Welcome to ...

The place where the world comes together in honesty and mirth.
Windmills Tilted, Scared Cows Butchered, Lies Skewered on the Lance of Reality ... or something to that effect.


Monday, November 17, 2014

The Daily Drift

On the left we have a normal well-adjusted Liberal American Eagle
On the right we have a ignorant, stupid mal-adjusted wingnut ...!
 
Carolina Naturally is read in 200 countries around the world daily.   
 
Fresh Baked ... !
Today is  - Homemade Bread Day
 
Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Poway, Frisco and Chaska, United States
Mendoza and Buenos Aires, Argentina
Vancouver, Longueil, Quebec and Montreal, Canada
Bogota and Medellin, Colombia
Santiago, Chile
Luquillo, Puerto Rico
Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro and Brasilia, Brazil
Managua, Boaco, Nicaragua
Port-Of-Spain, Trinidad-Tobago
Europe
Moscow and Ryazan, Russia
Lisbon and Covilha, Portugal
Laval, Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon and Caen, France
Horni Pocernice and Pardubice, Czech Republic
Sofia, Bulgaria
Salerno, Naples, Milan, Ivrea, Rome and Treviso, Italy
Madrid, L'Olleria and Valencia, Spain
Munchen, Konstanz and Stuttgart, Germany
Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Grosuplje, Slovenia
Poltava and Kremenchuk, Ukraine
Saint Peter Port, Guernsey
Cork, Ireland
Arendal, Norway
Manchester and Lancaster, England
Stockholm, Sweden
Athens, Greece
Ankara, Turkey
Asia
Jakarta, Indonesia
New Delhi, Jahanabad, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai and Kolkata, India
Islamabad, Pakistan
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Doha, Qatar
Muscat, Oman
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Africa
Nooder-Paarl and Johannesburg, South Africa
The Pacific
Naic, Philippines
Melbourne, Sydney and Homebush, Australia

Today in History

375   Enraged by the insolence of barbarian envoys, Valentinian, the Emperor of the West, dies of apoplexy in Pannonia in Central Europe.  
1558   Queen Elizabeth ascends to the throne of England.  
1558   The cult of England is re-established.  
1636   Henrique Dias, Brazilian general, wins a decisive battle against the Dutch in Brazil.  
1796   Napoleon Bonaparte defeats an Italian army near the Alpone River, Italy.  
1800   The Sixth Congress (2nd session) convenes for the first time in Washington, D.C.  
1842   A grim abolitionist meeting is held in Marlboro Chapel, Boston, after the imprisonment of a mulatto named George Latimer, one of the first fugitive slaves to be apprehended in Massachusetts.
 1862   Union General Ambrose Burnside marches north out of Washington, D.C., to begin the Fredericksburg campaign.  
1869   The Suez Canal is formally opened.  
1877   Russia launches a surprise night attack that overruns Turkish forces at Kars, Armenia.  
1885   The Serbian Army, with Russian support, invades Bulgaria.  
1903   Vladimir Lenin's efforts to impose his own radical views on the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party splits the party into two factions, the Bolsheviks, who support Lenin, and the Mensheviks.  
1913   The first ship sails through the Panama Canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.  
1918   Influenza deaths reported in the United States have far exceeded World War I casualties.  
1918   German troops evacuate Brussels.  
1931   Charles Lindbergh inaugurates Pan Am service from Cuba to South America in the Sikorsky flying boat American Clipper.  
1941   German Luftwaffe general and World War I fighter-ace Ernst Udet commits suicide. The Nazi government tells the public that he died in a flying accident.  
1951   Britain reports development of the world's first nuclear-powered heating system.  
1965   The NVA ambushes American troops of the 7th Cavalry at Landing Zone Albany in the Ia Drang Valley, almost wiping them out.
1967   The American Surveyor 6 makes a six-second flight on the moon, the first liftoff on the lunar surface. 1970   Soviet unmanned Luna 17 touches down on the moon.  
1980   WHHM Television in Washington, D.C., becomes the first African-American public-broadcasting television station.  
1986   Renault President Georges Besse is shot to death by leftists of the Direct Action Group in Paris.
1989   Student demonstration in Prague put down by riot police, leading to an uprising (the Velvet Revolution) that will topple the communist government on Dec. 29.  
1993   US House of Representatives passes resolution to establish the North American Free Trade Agreement.  
1993   Gen. Sani Abacha leads a military coup in Nigeria that overthrows the government of Ernest Shonekan.  
2000   Controversial President of Peru Alberto Fujimori removed from office.

