September 19, 2009
I. BRENDA HITS PICK-4 FOR $2,700 AND RESISTS HER FIRST IMPULSE.
Instead of going out for a bottle of Orange Driver to celebrate with, she pays off the MasterCard, which has been maxed like forever. Then calls Hertz and asks a question. Then calls her friend Jasmine, who lives in North Berwick, and tells her about the Pick-4. Jasmine screams and says, “Girl, you’re rich!”
If only. Brenda explains how she paid off the credit card so she can rent a Chevy Express if she wants to. It’s a van that seats nine, that’s what the Hertz girl told her. “We could get all the kids in there and drive up to Mars Hill. See your folks and mine. Show off the grandchildren. Squeeze ’em for a little more dough. What do you think?”
Jasmine is dubious. The glorified shack her folks call home doesn’t have room, and she wouldn’t want to stay with them even if it did. She hates those two. With good reason, Brenda knows; her own father broke Jasmine in at fifteen. Her mother knew what was going on and did nothing. When Jasmine went to her in tears, her ma said, “You got nothing to worry about, he’s had his nuts cut.”
Jas married Mitch Robicheau to get away from them, and now, three men, four kids, and eight years later, she’s on her own. And on welfare, although she gets sixteen hours a week at the Roll Around, handing out skates and making change for the video arcade, where the machines take only special tokens. They let her bring her two youngest. Delight sleeps in the office and Truth, her three-year-old, wanders around in the arcade hitching at his diapers. He doesn’t get into too much trouble, although last year he got head lice and the two women had to shave all his hair off. How he howled.
“There’s six hundred left over after I paid off the credit balance,” Brenda says. “Well, four hundred if you count the rental, only I don’t, because I can put that on MasterCard. We could stay at the Red Roof, watch Home Box. It’s free. We can get takeout from downstreet and the kids can swim in the pool. What do you say?”
From behind her comes yelling. Brenda raises her voice and screams, “Freddy, you stop teasing your sister and give that back!” Then, oh goody, their squabbling wakes up the baby. Either that or Freedom has messed in her diapers and awakened herself. Freedom always messes in her diapers. To Brenda it seems like Free is making poop her life’s work. Takes after her father that way.
“I suppose …” Jasmine says, drawing suppose out to four syllables. Maybe five.
“Come on, girl! Road trip! Get with the program! We take the bus down to the Jetport and rent the van. Three hundred miles, we can be there in four hours. The girl says they can watch DVDs. The Little Mermaid and all that good stuff.”
“Maybe I could get some of that government money from my ma before it’s all gone,” Jasmine says thoughtfully. Her brother Tommy died the year before, in Afghanistan. IED. Her ma and dad got eighty thousand out of it. Her ma has promised her some, although not when the old man is in hearing distance of the phone. Of course it may be gone already. Probably is. She knows Mr. Romance bought a Yamaha rice rocket, although what he wants with a thing like that at his age, Jasmine has no idea. And she knows things like government money are mostly a mirage. This is something they both know. Every time you see bright stuff, somebody turns on the rain machine. The bright stuff is never colorfast.
“Come on,” Brenda says. She has fallen in love with the idea of loading up the van with kids and her best (her only) friend from high school, who ended up living just one town over. Both of them on their own, seven kids between them, too many lousy men in the rearview, but sometimes they still have a little fun.
She hears a thunk sound. Freddy starts to scream. Glory has whopped him in the eye with an action figure.
“Glory you stop that or I’ll tear you a new one!” Brenda screams.
“He won’t give back my Powerpuff!” Glory shrieks, and she starts to cry. Now they’re all crying—Freddy, Glory, and Freedom—and for a moment grayness creeps over Brenda’s vision. She’s seen a lot of that grayness lately. Here they are in a three-room third-floor apartment, no guy in the picture (Tim, the latest in her life, took off six months ago), living pretty much on noodles and Pepsi and that cheap ice cream they sell at Walmart, no air-conditioning, no cable TV, she had a job at the Quik-Flash store but the company went busted and now the store’s an On the Run and the manager hired some Taco Paco to do her job because Taco Paco can work twelve or fourteen hours a day. Taco Paco wears a do-rag on his head and a nasty little mustache on his upper lip and he’s never been pregnant. Taco Paco’s job is to get girls pregnant. They fall for that little mustache and then boom, the line in the little drugstore testing gadget turns blue and here comes another one, just like the other one.
