Annika Eriksson is not your usual lunch lady. The Swedish lunch lady often served fresh bread and vegetables to the children at her school in Falun, Sweden. The school district soon heard of the rave reviews from students and teachers alike. It moved quickly to stop Eriksson — telling her to serve the same fare as other schools so not to give her students a better meal than other students. It is managing a school to the lowest common denominator. Rather than striving for all schools to serve better food, it was easier to reduce the quality at the leading school.
Associate Justice Antonin Scalia is again making headlines with controversial public statements. I have previously written about Scalia and the advent of the celebrity justice. Scalia clearly relishes the public attention, even though his public controversies likely cost him the Chief Justice position on the Court. Continuing his celebrity tour before conservative groups, Scalia thrilled his “base” by declaring that the criminalization of homosexuality, abortion, and the death penalty are “absolutely easy” questions.
Despite widespread protests and international condemnation over his authoritarian policies, Vladimir Putin is back to his unrelenting efforts at self-aggrandizement and deification. His aides have organized national celebration of Putin turning 60 this week with fawning politicians like St. Petersburg Governor Georgy Poltavchenko proclaiming “Your name is a symbol of a wise politician and a strong leader in Russia and the world.” Yeah, that’s how the world views Putin. In Moscow, an exhibition dedicated to Putin is running at the art center entitled “A Man of the Kindest Soul.” Nevertheless, even if Putin has not succeeded in winning over the world or freedom loving Russians, he has appeared to win over Russian women: one in five Russian women say they want to marry the wannabe dictator. Who needs eHarmony when you can land the perfect dictator on eTyranny?
Continue reading “eTyranny: One Out Of Five Women Want To Marry Putin”
A Pew Research Center survey has shown that, despite the faith-based politics of both Democratic and Republican leaders, most citizens like separation of church and state — including separation from politics. Two-thirds said that religious organizations should not endorse or openly support candidates. For a prior column on the issue, click here.
Continue reading “Two-Thirds of Americans Polled Support Separation of Churches From Politics”
I have of course been basking in the warm glow of the ascension of the Chicago Bears, who are now tied for first in the NFC North (a position solidified not only with the 41-3 blowout yesterday against the Jaguars but the loss of the Packers to the Colts). However, nothing quite matches the final play in the game of Trinity against Millsaps College on Saturday, October 27, 2007. The play by play coverage by the announcers is enough to make this worth the watch. The two announcers appear to have a joint aneurysm at the end.
Brenda Geers may have to revisit Step One in her Alcoholic Anonymous program. Geers not only hit an eighteen-year-old college student in Boulder, Colorado but crashed into St. Aidan’s Episcopal Church while driving drunk to her Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.
Colleen Lachowicz is facing a truly bizarre attack campaign from Republicans in her campaign for the state Senate in Maine. The Maine Republican Party is warning voters that Lachowicz is really “Santiaga,” an Orc Assassin Rogue on the World of Warcraft. That’s right, the GOP has adopted an openly discriminatory policy against Orcs despite their legendary tenacity and frugality.
by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
The 4th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, “[t]he right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
Seems pretty straight forward, doesn’t it? Continue reading “The Shame and Waste of Fusion Centers”
Respectfully Submitted by Lawrence Rafferty-(rafflaw)- Guest Blogger
A short time ago, our country and its military reached a sad milestone in the war in Afghanistan. We have now lost 2,000 members of our military during our almost 12 year war in Afghanistan. In light of that sad news, a Republican Congressman, Rep. Bill Young of Florida, received a letter from an Army soldier on his third tour in Afghanistan that caused him to change his mind about our continuing involvement in Afghanistan. That soldier, Staff Sgt. Matthew Sitton wrote the letter to the congressman, shortly before he and a comrade were killed by an IED that journalist Bill Moyers recently discussed. Continue reading ““Why Are We Killing Kids That Don’t Need to Die?””
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments on the affirmative action case of Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. Opponents of affirmative action claim that the process is inherently unfair: a non-white student gains admittance over a more qualified white student. That certainly seems unfair.