Twinsters

Here’s a story that quite resembles the movie The Parent Trap, except that the parents aren’t really involved. French fashion designer Anais Bordier, who is studying in London, was shown a video of Samantha Futerman, an American actress who resembled her. Then things got weird. Bordier wrote to Futerman at Facebook.
Hey,

My name is Anaïs, I am french and live in London,

About 2 months ago, my friend was watching one of your videos with Kevjumba on youtube, and he saw you and thought that we looked really very similar...
like... VERY REALLY SIMILAR...we were making jokes about it etc. (I'm always being violent with people and hitting them too hahaha)

Today, he saw the trailer of 21 & over and told me he saw you again, I then checked your name on the cast, stalked you A BIT, and found out you were born the 19th of november 1987.

I checked more of your videos (which are hilarious) and then came upon how it feels to be adopted'... and discovered you were adopted too.

So..I don't want to be too Linday Lohan,
well...but..how to put it..I was wondering where you were born?
I was born on the 19th of November 1987, in Busan but my papers were made at the Holt Chuldren's Institute, so "officially" I was born in Seoul. My korean name is Kim Eunwha. I arrived in France the 5th March 1988, so 3 months later.

You can check my facebook if you want to check the pictures and videos. It's more obvious on videos...

Let me know...don't freak out...
Lots of love

Anaïs
The two women met in London, and have since traveled to Korea together and met each other’s families. They wrote a book called Separated @ Birth: A True Love Story of Twin Sisters Reunited, and are working on a documentary called Twinsters. See a video news report on the twins at CNN. -

Modern Management Theory

A company had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Management said, "Someone might steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job.
Then management said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people: one person to write the instructions and one person to do time studies.
Then management said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing his tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people: one to do the studies and one to write the reports.
Then management said, "How are all these people going to get paid?" So they created positions for a timekeeper and a payroll officer, and hired two more people to fill them.
Then management said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired three people: an Administrative Officer, Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.
Then management said, "We've had this command in operation for one year now and we're $318,000 over budget. We have to cut back on overall costs."
So they laid off the night watchman.

Minneapolis Mayor Hammers Local Police Who Absurdly Claimed She Was Flashing Gang Signs

gang sign
Last week, a Minneapolis news station ran a story, provided to them by local law enforcement, claiming Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges was photographed flashing gang signs with a known criminal. Of course, the truth turned out to be far different, as the photo was actually of Hodges and a community activist innocently pointing at each other during a ‘Get Out The Vote’ walk through a neighborhood. The ridiculousness of the news story and the police department’s attempt to smear the mayor, mostly due to her criticism of the department’s history of brutality, racial profiling and corruption, led to a social media meme known as #Pointergate.
In a blog posted to her website Thursday, the Democratic mayor addressed the police department’s made-up controversy in the best way possible. Likely emboldened by the #Pointergate tweets and Jon Stewart highlighting the absurdity of it all earlier in the week, Hodges slammed the department’s union leadership over the media hit job they tried to take out on her. Early on in her blog post, Hodges used humor to point out the silliness of the police union’s position that “she should know better” regarding her obvious use of known gang signs.
First, maybe the head of the police union would like me to stop pointing altogether for the safety of the community. If that were truly his concern, that my pointing constitutes gang activity, then his outrage would have been sparked long, long ago. Because as the internet has documented in great detail, I point. I point a lot. Lots of people point. The President. Bill Clinton. Stephen Colbert. Babies. It is the earliest form of human communication.* I’m not going to stop pointing.
After discussing the difficulty it would take in determining every person’s criminal background that she may interact within the community and then deciding if that background is cause enough not to be seen with that person, she then brought up stereotypes and the notion that she shouldn’t be taking pictures with young black men.
The third option may be that the head of the police union doesn’t want me standing next to young African American men. One frightening implication of the KSTP story and police union President Delmonico’s support of that story is their implicit assumption that I should use stereotypes to assess with whom I should or should not meet or stand or talk. As The Onion once satirically wrote, “Stereotypes are a real time saver.” It is not a good basis for decision-making, however. It blunts the humanity of the person making the judgment and creates unnecessary separation between two people in a world where more, rather than less, human connection is needed for us to move forward as a community.
Finally, Hodges pointed out the real reason local law enforcement tried to smear her with a disgusting piece of racial fear-mongering. She brought up the fact that she’s worked tirelessly to get the department to raise their standards and be accountable for their actions. The mayor unequivocally told police leadership that they failed in their attempt to silence her and she will continue to work towards improving community policing.
Which leaves one final option. It could be that the head of the police union wants me to stop working to raise the standards of police culture and accountability. It could be that he objects to the community policing and relationship-building measures that I am acting on, and attempted to use this non-story to discredit this work.
If that is the case, he has failed on two levels. First, the people of the internet have called out this story over and over with outrage and humor, shining the light of day on the ridiculous premise on which it was based.
Second, and more significantly, I am undaunted in my commitment to making sure that police-community relationships are as strong as they can be. I am undaunted in my desire to support and develop police officers who serve respectfully and collaboratively every day to keep people safe and make all our neighborhoods stronger. I am undaunted in my plans to increase accountability for consistent bad actors in the police department.
This whole episode has blown up in the faces of the Minneapolis police force and KSTP, the local news channel that forced aired the piece. Instead of hurting the mayor on a local level as they intended, it has only brought these issues to a national level. The station and police force have been shown to be racist buffoons and Hodges’ initiatives to improve local law enforcement have received positive press.
True to form, instead of backing off of the story, KSTP doubled-down Thursday night by airing another piece on the ‘controversy’, this time shifting the focus entirely on the young black man in the photo, Navelle Gordon. I guess local police and their compliant media outlet aren’t going to let this die. To be honest, they really, really should. It is only making them look petty, bigoted and spiteful.