Brenda has personal experience; she tells people she knows who Freddy’s father is, but she really doesn’t, she had a few drunk nights when they all looked good, and really, come on, how is she supposed to look for a job anyway? She’s got these kids. What’s she supposed to do, leave Freddy to mind Glory and take Freedom to the goddamn job interviews? Sure, that’ll work. And what is there, besides drive-up-window girl at Mickey D’s or the Booger King? Portland has a couple of strip clubs, but wide loads like her don’t get that kind of work, and everyone else is broke.
She reminds herself she hit the lottery. She reminds herself they could be in a couple of air-conditioned rooms tonight at the Red Roof—three, even! Why not? Things are turning around!
“Brennie?” Her friend sounds more doubtful than ever. “Are you still there?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Come on, girl, I’m approved. The Hertz chick says the van is red.” She lowers her voice and adds: “Your lucky color.”
“Did you pay off the credit card online? How’d you do that?” Jasmine knows what happened to Brenda’s laptop. Freddy and Glory got fighting last month and knocked Brenda’s laptop off the bed. It fell on the floor and broke.
“I used the one at the library.” She says it the way she grew up in Mars Hill saying it: liberry. “I had to wait awhile to get on, but it’s worth it. It’s free. So what do you say?”
“Maybe we could get a bottle of Allen’s,” her friend says. Jasmine loves that Allen’s Coffee Brandy, when she can get it. In truth, Jasmine loves anything when she can get it.
“Apple-solutely,” Brenda says. “And a bottle of Driver for me. But I won’t drink while I’m behind the wheel, Jas. You can, but I’ll wait. I have to keep my license. It’s about all I got left.”
“Can you really get any money out of your folks, do you think?”
Brenda tells herself that once they see the kids—assuming the kids can be bribed (or intimidated) into good behavior—she can. “But not a word about the lottery,” she says.
“No way,” Jasmine says. “I was born at night but it wasn’t last night.”
They yuk at this one, an oldie but a goodie.
“So what do you think?”
“I’ll have to take Eddie and Rosellen out of school …”
“BFD,” Brenda says. “So what do you think, girl?”
After a long pause on the other end, Jasmine says, “Road trip!”
“Road trip!” Brenda hollers back.
Then they are chanting it while the three kids bawl in Brenda’s Sanford apartment and at least one (maybe two) is bawling in Jasmine’s North Berwick apartment. These are the fat women nobody wants to see when they’re on the streets, the ones no guy wants to pick up in the bars unless the hour is late and the mood is drunk and there’s nobody better in sight. What men think when they’re drunk—Brenda and Jasmine both know this—is that thunder thighs are better than no thighs at all. They went to high school together in Mars Hill and now they’re downstate and they help each other when they can. They are the fat women nobody wants to see, they have a litter of children between them, and they are chanting Road trip, road trip like a couple of cheerleading fools. READ MORE HERE
~~~~~~~~~~
Another very sad tale of poverty
Poverty is a bitter reality that mankind has lived with since the time he became a conscience being. How dare they, who haven’t a clue as to the suffering this economic condition causes, make light and sarcastic judgments upon. The below link is one of the saddest results of being too poor. Let’s see Newt Gingrich and the rest of the heartless idiots make light of this tragedy.
