Friday News Bucket

11 Comments

1. 

   CabinGirl on February 23, 2007 at 8:01 am

   out there promoting racism again: NBC

   In what it says is an attempt to get students to debate the issue of illegal immigration, a student Republican club at New York University has dreamed up a novel game that has some on campus calling the event “racist.”

   In the game planned for Thursday, called “Find the Illegal Immigrant,” members of the club who present their NYU identification become immigration agents looking for an illegal in the crowd. The agent who successfully identifies the illegal immigrant wins a gift certificate.

   Students have sent club officials e-mails calling the the event “racist” and “disgusting.” But the club said it is about stoking debate on the issue of illegal immigrants.

   “It’s not a racist event, first and foremost,” said Sarah Chambers, the 21-year-old president of the College Republicans. “Just because we don’t want illegal immigrants being able to completely disregard the laws of our country doesn’t make us racist.”

   But if it’s the President and his henchmen completely disregarding the laws of our country, the College Republicans apparently don’t have a problem with it.

2. 

   CabinGirl on February 23, 2007 at 8:13 am

   but I think this Diesel ad is horrifyingly misogynistic.

   Where do they use these ads, anyway?  On the subway?  On billboards?  In men’s magazines?

3. 

   idredit on February 23, 2007 at 8:17 am

   Shorter Napoleon just wish I could reproduce the image here without having to link.  It’s Priceless.

   From The Guardian, UK, a Steve Bell cartoon: Napoleon Boneheaded Bush and the planned UK troop withdrawal from Iraq: Into the Valley of death

   Forward March? OOOps!!!. please help barefoot our commander-in-chief.

4. 

   idredit on February 23, 2007 at 8:25 am

   While KP is away on a mini sabbatical, this is interesting:

   Arctic vault an ark for seeds. A high-tech cavern will keep diversity of Earth’s crops safe in a disaster

   “It’s known, ominously, as the Doomsday Vault.

   But it could be the world’s safety net if a global catastrophe – extreme climate change, natural disaster, even nuclear war – ever destroys the planet’s food sources.

   Far inside an Arctic mountain, the vault will still be there, containing the foundation for all of the agriculture developed by mankind over the past 10,000 years.”

   We’ll be drawing down sooner rather than later.  It is the view in some scientific circles that GM crops may be contributing to the death of honeybees.

5. 

   refinish69 on February 23, 2007 at 9:00 am

   Atheists Sue Bush Over Faith Based Initiatives

   Madison, Wisconsin) Annie Laurie Gaylor speaks with a soft voice, but her message catches attention: Keep God out of government.

   Gaylor has helped transform the Freedom From Religion Foundation from obscurity into the nation’s largest group of atheists and agnostics, with a fast-rising membership and increasing legal clout.

   Next week, the group started by Gaylor and her mother in the 1970s to take on the religious right will fight its most high-profile battle when the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on its lawsuit against President Bush’s faith-based initiative.

   The court will decide whether taxpayers can sue over federal funding that the foundation believes promotes religion. It could be a major ruling for groups that fight to keep church and state separate.

   “What’s at stake is the right to challenge the establishment of religion by the government,” Gaylor said.

   The 51-year-old once donned a nun’s habit as a college student in 1977 to protest a judge who blamed rape on women who wear provocative clothing.

   She uses different tactics these days, though her activism remains strong.
   Atheists Sue Bush Over Faith Based Initiatives

6. 

   olivia on February 23, 2007 at 10:03 am

   The infamous study shows … beware 😉

   MSNBC — People have a harder time coming up with alternative solutions to a problem when they are part of a group, new research suggests.

   Cont’d

   

   • 

     CabinGirl on February 23, 2007 at 10:06 am

     I wish I were surprised by those findings.  🙂

     That’s actually one of the best parts of working from a home office…no meetings to waste so much of your day!

7. 

   refinish69 on February 23, 2007 at 11:51 am

   Updated: 44 minutes ago

   DES MOINES, Iowa – Democrat Tom Vilsack is abandoning his bid for the presidency after struggling against better-known, better-financed rivals, a senior campaign official told The Associated Press on Friday.

   Vilsack left office in January and traveled through states holding early tests of strength. He had faced a tough challenge from rivals such as New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards, who have had more success raising money and attracting attention — even in Vilsack’s home state of Iowa.

   Iowa’s Vilsack to drop 2008 presidential bid

   • 

     CabinGirl on February 23, 2007 at 11:56 am

     Yay!  Hillary’s stalking horse for votes in the Iowa caucus is gone!  

     Woo-hoo!  One DLC candidate down, how many more to go?

     • 

       idredit on February 23, 2007 at 8:28 pm

       wish I could give you doubles just for that find.

8. 

   Man Eegee on February 23, 2007 at 11:56 am

   Advocacy groups for immigrant families and the Department of Homeland Security are at odds over detention facilities in Texas and Pennsylvania that critics argue are inhumanely housing adults and young children in jail-like conditions.

   In a report released Thursday, groups speaking for immigrants demanded the immediate closure of the T. Don Hutto Residential Center north of Austin, the Texas capital, a facility that once was a jail.

   The advocacy groups — the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children and Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services — said they based their complaints on visits to these sites by their members and interviews with detainees.

   At the Hutto site, their report said, a child secretly passed a visitor a note that read: “Help us and ask us questions,” it said. The groups reported that many of the detainees cried during interviews. – linkage