Four consistent concerns from African Americans regarding the 2014 election

While we wait for some states to finish counting their votes, it's abundantly clear that Democrats lost elections in key states and races all across the country-including North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida-where African Americans make up a significant portion of the electorate.Four consistent concerns were expressed on Election Day by African Americans that must be addressed if results are going to improve for Democrats moving forward:
1. As of this past September, President Obama still held an amazing 87 percent approval rating with African Americans. When Democratic candidates across the country publicly and privately shunned his support and even refused to admit they ever voted for him, scores of black voters were instantly turned off. The love and admiration for President Obama is deep in the black community and Democrats will have to reconcile how they embrace him if they ever want enthusiastic African-American support. 
2. Young African Americans across the nation care about the death of St. Louis area teenager Mike Brown and the injustices felt by protestors in the wake of his death. Students from the historically black all women's school, Bennett College in North Carolina, were seen on Election Day chanting, "This is what democracy looks like," a phrase used consistently by protestors in Ferguson.
Young African Americans feel like the Democratic Party has failed them in Ferguson, Missouri, in a state with a Democratic governor, a well-known Democratic senator, a Democratic mayor, and a Democratic prosecutor in Bob McCulloch overseeing the case in St. Louis. The young activist, Tef Poe, just flat out said that the Democratic Party is failing African Americans in Missouri and the Washington Post noted that it was repugican Rand Paul who has made one of the boldest statements about Ferguson of any politician.
3. The sentiment that white politicians seeking election only show up in black communities and churches when they want votes has crossed a tipping point. Whether social media has magnified this phenomenon or not is hard to determine, but what is clear is that it has crossed an offensive line where African-American voters, particularly young ones, are increasingly frustrated by it. Either you care or you don't and showing up just when you need black votes doesn't suggest genuine concern.
4. Called the new Jim Crow by Al Jazeera, the efforts to make voting for difficult across the country for many African Americans have simply not been fought hard enough by prominent Democrats. It may be prominent white Democrats, whose voting rights are rarely threatened, to understand the feeling that these new laws evoke, but the sentiment that not enough has been done by Democrats in power to fight them is growing.
Ultimately, the Democratic Party is going to need to make some serious course corrections in the weeks and months ahead if it wants better results in 2016. While a mass migration to another party is highly unlikely, the days of taking the concerns of black voters for granted has clearly passed and some trust needs to be regained if any semblance of excitement is to be resurrected.



The repugicans Are Devastated As Poll Finds That Americans Love Their Obamacare

A new Gallup poll  contained some devastating news for repugicans who are hell-bent on repealing the ACA. The vast majority of Americans love their Obamacare.
barack-obama-thumbs-upThe Gallup poll found that the newly insured who bought coverage through the ACA were more satisfied with their health insurance than the overall insured population. Seventy-five percent of the newly insured were satisfied with the cost of their coverage compared to 61% of total insured population. Sixty-eight percent of the newly insured plan on renewing their current policy, 7% will get a different policy on the exchange, 15% will get a different policy from somewhere else, and 2% plan on having no health insurance.
The news that people like their Obamacare is a devastating blow to the repugican movement to repeal the law. The results of this poll are why repugican congressional leadership pays a lot of lip service to repealing the ACA, but have little interest in engaging in a fight with the White House to get rid of the law. Over time, the news will continue to get better for the law’s supporters. As people continue to sign up and see positive results, it is going to become increasingly difficult for repugicans to repeal the law.
A big challenge for Democrats and the White House is to get more people access to the ACA. There is still a disparity among states who have taken full advantage of the law, and those that haven’t. The future fight will be centered around getting Medicaid expanded and more state exchanges setup. The repugican mis-led states that aren’t participating fully deny millions of their citizens a better life.
Americans love their Obamacare, and there will be hell to pay if repugicans follow through on their threats to take health care away from millions.