http://news.yahoo.com/2nd-child-shot-mom-texas-welfare-office-dies-033254062.html
STOP THE BILL THAT WILL DESTROY THE WHOLE FREAKEN INTERNET
REALITY FICTION – A STRANGE TALE OF POVERTY by STEPHEN KING
BIG GARBAGE DUMP RAMPED DOWN THROATS OF A SMALL TOWN
OCCUPY WALL STREET – AMERICAN AWAKENING
OCCUPY WALL STREET 4TH WEEK UPDATE
OCCUPY WALL STREET WEEK SIX – We Shall Overcome
Stop The Bill, Being Pushed In Congress THAT WOULD DESTROY WORDPRESS
When I first heard of the bill, The Stop Online Piracy Act “SOPA” (which was the other night on Countdown with Keith Olbermann), I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I thought all the copyright GREED was over and EVERYONE was getting A PIECE OF THE PIE, (even if some pirate was trying to profit from another person’s hard work- case in point – ITUNES – Silly me, NO WAY JOSE!)
I wonder who (and why) introduced this ridiculous and harmful bill?
The Internet has opened doors, windows and cracks in the wall, for so many. It has shed light upon all those corporations who create, behind closed doors, the magic; (you know, the ones who have mega bucks to use in order to…”MAKE THINGS HAPPEN THAT SEEM IMPOSSIBLE!”).
Well because of the Internet and its websites like DailyKos, Youtube, Amplify and countless others, people have been finding out that “HEY THIS MAGIC STUFF IS FUN, I CAN ALSO CREATE A MOVIE OR A SONG OR A POEM OR A POLITICAL ARTICLE, that I can share with others.”
I know because I’m one of those people. I have been using the Internet to hone my hidden creativity for years and I must add… HAVING FUN WHILE DOING SO.
For the first time in my life, I have tried my hand at poetry, activism, writing, and creating websites… all without making a dime. I didn’t expect to make money because I can’t do what the so called geniuses can do, I know this well. But just learning enough to open that mysterious box of creativity and exploring some of its contents, was fun beyond my greatest expectation and that is my reward.
Now THE POWERS THAT BE want to take it away from this hoity toity, Hoi Polloi… WHY?
Why when it will cause conflicts between “DNS” servers, and make you more vulnerable to hackers, identity theft, and cyber attacks?
Why when it will short-circuit the legal system, and give rights holders a fast-track to shutting down websites (WILLY NILLY)?
Why when it will sanction government interference with the Internet, it make the Internet more censored, akin to that of China and Syria?
Is that what our Government is after, MAKING US LIVE UNDER TOTALITARIANISM?
The reason for most of the slaps in the face WE-THE-PEOPLE have endured is because of money. I don’t believe taking away our ability to create on The Internet will bring WHOEVER, WHATEVER or the SOB’s WHEREVER, MORE BIG PROFITS…
SO WHY ARE THEY DOING THIS???
One thing for sure, I intend to fight it every chance I can get using the resources out there i.e., DAILYKOS, YOUTUBE, AMPLIFY and even my website http://www.thethinkingblue.com I hope all will join me in this fight. I am so tired of the GREED that has gripped our Nation/World… when will it stop? We are all one and as one entity we should help each other in our search for a satisfying life.
thinkingblue
I hope this is not THE END
Want a Real Economic Stimulus and Job Plan?
- Student Debt
By Robert Applebaum (Contact)
To be delivered to: The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate and President Barack Obama
Forgiving the student loan debt of all Americans will have an immediate stimulative effect on our economy. With the stroke of the President’s pen, millions of Americans would suddenly have hundreds, or in some cases, thousands of extra dollars in their pockets each and every month with which to spend on ailing sectors of the economy. As consumer spending increases, businesses will begin to hire, jobs will be created and a new era of innovation, entrepreneurship and prosperity will be ushered in for all. A rising tide does, in fact, lift all boats – forgiving student loan debt, rather than tax cuts for corporations, millionaires and billionaires, has a MUCH greater chance of helping to rise that tide in a MUCH shorter time-frame. The future economic success of this country is wholly dependent upon a well-educated, prosperous middle class. Instead of saddling entire generations with debt from which there is no escape, let’s empower the American people to grow this economy on their own!
