Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Here’s a poem I wrote and some information about the candy cane:
CANDY CANE
Stuffed
in my green felt stocking
I find
a striped stick of sweetness,
red as Rudolph’s nose,
white as Santa’s beard.
I crinkle open my peppermint present…
let my tongue celebrate
the wintry taste of Christmas.
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
University of Oklahoma researchers are conducting DNA testing on bone fragments found on
a remote and deserted Pacific Island to determine if they belong to Amelia Earhart. Earhart and navigator, Fred Noonan, were lost on July 2, 1937, attempting a trans-global fight aboard the Electra. A massive search involving the U.S. Navy revealed nothing but weak or unintelligible signals presumably from the Electra were received. Now we may know why.
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Continue reading “Merry Christmas from the Birds, Beasts, & Bugs”
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
An Ohio Judge and two public defenders are in the Spirit. Hearing the plight of a formerly homeless woman attempting to expunge her record of a minor felony, the three came up with the $57.00 needed to pay her restitution and allow the Cleveland native a new lease on life. Said Judge Timothy McCormick, “it seemed like the easiest and best thing to do, especially given the season.” Amen.
Source: msnbc.com
~Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
David (Nal) has been kind enough to provide us with some classic Christmas songs at the Turley Blawg to help get us into a holiday mood. I thought I’d add my two seasonal cents with a recipe for a delicious almond cake that I often make for holidays and special occasions. The cake is rich and moist. It calls for just four tablespoons of flour. I serve it with homemade raspberry sauce and whipped cream. It’s a favorite with family and friends.
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
A Massachusetts appeals court has let the sexually adventurous breathe a sigh of relief. When confronted with a man, discretely called “John Doe,” who alleged rather forcefully that his penis had been “fractured” by a particularly vigorous night of love-making, the Court accorded no relief. Doe alleged that his partner, Mary Moe (a pseudonym, I hope), had negligently engaged in sexual intercourse with him thereby fracturing his privates and rendering him “procreatively” dysfunctional. Damages for the injury were claimed of Ms. Moe, who defended Continue reading “Doe v. Moe: There is No Negligent Sexual Intercourse in Boston”
SUBMITTED BY LAWRENCE RAFFERTY, GUEST BLOGGER
Earlier in the week, the legislation that would have provided medical help for 9/11 first responders was killed by Republicans. I was shocked to see that any political party would be against getting medical help for true American heroes. You can imagine my surprise when I found out who was helping the Republicans defeat this humanitarian bill. The United States Chamber of Commerce was quietly working behind the scenes to make sure this bill was defeated. The immediate question that came to my mind was why? Why wouldn’t the Chamber want the heroes of 9/11 to get the medical help that they need to fight the many health problems that they have incurred due to their work on 9/11 at Ground Zero? Continue reading “WHAT DOES THE US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE HAVE AGAINST 9/11 FIRST RESPONDERS?”
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
NOTE: A correction has been made to this post.
This afternoon, the United States Senate voted to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell—a policy that banned gays and lesbians from serving openly in the military for seventeen years. According to CBS News: “Eight Republicans joined nearly every Democrat to vote for repeal. The Republicans voting for repeal were Sens. Scott Brown (Mass.), Susan Collins (Maine), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Mark Kirk (Ill.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), John Ensign (Nev.), Richard Burr (N.C.) and George Voinovich (Ohio).”
The final vote was 65-31.
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Across the Pond: This week, Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, was released on bail from a London prison. Assange will remain under “mansion arrest” at the 600-acre estate of Vaughan Smith, a London restaurateur and former war correspondent. He plans to fight extradition to Sweden where he would face sex crimes allegations.
Back Here at Home: Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old U. S. Army intelligence specialist who has been accused of leaking classified documents to Wikileaks, has been held
in solitary confinement at the marine brig in Quantico, Virginia, for five months. Before being transferred to Quantico, Manning was held in a military jail in Kuwait for two months. Manning will face a court martial on charges that he provided Wikileaks with classified information in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Continue reading “Bradley Manning: The Forgotten Person in the Wikileaks Affair”
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The Feds have arrested 35-year-old Californian, Marc Knapp, for trying to sell an F-5B fighter jet to Iran. Knapp was nabbed in a government sting operation that crisscrossed the country from Pennsylvania to California and even ranged to Budapest, Hungary. For his part, Knapp was unconcerned that the nation that once promised “Death to America,” and is reputedly looking for a nuclear weapons capability might acquire an US-made fighter jet.
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
Last Thursday, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that prosecutors have the right to seek “so-called John Doe indictments” in rape cases. What this means is that prosecutors in the state will be able to indict the DNA profile of an unknown person in order to prevent the statute of limitations for charging an individual with a crime from running out. The justices concluded that a DNA profile is an “indelible ‘bar code’ that labels an individual’s identity with nearly irrefutable precision.’’
Continue reading “Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts Rules on “John Doe” DNA Indictments”
In a much-anticipated report issued last Thursday, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) concluded that Virginia Tech acted too slowly to alert students and staff about the ongoing rampage of mass murderer, Seung-Hui Cho. The report found that VT officials violated the Clery Act by failing to alert students of a dorm room shooting that left two people dead about two and a half hours before Cho went to Norris Hall and killed 30 more students and staff.
Continue reading “Was VT Slow To Respond To Campus Threat That Left 32 Dead?”
How’d that secession thing work out for you? Not so well? Want to get all the benefits of secession without any of the drawbacks? The Tea Party has your answer – nullification. Any law a state doesn’t like can be declared unconstitutional and poof, the state can ignore it. Want to ignore Brown v. Board of Education? No worries.
Only one problem, nullification is unconstitutional.
Anthropologists in universities across the country are experiencing an unprecedented civil war over the very foundation of their field. The American Anthropological Association has decided to drop the word “science” from a associational statement — triggering outcries from science-oriented faculty who have long opposed the growth of anthropologists who study race, ethnicity, and gender from a more political perspective.
Continue reading “No Bones About It: Anthropologist Association Drops “Science” From Its Associational Statement”
According to Huffington Post, Democrats in the Senate are demanding that a vote be taken later today on a bill that would allow gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. If approved, the procedural vote could pave the way for future debate on the subject.
Continue reading “Senate Democrats Call for Vote on Repeal of DADT”