A key question in verifying the unfairness of affirmative action is an objective measure of each student’s qualifications.
Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
In August, Todd Akin—Republican candidate for the US Senate from Missouri—got into hot water with his party and became the “laughing stock of the planet” for remarks that he made about how women who are “legitimately raped” rarely get pregnant. Akin said the following during an interview on KTVI-TV:
First of all, from what I understand from doctors, that’s really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. . . But let’s assume that maybe that didn’t work or something. You know I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.
Writing for Wired, Brandon Kleim said of Akin:
Aside from the sheer biological ludicrousness of Todd Akin’s ideas on female physiology, one unsettling subplot to the debacle is his presence on the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology.
That’s right: A man who, to put it gently, ignores what science tells us about how babies are made, helps shape the future of science in America. It would be shocking, but for the fact that many of the committee’s GOP members have spent the last several years displaying comparable contempt for climate science.
Kleim also wrote about other Republicans on the committee who seem to show a contempt for science and scientists:
The committee’s chair, Ralph Hall (R-Texas), lumps “global freezing” together with global warming, which he doesn’t believe humans can significantly impact because “I don’t think we can control what God controls.” Dana Rohrbacher (R-CA) thinks cutting down trees reduces levels of greenhouse gases they absorb. Mo Brooks (R-Alabama) still trots out the debunked notion that a scientific consensus existed in the 1970s on “global cooling,” which he portrays as a scare concocted by scientists “in order to generate funds for their pet projects.”
‘We ought to have some believable science.’
Dan Benishek (R-Michigan) strikes that climate-scientists-as-charlatans note, dismissing contemporary research as “all baloney. I think it’s just some scheme.” Paul Broun (R-Georgia) says that “Scientists all over this world say that the idea of human-induced global climate change is one of the greatest hoaxes perpetrated out of the scientific community.”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
In my Social Work career I spent 37 years working primarily with people in poverty, whether from Race, ethnicity, economic situations, criminal history and/or addiction. In my Psychotherapy practice (part time) my patients were middle to upper class economically and yet as the years have passed my memory of them has faded. Still remaining though, burned into my memory, are the lives of those I met who lived in poverty. We see in this current Presidential election a sharp contrast between the philosophies of the two candidates. One believing in lowering peoples expectations for and the receipt of, what he deems “entitlements”. The other who defends what he calls self-funded programs and championing the Federal Government’s intervention to make health care more accessible. There is, however, one economic/social area where both candidates fully agree and this agreement represents exactly what is wrong with our country.
Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, by their words and deeds, both believe fervently in the notion of the “American Dream”. If we look at the history of their lives we can understand how from their perspective, their lives have typified the “America Dream”. Romney was born wealthy, went to the best schools and came from a family that was highly prominent in his community. Obama, though born the child of an unwed mother, had the benefit of her intelligence, in addition to Maternal Grandparents who were relatively well to do. Their lives, though having different arcs, led them both to the point where they are competing for the highest office in the land. Neither man is lying when they extol America as the world’s shining light of opportunity for all, because their own lives bear that out. To me the problem is that reality shows that they are wrong in their belief and in their clinging to the myth of the “American Dream”, they ignore the most important issue of our time, American inequality of opportunity. Continue reading “American Dream Not American Reality”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
This campaign season we’ll hear a lot about “statistical ties.” The “statistical tie” misnomer is used to refer to the situation where one candidate leads another candidate but that lead is within the margin of error (MOE). However, what we’re really interested in is the probability that one candidate leads the other candidate.
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
The 32 metronomes are started out-of-sync and after a couple of minutes they are synchronized. One metronome takes a little longer than the others. What’s going on? Answer below the fold.
It really does not get worse that this in terms of allegations of misconduct. Pennsylvania deputy attorney general Douglas B. Barbour, 33, and his wife, Kristen B. Barbour, 30, have been charged with child endangerment and assault of two children they adopted from Ethiopia just this year. There is also an aggravated assault charge against them both for the abuse of the 18-month-old daughter. The other child is a six-year-old boy.