Promoted by Steven D. Though I don’t contribute often enough, this is a great feature.
Last night I dreamed I ate a ten-pound marshmallow, and when I woke up the pillow was gone.
– Tommy Cooper
– Tommy Cooper
Sounds like he was taking Ambien…
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
Today’s undercovered news stories from storiesinamerica.
How so many people do stuff like this: AP/MSNBC
Maybe he’s taking Ambien too?
The man is in more fear of getting to work late and being scourged enough to feel his income threatened that he’d forget to do his chores. His child no longer becomes a living being with rights and needs compared to the necessity for showing up at work on time and making those middle class bucks. . . .
This is not this man’s fault I hope, it seems to me it’s just indicative of the pressures average Americans are under these days to be productive and perfect in the eyes of their managers.
ive done it
remember when that old man in philly left his grandbaby in the car and she died?
the brain isnt a perfect memory machine….its a mysterious unpredictable pile of mush that sometimes misfires or gets sick or does things counter to our best intentions.
“It takes a village to raise a child”
Back in the day, when people could still take that statement seriously, someone would have been there to help take papa’s slack.
I feel for the guy. He must be absolutely mortified right now.. and i just dom’t have it in my to think “well, too bad, having children are a priority over everything else.” People are human.. and when we’re functioning as we should we have someone behind us to pick us up when we fall down.
It was my first big grocery shopping trip since her birth. She woke up about twice a night also so I was a little sleep deprived and she was my first child. Took all the groceries inside and felt like I was forgetting something, started putting things away and realized that I had forgotten my baby who couldn’t resist car rides and was finally fast asleep in her car seat.
Belarus faces EU sanctions threat
Also read Sirocco’s entry over at ET.
listening to the us say people have a right to peacefully express their views is like listening to a drunk driver say people have a right to drive drunk as long as they dont kill anyone.
AP/Yahoo
The Donaldson Adoption Institute based their statement on facts, which is a clear indication of their liberal bias.
i like to remind the pseudochristian fascists that 99.99% of the gay people out there were raised by straight parents.
Chirac upset by English address
That’s odd.
its the perfect example of someone reacting to their feelings of surplus powerlessness.
the theories of surplus powerlessness were described in the book “Surplus Powerlessness” by michael lerner and they are the single most important thing ive ever come to understand about myself, the world, politics, activism, and why people do what they do (as in mans inhumanity to man)
from other sites:
via Feministing.com
Mediagirl
Alternet
Now we know what happened to Judy (Bubba) Miller: she got a “reporting” gig with the newly-changed-ownership @ the Atlantic (via Gawker). Gosh, I just can’t wait to read her profound, Bush-Rove-Melman insights. Allegedly from the, um, horse’s, mouth:
LibbyLibbyLibbyLibbyLibbyLibbyLibbyPlamePlamePlamePlamePlamePlame.
She’s just a shill for the CIA/DIA/Military-Industrial-Infotainment industries. If she’s not a CIA/DIA plant, then I am a fool.
infotainment…i love that word…..coined by walter cronkite in the 80s i believe.
News and Observer – Raleigh, Nc
did you ever get the feeling that what we are experiencing is a religious world war with the fundie christians fighting the fundie muslims and the rest of us are just stuck in the middle?
Yep, Anna. I’ve had that feeling for some time now.
Via Alternet comes this, um, news?
But wait, it gets better. The artist has dedicated the monument (?) to the anti-abortion movement.
Oh. My. God.
I’m glad I didn’t see this until posting the science headlines – all my circuits are now fried…
That is seriously creepy SN. Like mentally disturbed creepy.
After I posted this I read Cabin Girl’s link to mediagirl.org and see that she’s covered it there. In an interesting update, it seems that Britney actually gave birth via caesarian section. Heh.
its like watching a toilet overflow….fascinating yet horrifying.
in this case mostly horrifying.
That’s the best laugh I’ve had all morning.
I thought the pictures were so creepy that I only linked to them in my comment…not something I want to look at before I have coffee (or after, now that I think about it).
Christian Right’s house for coffee and a viewing of this fine work of art on the mantle piece. Do I ask for too much?
I am going to have to save “lactiferous breasts” for an appropriate use. I didn’t even know that was a word.
Enough news to last you through the weekend!
Just as a moving electrical charge creates a magnetic field, so a moving mass generates a gravitomagnetic field. According to Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, the effect is virtually negligible. Although just 100 millionths of the acceleration due to the Earth’s gravitational field, the measured field is a surprising one hundred million trillion times larger than Einstein’s General Relativity predicts. Initially, the researchers were reluctant to believe their own results, and took three years to perform hundreds of additional experiments to confirm the result. Finding a theoretical framework that explains the observations fully could lead to a potential framework for merging relativity and quantum theory. Details here.