~~~
The Student Loan Debacle is so outrageous it’s beyond words but I will try to conjure up a few to relieve the pressure that has built up in my brain over the lack of common sense concerning these loans. First of all, using the tool called ‘common sense’ (which Republicans seem to lack) to illustrate: When an economy makes education very expensive and out of reach for most of its citizens ‘the powers that be’ conjure up a remedy (bandaid) to allow students to take out exorbitant loans (government backed of course) and the only collateral needed is a promise of a career upon graduation for payback, which… MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL! These loans in essence tell the borrower that PIE IN THE SKY awaits them and it doesn’t matter how large a loan they make because an affluent job $$$$ will be their reward at the end and they will be able to pay the loan back in no time at all. Say what? Of course the loan industry doesn’t seem to worry that they are pushing a preposterously optimistic goal because if the student finds he cannot pay the loan back the government will pay it for them. Who the hell thought this flimflam up? It leaves we-the-people holding the bag either way. How gloomy for a young man or woman to complete all the hard work it takes to get a college degree only to find out they’ve been hoodwinked and the careers promised are not there. What Is there… is this enormous personal debt which will plague them for the rest of their lives; like I said DISGUSTING BEYOND WORDS.
If bankruptcy does not become a tool for this debacle, our educated… the doctors, lawyers and all those schooled to help a Nation prosper will slip into poverty; and our government will, without a doubt, become A Plutocracy (the rule or power of wealth or of the wealthy.) (a government or state in which the wealthy class rules.) (a class or group ruling, or exercising power or influence, by virtue of its wealth.) (These descriptions sound like we are ALREADY THERE or almost there, to me!!!)
Please read the interesting article (somewhat related to the Student Loan fiasco) below which outlines where the OWS is now headed, AND consider signing the petition to FORGIVE STUDENT LOAN DEBT. Thanks, thinkingblue
After tent cities fade, Occupy turns to specifics
After tent cities fade, Occupy turns to specifics
APBy AMY WESTFELDT | AP – 31 mins agoNEW YORK (AP) — For more than two months, they were open-air communes where people came to rebuild society and start a nationwide discussion on how to close the wide gap between the rich and the poor. But as Occupy Wall Street tent cities fade away, a growing number of protesters are pushing to put a clear message ahead of the movement.
Alan Collinge has his list ready — return bankruptcy protection to student loans. Bring back regulations that were removed from the Glass-Steagall Act. End corporate personhood.
“They should come up with a short term list of no brainer agenda items,” said Collinge, wearing a huge sign in the rain at New York’s Zuccotti Park calling for student loan reforms.
More than a dozen other protesters interviewed by The Associated Press also came up with a wish list of specifics to address what they say is corporate greed and economic inequality. The list of demands ranged from the simple — get corporate money out of politics — to the ethereal (make sure Washington politicians act with a moral conscience).
Asking Occupy protesters what, exactly, they would do to reform government and the financial system is a loaded question and a source of internal conflict. Collinge, 41, of Tacoma, Wash., said he has unsuccessfully lobbied Occupy’s general assembly meetings in New York to develop a strong platform, but has been rebuffed.
“A lot of people, they think that this should be sort of a catchall” for every issue, he said, the goal being to expose the economic problems in the country, not solve them.
Other cities’ movements have held meetings of committees with titles like “cohesive messaging” to discuss strategy, but haven’t agreed on listing specifics as a movement. The greater purpose isn’t to influence the government or the financial system through classic demands, but to foster broad cultural changes that will gradually empower people to stop depending on big corporations and Wall Street money.
“All the energy has gone into an outcry over economic conditions, with the hope that others will join us and pick up issues they care about,” says Bill Dobbs, press liaison for Occupy Wall Street in New York. “Our best hope is inspiring other people to take action to bring economic justice.”
Some observers and experts predict that Occupy groups may spend the next few months focusing on smaller actions while waiting for the summer when the Republican and Democratic conventions would give Occupiers a world-wide audience.
But ask around, and protesters who spent weeks living in encampments and talking about the country’s woes have a clear idea of what they want.