Once More, President Obama Is Doing The repugicans’ Jobs For Them

Obama-GOP-do-nothing
There is an idiom that parents and employers likely put in practice when an important task has to be completed correctly; “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” President Obama certainly understands that sentiment with a slight variation; if the nation wants anything done at all, the President has to do it himself due to repugicans who have done nothing since January 2009.
Sometime next week, after waiting patiently for Ted Cruz to order House repugicans to take up, and pass, the Senate’s bipartisan immigration reform, the President will take action on immigration reform. The President’s patience has been rewarded with repugican refusal to act despite overwhelming public support, so he will order a far-reaching overhaul of the immigration enforcement system that will protect at least five million undocumented immigrants from the threat of summary deportation.
The President has authority to enforce federal laws with discretion and his order will refocus the activities of immigration agents, including allowing many parents of American citizens or legal residents to obtain legal work documents to end the terror of being separated from their families and thrown out of “the shining city on a hill.” That part of the plan could affect 3.3 million people, but they have to have lived in America for at least five years according to analysis by the Migration Policy Institute. The plan also may include a much stricter policy to limit benefits to immigrants who have lived in America for at least ten years affecting approximately 2.5 million people.
The President is also considering extending protections to more undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children, and to their parents, that could affect an additional one million people. There is also a possibility of protecting undocumented farm workers who have entered the country illegally, but have helped feed Americans for decades working in the agriculture industry.
Included in the enforcement overhaul are expanded opportunities for legal immigrants who have high-tech skills, and shifts extra security resources to the nation’s southern border. A new memorandum will direct immigration enforcement officials, border agents, and immigration judges to continue deportations for convicted criminals, foreigners who pose national security risks, and recent border crossers; Central American children are shielded under the shrub law providing them with due process prior to being thrown out of America.
The President has overwhelming support from pro-immigration groups, Hispanics, 62% of Americans, and advocates who expect the President to take bold action after years of frustration, and seeing the wide-ranging Senate bipartisan immigration bill fall victim to Ted Cruz-repugicans in the House last year. In fact, a recent poll found that even 4 out of 5 repugicans, or 78%, support the President’s “stepped approach” to immigration reform their xenophobic Congress refuses to consider. The President has called for, and pledged to act on, immigration reform for six years, and clearly his patient reliance on white obstructionists doing anything whatsoever is at an end. The director of migration policy at the United States coven of catholic bishops, Kevin Appleby, said “This is his last chance to make good on his promise to fix the system. If he delays again, immigration activists would jump the White House fence.” However, the USccb most certainly have ulterior motives for supporting immigration reform founded on documenting more catholics; but at this juncture their support is welcomed regardless their theocratic reasons. Clearly, any Presidential executive action is necessary because Obama, like most Americans, knows repugican do-nothings have no intention to act on much-needed immigration reform; unless it means mobilizing the U.S. military, armed white militias, and weaponized drones at the Southern border in an act of war against, most recently, Central American immigrant children.
The repugicans in Congress have already levied a rash of threats against the President for doing the job they refuse; work for the good of the people and the nation. In the Senate, a group of extremist teabaggers led by Texas Ted Cruz with Mike Lee of Utah and Jeff Sessions of Alabama in tow are already planning to thwart any executive action on immigration. The obstruction-minded fascists intend on rallying their repugican cabal to block passage of a budget next month unless it contains a measure abolishing President Obama’s executive authority to act on immigration. Teabagger Mike Lee said “I think it’s very important for us to do what we can to prevent it (executive action and immigration reform),” and it includes, at least, shutting down the government; a prospect Mitch McConnell and John Boehner have proposed to abolish President Obama’s authority to use executive actions on anything.
In the House, John Boehner warned the President that if he exercised his executive authority on immigration, repugicans would “fight the President tooth and nail. He also warned the President that repugicans would sue him for using executive authority as the said promised over the Affordable Care Act. Boehner also refused to rule out shutting down the government if the President dared to be President. Boehner said, “We are looking at all options, and they’re on the table.”
What irks repugicans to no end is that the primary features of President Obama’s plan are founded on longstanding legal precedents granting the executive branch the right to exercise “prosecutorial discretion” in how it enforces laws. In fact, it is precisely those precedents that informed the President’s decision in 2012 to protect children who were brought to America by their parents through no fault of their own, and “dream” of being “legal citizens;” they are, for all intents and purposes Americans. The repugicans, and their white xenophobic base, want them and likely all Hispanics, deported with prejudice whether they are undocumented or not.
The repugicans have had six years under President Obama, and eight years under the shrub to reform immigration policy, but they have adhered closely to their agenda of doing nothing positive for the people or the nation; particularly since 2008. Their only action over the past four years is taking any and everything from the people and handing it all to the rich. President Obama has exercised nothing but patience in waiting for repugicans to act on immigration reform, and as he said shortly after the midterms, “Before the end of the year, we’re going to take whatever lawful actions that I can take to improve the functioning of our immigration system. What I’m not going to do is just wait.” Throughout this President’s tenure, with obstructionist repugicans in Congress, anything that has needed to be done he has had to do himself. It is why repugicans seriously need to put in practice what they claim America’s poverty-wage workforce needs to do; learn the value and culture of work.