A new study of a meteorite that originated from Mars has revealed a series of microscopic tunnels that are similar in size, shape and distribution to tracks left on Earth rocks by feeding bacteria. And though researchers were unable to extract DNA from the 600 million year old Martian igneous rock, the finding nonetheless adds intrigue to the search for life beyond Earth.
Three icy comets orbiting among the rocky asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter could be linked to the origin of Earth’s oceans. The newly discovered comets, called “main-belt comets,” hold asteroid-like orbits, and unlike other comets they appear to have formed in the warm inner solar system inside the orbit of Jupiter, rather than in the outer solar system beyond Neptune.
New preliminary data on the properties of a subatomic particle called a B_s meson suggest that the particle actually oscillates between matter and antimatter – something that if verified could help scientists understand why antimatter is almost nonexistent in the current universe, and perhaps provide the first tangible evidence for the scientific theory called supersymmetry.
Astronomers have found powerful X-ray-producing regions located around two quasars that could have powered their activation. If so, the discovery could help scientists understand how the distant, mysterious quasars ignite.
Seismologists at Columbia and Harvard Universities have found a new indicator that the Earth is warming: “glacial earthquakes” caused when the rivers of ice lurch unexpectedly. Glacial earthquakes in Greenland, the researchers found, are most common in July and August as metwater runs through cracks to the base of the glacier. Lubricating its movement, and have more than doubled in number since 2002. There have also been increases measured in such quakes in Alaska and Antarctica. In a related story in the same issue of Science magazine, paleoclimatologists studying the melting of glaciers 130,000 years ago say that if CO2 levels rise to twice the pre-industrial levels this century a “tipping point” will be passed, triggering a massive melting of polar ice and increase in sea levels on the order of 2-3.5 meters.
A pioneering study of the numbers of fish and other marine animals over a 15-year period in the deep sea of the eastern North Pacific Ocean has been published. The numbers of creatures in the deep sea were measured to increase, apparently due to an increase in their food supply falling from shallower waters. [Perhaps due to over-fishing in the shallow waters?]
Notoriously “promiscuous” plants like oaks and dandelions have led some biologists to conclude plants cannot be divided into species the same way animals are. A new study says that perception is wrong, and plant hybrids are less, not more, likely to be fertile than animal hybrids. Part of the confusion arose from a tendency of plant taxonomists to declare plants with slight differences to be different species when they may in fact be simply different “varieties” or subspecies of the same species. It is not common knowledge that many bird and fish species successfully hybridize in the wild. The scientists found that birds were most likely to produce fertile hybrids when crossed with other bird species. Ferns, of all things, were least likely to generate fertile hybrids.
The mutation of a single gene has been found to switch the symbiotic interaction of a species of grass and an associated fungus from mutually beneficial to antagonistic. In the natural wild form, the fungus grows within developing leaves but stops short as the leaf matures, preventing major harm to the plant. In the mutant form this control is lost, and the fungus seriously harms the plant. Details here.
Life on Earth may have driven the evolution of the planet itself. Researchers have proposed that ancient microbes provided the chemical energy to create the Earth’s continents – a nod to the Gaia hypothesis, in which life helps create the conditions it needs to survive. The theory would solve the puzzle of why the Earth’s continental crust appeared when it did, and explain the presence of granite, a substance not found anywhere else in our solar system. The appearance of the continental crust coincided with the rise of photosynthesis. Today, photosynthetic organisms, which convert solar energy into usable chemical energy, contribute three times as much energy to the Earth’s overall geochemical energy cycle as geological activity driven by the Earth’s interior. The first photosynthetic life forms would have made solar energy available for chemical changes, cranking up the Earth’s energy cycle and altering its geochemistry, keeping oceans and atmosphere out of chemical equilibrium with the rock. This enhances weathering cycles, causing more chemical breakdown in the crust compared with physical processes. Such breakdown of basalt produces smectite and illite clays, which in turn play a role in the creation of granite – which, floating on the heavier basalts of the mantle, forms the continents in Earth’s crust. [Of course, this would not be a new idea at all to the Russian scientist V.I.Vernadsky, who proposed in 1926 that life has molded the surface of the earth, concepts much later developed independently by James Lovelock in the Gaia Hypothesis. Vernadsky’s expansion of this concept to the higher realm of intelligent thought, the noosphere, would be explored by a range of philosophers, including deChardin in a Christian context.]
And from the sublime to the slime:
An environmental-labor partnership on Thursday launched a project to remove 3 inches of arsenic-contaminanted soil from homes in eastern New Orleans and planting sod. The state department of environmental quality says the project is unnecessary and that the activist have misinterpreted the guidance on cleanup levels for arsenic in soil.