A number have called for limiting campaign donations and getting big money out of politics. Some Occupy members want to limit the amount of money a person is allowed to give a politician. Others want to ban corporate donations specifically, or the number of campaign ads.
“How did Abraham Lincoln ever become president without a television set?” asked Ryan Peterson, an entertainment company worker from Chicago who lived for weeks in Zuccotti Park. Paul Lemaire, a 20-year-old visual arts student from Brooklyn, wants the two-party system eliminated.
The influence of money in politics is one of the greatest factors behind the gap between the superrich and the poor, said James Parrott, chief economist at the Fiscal Policy Institute in New York, which published a report last year on economic disparity. It shows “that they’re very focused in understanding the root causes” of the country’s economic issues, he said.
The call for tighter regulation of campaign contributions won’t gain traction anytime soon. The Supreme Court, in its landmark Citizens United decision in January 2010, cleared the way for corporations to spend unlimited funds to influence elections, often using money from anonymous donors. The court struck down most of the so-called McCain-Feingold law that had set tight restrictions on such donations, arguing that government did not have the right to regulate political speech.
Campaign regulation, stopping wars that strain resources, halting corporate personhood — the spending power given to corporations in the 2010 Supreme Court ruling — and addressing higher education costs have emerged as key goals of the Occupy movement in Los Angeles. Organizers say they are now focusing on sharpening their objectives, as police moved in to shut down the two-month-old encampment this week. MORE HERE
Want a Real Economic Stimulus and Jobs Plan? Forgive Student Loan Debt!
By Robert Applebaum (Contact)
To be delivered to: The United States House of Representatives, The United States Senate and President Barack Obama
Forgiving the student loan debt of all Americans will have an immediate stimulative effect on our economy. With the stroke of the President’s pen, millions of Americans would suddenly have hundreds, or in some cases, thousands of extra dollars in their pockets each and every month with which to spend on ailing sectors of the economy. As consumer spending increases, businesses will begin to hire, jobs will be created and a new era of innovation, entrepreneurship and prosperity will be ushered in for all. A rising tide does, in fact, lift all boats – forgiving student loan debt, rather than tax cuts for corporations, millionaires and billionaires, has a MUCH greater chance of helping to rise that tide in a MUCH shorter time-frame. The future economic success of this country is wholly dependent upon a well-educated, prosperous middle class. Instead of saddling entire generations with debt from which there is no escape, let’s empower the American people to grow this economy on their own!
:
Dirty Tricks Occur In Local Politics As Well
Welcome To Live Oak Florida – Home Of The New Live Oak Garbage Dump!
A Poem:
WELCOME TO LIVE OAK
By: liveoaklandfill/youtube
A rich stranger entered the town of Live Oak, looking to purchase a plot.
He chose land at the town’s archway, with a hole in the center of its lot.
The townsfolk thought this strange, who would live on land with a hole.
They fast learned that he wanted to turn this big hole, into a large toilet bowl.
Landfill is what he named his bowl, soon to be filled with garbage and swill.
Trucks showed up to dump refuse, quickly turning BIG HOLE into BIG HILL.
A mountain of trash with aroma so foul, grew and grew in to a gargantuan summit.
Live Oak now is symbol of how flimflammers, can make prosperous towns plummet.
THE END
Please see videos on youtube – key word liveoaklandfill
Live Oak Florida was hoodwinked into allowing a Garbage Dump right at its entrance and near a newly erected water tower and well. The people don’t like it, the businesses don’t like it, and the city commissioners don’t like it, so why can’t it be STOPPED?
Welcome To Live Oak’s Garbage Dump on youtube.
A Thanksgiving Gift – Rev Al’s Turkey Tips
I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving in spite of the hard times so many of us 99%ers are going through. But even during Holidays, politics never seems to take a break, so with the help of Rev. Al Sharpton I thought it apropos to send his Turkey Tips your way.
A cup of enlightenment with a dash of humor. 
thinkingblue