Obama’s Immigration Taunt Works As Congressional repugicans Descend Into Chaos

President Obama’s taunts of unilateral action on immigration have worked as chaos and disunity are ripping through repugicans before they take the majority in Congress.
The New York Times reported that the president’s strategy is already paying off,
point-obamaBut Mr. Obama, in insisting that he will take unilateral action to overhaul the nation’s immigration system, has delivered to his adversaries a compelling political target they may not be able to resist. On a trip to Asia this week, Mr. Obama effectively said “I told you so” to repugicans, saying he gave them every opportunity to avoid the action he is preparing to take.
The taunt by Mr. Obama seems to have worked. A day after stealing from Democrats in the midterm elections this month, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky tried to immediately pre-empt any talk of a government shutdown. Now, a week later, some members of Mr. McConnell’s cabal are already talking about doing just that.
The calls for House repugicans to shut down the government in December are growing louder by the hour. Beyond the division over a government shutdown, the years long rift within the repugican cabal over impeachment is also moving front and center.
Joe Barton (r-TX) put impeachment on the table in a recent interview, but Trey Gowdy (r-SC) told Faux News that impeachment was not happening, “No, and nobody’s discussing impeachment, but pundits and commentators. First of all impeachment is a punishment, not a remedy. Second of all, the only people who want us to talk about impeachment are the president’s allies.”
President Obama knew that the results of a what was an essentially red state senate election were papering over the same divides and internal conflicts within the repugican cabal that have existed for years. Instead of taking the president’s intention to act alone seriously and scheduling a House vote on the Senate passed immigration bill, repugicans are falling apart and defaulting back to their standard behavior of fighting among themselves while blaming the president.
The calls to shut down the government are going to be difficult for House repugicans to resist. Their supporters want a government shutdown. Red state repugicans have also been dreaming of impeachment since the president first took office. Obama is now in a position where he doesn’t have to navigate between the repugican House majority and the Democratic Senate majority. The advantage of the new political environment is that he has more freedom to maneuver.
The president has placed the repugicans in a no-win position. Either they shut down the government, and start their new Congress off in chaos or they back down immigration and begin the new Congress in defeat.
Barack Obama is the puppeteer who can make the repugicans jump on command with a simple tug of the string.

Obama Ignores Impeachment Threat And Tells repugicans He Is Going To Use His Power

obama-burma
President Obama is completely unfazed by repugican claims that they will impeach him if he issues his executive orders on immigration. The president responded to the threat by telling repugicans that he is going to use his power.
Some House repugicans like Joe Barton (r-TX) are calling for impeachment if Obama acts alone on immigration.
Barton said, “Well impeachment is indicting in the House and that’s a possibility, but you still have to convict in the Senate and that takes a two-thirds vote. But impeachment would be a consideration, yes sir.”
John Boehner has hinted about serious consequences for Obama if he acts on immigration, “I believe that if the president continues to act on his own he is going to poison the well. When you play with matches, you take the risk of burning yourself, and he is going to burn himself if he continues to go down this path. The American people made it clear Election Day. They want to get things done, and they don’t want the president acting on a unilateral basis.”
The president responded at a press conference today by letting repugicans know that he plans to use his executive powers,
There has been ample opportunity for Congress to pass a bipartisan immigration bill that would strengthen our borders, improve the legal immigration system, lift millions of people out of the shadows so they are paying taxes and getting right by the law. It passed out of the Senate. I gave the House over a year to go ahead and at least give a vote to the Senate bilaterally; they failed to do so. And I indicated to Boehner several months ago that if, in fact, Congress failed to act, I would use all the lawful authority that I possess to try to make the system work better. And that’s going to happen. That’s going to happen before the end of the year.

….