From Congress to California, there’s a growing movement aimed at convincing automakers to build a new kind of gas-electric hybrid vehicle — one that plugs into a wall outlet and can go 100 miles on a gallon of gasoline. Detroit says their models’ electrical distribution systems are not designed for all-electirc use, but this feature is already available on Toyota hybrids sold in Asia and Europe – but not in the US, unless you want to “hack your hybrid.” [sounds like jolly good fun to me!]
The American Prospect is currently featuring a story on green chemistry – redesigning the chemical industry so it operates in an environmentally-benign manner. The concept is gaining traction. And the Philadelphia inquirer has a story on green homes – they’re still pricey, but are beginning to enter the mainstream.
The Washington Post has a thought-provoking piece today on scientific studies – some funded by the government – being done on the efficacy of prayer to bring about healing… And I’m not going to state my opinion lest I offend friends or start a food fight!
Like a goodie bag… 🙂
That’s how I feel every time I wnader over to see your amazing photos! 🙂
as far as prayer bringing about healing….i think thats worth study and scinetifically plausible….if everything is energy and prayer is just more energy and all things happening are actions and reactions then it makes sense that prayer or meditation or thought etc is an action that causes a reaction.
the pseudochristians are praying for a more conservative nation and they are in some ways getting that….maybe the progressives should start praying america will vote for a divorced jew for president.
…if everything is energy and prayer is just more energy and all things happening are actions and reactions then it makes sense that prayer or meditation or thought etc is an action that causes a reaction.
I never thought about it that way. Hmmm… (wandering off to ponder)
Harper says Afghan Christian won’t be killed — “Prime Minister Stephen Harper says Afghanistan’s president has assured him an Afghan man who converted to Christianity will not be executed. Harper said on Thursday President Hamid Karzai had “conveyed to me that we don’t have to worry about any such eventual outcome” during a telephone conversation on Wednesday.
Karzai also said the issue would be resolved quickly, Harper said. (…)”
Canada, U.S. split on ADHD drug warnings — “Health authorities in Canada and the U.S. are split on how to warn users about the potential side effects of certain drugs prescribed for Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). Health Canada has added tough new warnings to the labels of Ritalin and similar drugs used to treat ADHD. (…)”
I’ve written about the terrorism trial of Umer and Hamid Hayat before here & here.
The Gov’t is still presenting its case; one major development was the assertion by their informant that al-Qaeda’s #2, al-Zawahiri, was seen numerous times at the mosque in Lodi in 1999, at which time he was wanted by the FBI for his role in Africa bombings. Local mosque leaders & terrorism experts all say that that is highly unlikely.
Two weeks ago, one of the jurors in the trial told the judge she’d forgotten that she had dated a Sheriff’s deputy a decade ago. After considering the defense motion to have her excused, the judge released her from further jury duty. She spoke to the press afterwards; the defense may be wishing she was still on the jury. Her remarks confirm what press reports seem to indicate: the governemt’s case is thin & not going too well.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt hasn’t been proven at this point,” the 39-year-old Clabaugh said in a hallway interview with reporters. “It’s not very clear-cut.”
Keep in mind that the gov’t hasn’t rested yet, so the defense has yet to even present its case. Writing about the FBI’s videotaped ‘confession’ by the younger Hayat, I mentioned last month that “[a]ny teenager raised on US tv crime shows would see a problem in this line of questioning”
Wrong move on rights
(On the new Human Rights Council at the UN – by Rep. Tom Lantos.)
.
LOS ANGELES (Los Angeles Times/AP) 10 minutes ago — Authorities are examining a surveillance tape that shows an elderly woman wandering Skid Row in a hospital gown and slippers as they investigate the practice of hospitals and police agencies dumping homeless people downtown.
An image taken from a Los Angeles Union Rescue Mission surveillance video camera shows Carol Reyes, 63, wandering around after being dropped off in her hospital gown by a taxi on Skid Row. Photo APSeveral hospitals have acknowledged that they put some discharged indigent patients with nowhere else to go into taxicabs headed to the area because it offers a chance for getting services and shelter. Los Angeles police also are investigating whether other law enforcement agencies dump people without anywhere else to go downtown.
“We have been looking into homeless dumping for some time, and this (tape) gives us another example of what has been going on,” said Frank Mateljan, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office.
“But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.”
▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY
This is abominable! From the link it says that the they have set up hidden cameras (“dumping cams”) outside the missions to catch the hospitals! It’s been a year-long investigation. I can’t even fathom dumping someone w/ nothing on but a freaking hospital gown and slippers!