So they have the ability to fix the system. What they don’t have the ability to do is to expect me to stand by with a broken system in perpetuity. And I would advise that if, in fact, they want to take a different approach, rather than devote a lot of time trying to constrain my lawful actions as the Chief Executive of the U.S. government in charge of our enforcing our immigration laws, that they spend some time passing a bill and engaging with all the stakeholders, the immigrant rights groups, the law enforcement groups, the evangelicals, the business community, all of whom have said this is something that needs to be done, is way overdue. And we’ve been talking about it for 10 years now, and it’s been consistently stalled.
The repugicans can threaten this president all that they want, but he is still going to do what he thinks is best for the country. Faux News and other wingnut media outlets are already whipping up an impeachment frenzy even though Obama hasn’t done anything yet. The confrontation over immigration is going to set the stage for the next two years.
Obama isn’t going to back down. He isn’t going to give in to repugican threats. Everyone knows that congressional repugican leaders wouldn’t be foolish enough to impeach the president two years before a presidential election. The problem isn’t the leadership. It is that there is a groundswell on the right that is demanding impeachment. These calls will only grow louder after the president takes his executive action on immigration.
John Boehner could put the brakes on all of this political drama by allowing the House to vote on the Senate passed immigration reform bill. Since Boehner won’t allow a vote, and House repugicans refuse to pass their own bill, the only option left is for Obama to act alone. As the president has repeatedly stated, nothing is stopping the repugican controlled Congress from wiping out his executive actions by passing an immigration bill in January.
Obama is daring repugicans to destroy their cabal by pursuing impeachment. The repugicans are now on the hook for their obstruction. The chickens have come home to roost, and they are now they are facing the consequences of their years of just saying no to President Obama.

The repugicans Threaten To Shut Down The Government To Stop Obama From Acting On Immigration

House repugicans are increasingly talking about shutting down the government in order to prevent President Obama from signing executives orders on immigration.
The Hill reported,
Wingnut House repugicans say they’re willing to shut down the government to prevent President Obama from carrying out what they see as unconstitutional actions on immigration.
government-shutdown-650x433teabaggers emboldened by the repugican cabal’s midterm thefts say they will insist on attaching a policy rider to legislation keeping the government open that would block funding for agencies carrying out Obama’s promised executive actions limiting deportations.
If the Democratic Senate or Obama rejects the rider, the government could shut down. A current measure funding the government expires on Dec. 12.
If this sounds familiar, it should. House repugicans used the same strategy to trigger the 2013 government shutdown. The focus of the most recent government shutdown was Obamacare. This government shutdown would be caused by the repugican refusal to allow the president to use his constitutional powers.
The repugicans have demonstrated that they are willing to leave unfinished business and head out of town on vacation. It wouldn’t surprise anyone if these same repugicans passed a funding that would withhold funding for the president’s immigration executive orders, declare victory, and leave town until January.
DCCC chairman Rep. Steve Israel blasted the idea of another government shutdown, “Just over one week after elections, repugicans are back to true form by talking about shutting down the government over an issue the vast majority of Americans support and 68 Senators already passed: a comprehensive compromise on immigration. If he doesn’t want President Obama to take action, John Boehner should bring immigration reform to the floor for a vote, not punish the middle class by shutting down the government.”
Israel was correct. Boehner could avoid causing the American people needless pain by bringing the Senate passed immigration reform bill to the House floor for a vote. The reason the Speaker won’t allow a vote on the bill is that he knows it will pass. Since repugicans refuse to do their jobs, the country is about to be plunged back into a crisis.
It looks like the American people will be getting more government shutdown hostage politics for Xtmas from the repugicans this year. The repugicans aren’t in control of Congress yet, and they are already causing chaos. The repugican cabal’s path to 2016 destruction will begin with a government shutdown next month.

McConnell, Boehner announce first Obamacare repeal target

An op-ed from John Boehner and Mitch McConnell in The Wall Street Journal outlines their plans for crippling government what they call helping the "struggling middle-class Americans who are clearly frustrated by an increasing lack of opportunity, the stagnation of wages, and a government that seems incapable of performing even basic tasks." That includes taking on Obamacare, of course.
They begin with the totally false premise that, "Health costs […] continue to rise under a hopelessly flawed law that Americans have never supported." Never mind that the rise in healthcare costs has slowed dramatically in the last several years, in part because of the law. And never mind that the law-even in Tuesdays' repugican electorate-gets more support than the idea of repealing the law. It's been a good 14 years since repugicans abandoned the reality-based world, and it's been working for them. So they're sticking with it. And how they say they'll start on the dismantling of Obamacare is this:
[…] a proposal to restore the traditional 40-hour definition of full-time employment, removing an arbitrary and destructive government barrier to more hours and better pay created by the Affordable Care Act of 2010.
Right now, full-time employment is 30 hours/week for the purposes of the law. The repugicans say that is forcing-forcing-poor beleaguered employers to cut workers' hours to below 30 hours to save them from the exorbitant costs of having to provide health insurance. And raising that threshold is going to restore those employees' hours how exactly? Now employers would be able to make workers put in a 39.5-hour work week without shelling out for health insurance. Which is, of course, the whole point for McConnell and Boehner. Hint, American worker: They're not looking out for your paycheck. Or your health insurance.

Other Terror Cabals Support ISIL

ISIL may be getting the lion's share of the headlines, but the world is filled with terrorist organizations large and small. Tara explains which among them has provided either public nods or more tangible help to ISIL.

Right-to-carry increases violent crime

14537-guns_news
Right-to-carry gun laws linked to increase in violent crime


Stanford research reaffirms that right-to-carry gun laws are connected with an increase in violent crime. This debunks – with the latest empirical evidence – earlier claims that more guns actually […]

Man suspends coffin from scaffolding in protest against noisy restaurant

A Frenchman in the Spanish coastal town of Denía, Alicante, has suspended a coffin from scaffolding outside his window to complain about noise from a neighboring restaurant. With the coffin, 69-year-old Michel Kessous has stepped up a protest which began recently when he hung out bras and pajamas. He then placed tombstones on his patio. The idea behind the macabre displays is to scare people away from dining at the newly-opened terrace of the L'Escoleta restaurant behind his home. Kessous said the noise from the restaurant's extractor fan was unbearable, while customers would often sit around chatting until 2am.
"We don't know what he's going to do next. Maybe he'll put skulls out," Juan Carlos Villar, owner of the restaurant said on Monday, adding he won't launch an official complaint because he doesn't want to start a "war between neighbors". "The ball is in the town hall's court. I don't want to get involved," he added.
"We don't understand why the town hall went over plans for minor renovations with a fine-toothed comb but now won't move a finger when a tomb is put out for everyone to see," one local resident complained. "It's clear that decorum has to come first," the restaurant owner said. The local town hall is now trying to establish whether the scaffolding used to display the coffin is legal while the "ashamed" restaurant owner is telling customers he has an "odd neighbor".

Grieving widow exhumed dead husband before trying to smuggle his corpse nearer her home

A grieving woman who dug up her dead husband and dumped his coffin by the side of a road before trying to smuggle his corpse across a border is facing jail. Widow Verica Zunjic, 60, had driven 230 miles from her home town of Doboj in Bosnia and Herzegovina to neighboring country Montenegro where her husband Milorad, 60, had been buried in his family plot in the town of Danilovgrad.
She then sneaked into the graveyard and exhumed his body by digging him up herself and stuffing the coffin in her hatchback and heading for the border. But she was stopped after motorists spotted her when she pulled over to open the coffin and put her husband's body in the car, leaving the coffin itself behind.
She said she had not managed to close the boot and thought it would look suspicious when she drove over the border, so she had laid her husband on the back seat, and hoped to tell border officials he was having a rest. But a police patrol who were alerted to the abandoned coffin stopped her after getting the complaint from another motorist and looking at CCTV footage to identify her.
She was pulled over a few miles away where they found her husband’s remains in the boot of her car. A police spokesman said: "When officers stopped her she denied any wrong-doing and said she was just taking what was rightfully hers. She had fallen out with her late husband’s family and wanted his remains buried close to where she lives. Unfortunately, exhuming a corpse without official permission is illegal, no matter what the reasons."

School children accused of snorting Smarties on campus suspended

At least three middle school children in Clovis, New Mexico, are accused of snorting Smarties on campus. The Clovis Municipal School District suspended the boys for 10 days. In a letter the district classifies Smarties as drugs and explains students can be suspended or even expelled by possessing them.
“I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I didn’t know anyone could do anything like that with a Smartie,” said Kelly Cook. Kelly Cook is Andrew Stonelake’s mother. Stonelake, 13, is a 7th grader at Marshall Middle School in Clovis. He’s one of the boy’s being punished for inhaling the candy, but Cook says her son’s side of the story is very different.
“He explained there was no inhaling or snorting of any kind. That they were crushing it up and blowing smoke out at each other. That they were horse playing,” said Cook. School officials have ordered the family to attend a fact-finding hearing next week. They even advised them they have the right to legal counsel. “I have no words to say about that,” said Cook.

“I am in so much shock that they would go to this extreme.” Cook says Andrew’s punishment is ridiculous. “There was no warning of any kind stating that they weren’t allowed to have these things,” said Cook. Andrew’s hearing is scheduled for November 19. At that time, the district will listen to Andrew’s side of the story then decide if he should be punished any further. The district says after the hearing it’ll take them five days to make a decision.

Students arrested for stealing Ronald McDonald

Four students from Olivet Nazarene University have been arrested for felony theft in connection with a missing Ronald McDonald statue in Bradley, Illinois.

The $7,500 life-size statue of the iconic clown was found in an ONU dormitory room on Tuesday after police identified the suspects using video surveillance. "The Hamburglar was not a suspect, as much as everyone thought he was," said Brandon Jensen, Bradley police detective, who investigated the case.
Arrested were Wyatt C. Petty, 18, of LaGrange, Ind.; Cody J. Shively, 19, Mishawaka, Ind.; John R. Witts, 18, Ft. Worth, Tx.; and Savannah F. Baldauf, 18, Seneca, Ill. All four were charged with felony theft. Baldauf drove up to the drive through and ordered food at 10:49 on Friday, Oct. 16 while the three boys ripped the statue from the ground and hid it in a nearby bush, Jensen said.

They ordered eight cheeseburgers and one ice cream cone, completing the transaction at the window. The three men later returned to retrieve the statue. The suspects were found when a Bourbonnais patrolman identified the suspect's car on ONUs campus. "People might think they were stealing from a big corporation, but the bottom line it comes out of the franchise owner," Jensen said. "This is a business owner in our community, and it's still felony theft."

Random Celebrity Photos

Ava.
Ava Gardner

This Is What a Computer Looked Like in 1957

This photo, according to a document from the government Norfolk County, UK, is a photo of the city of Norwich taking delivery of its first computer. It's an Elliott 405, a computer manufactured by Elliott Brothers, a now-defunct British company.
This 1957 article from The New Scientist describes it as the first municipal computer in the UK. The author, J.W. Cox, is an employee of Elliott Brothers. He states that the 405 was "specially designed for accounting and statistical purposes." It stores data on up to 1,000 feet of magnetic film.
Programming tip: lift with your legs, not your back.

The Truth About Cast Iron Pans

7 Myths That Need To Go Away
The cast iron pan is a versatile workhorse and no other pan even comes close to its league. But there's also a mysterious, myth-packed lore when it comes to cast iron pans. In the world of cast iron, there are unfounded, untested claims left, right and center. It's time to put a few of those myths to rest.

How 'Mantiques' Make It Cool For Average Joes To Shop And Decorate

According to 'mantique' mythology, the antiques world had become an out-of-date feminized zone where everyone is a little too fussy about furnishings and china sets.

Then in the early 2010s, pickers - unafraid to hit the road and get their hands dirty digging through rusty junk - injected the field with new life. Thus, these guys are inspiring new mantiques shops across the United States, boasting items suitable for a man cave.

Basic Fainting Technique

How to faint in a manner that attracts the attention of a specific gentleman.

Money Does Grow On Trees

Did your mother ever chastise you with the words money doesn't grow on trees in a possibly fruitless attempt to curb your profligate ways? Well, maybe - just maybe - she was wrong.
Perhaps it is simply for good luck or perhaps people believe that by leaving a coin in the bark of the tree they may have it returned to them many times over. Whatever the origins of this strange habit, there are a number of trees in the United Kingdom that bear the financial hopes of many.

A Historical Treat For Archaeologists Of The Future

A ‘Neglected’ Dinosaur Skull

CHAPTER2.FIGURE1.R1New Research Offers First Glimpse at ‘Neglected’ Dinosaur Skull


New research published by a South Dakota School of Mines & Technology paleontologist has opened the door for future discoveries about one of the last non-avian dinosaurs to roam the […]

Spiders Pretending To Be Ants

Some spiders are such ant wanna-be's that they resemble, act like, and hang out with ants, even forming mini colonies to foil ant-hating predators.

The Cost of a Shrimp Treadmill

Back in 2006, a research team headed by David A. Scholnick studied the effects of bacteria on crustaceans. The research was published in The Biological Bulletin under the title "Impact of Exposure to Bacteria on Metabolism in the Penaeid Shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei." However, once a video clip was introduced to the internet, the project became known as “Shrimp on a Treadmill.” In the years since, the study has become a go-to example for politicians complaining about wasteful government spending on scientific research. Sholnick took to The Chronicle of Higher Education to explain how much the treadmill actually cost.
To be clear, the treadmill did not cost millions of taxpayer dollars, the goal of the research was not to exercise shrimp, and the government did not pay me—or anyone else—to work out shrimp on treadmills.

Simply put, my colleagues and I were studying how recent changes in the oceans could potentially affect the ability of marine organisms to fight infections—an important question, given that the amount of bacteria a shrimp is able remove from its body is directly related to how much bacteria could potentially end up on seafood-filled plates. And since shrimp are active animals in nature, it was logical to study the immune response of shrimp during activity.

Exactly how much taxpayer money did go into the now-famous shrimp treadmill? The treadmill was, in fact, made from spare parts—an old truck inner tube was used for the tread, the bearings were borrowed from a skateboard, and a used pump motor was salvaged to power the treadmill. The total price for the highly publicized icon of wasteful government research spending? Less than $50. (All of which I paid for out of my own pocket.)
Sholnick still has the treadmill, which he is willing to sell for a million dollars, all of which will go to support marine biology research. But even better than that, it gives me an opportunity to repost the video that caused the controversy in the first place.

Eyespots

A species of butterfly uses its decorative flair for protection and also varies its color and intensity by season as predator types change.

Animal Pictures