Stormy

It has rained and stormed a lot in Houston over the past two days. Here is a picture of that rain through my car windshield.

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http://texasliberal.wordpress.com/2012/05/12/stormy/

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Mid-Day Open Thread

enlarge

Open thread below...

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/tina-dupuy/mid-day-open-thread-15

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#TPP: Out of the Shadows Today

Today I join Occupy Austin and members of Occupy San Antonio (in its newest incarnation as Occupy Bexar) travel to Addison, Texas with a wide coalition of unions and activist organizations at the Out of the Shadows Rally and March. This protest is a[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/J3ZYp3A_13Q/

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Romney in 2011: "I'd like to repeal Dodd-Frank"

As we begin this latest banking crisis, it's important to see who stands where. It's easy to argue that Obama has been too gentle with Wall Street and that he fell for their threats. No question about it. That said, at least he was calling for the banks to accept reform. Compare that to Mitt Romney, who called for a repeal of the already watered down Dodd-Frank reform. Think about this...

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Americablog/~3/g2AOheeZSV4/romney-in-2011-id-like-
to-repeal-dodd.html

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Media Feeding Frenzy

What would the founding father of Time have made of the magazine?s breast-feeding Mother?s Day cover?

The model for it, a 26-year-old woman, reacts to the uproar about the photo with her three-year-old son to observe that breast-feeding advocates ?are actually upset? because it doesn?t ?show the nurturing side to attachment parenting. This isn?t how we breastfeed at home.
?It?s more of a cradling, nurturing situation. And I understand what they?re saying, but I do understand why Time chose this picture because it...did create such a media craze.?
In 1923, Henry Luce started the magazine to save readers from being confused by ?the million little chaoses of raw news? and give them a Voice from Above to explain what it all means. Now, in the Drudge age, journalism has gone downhill from fake omniscience to injecting a 24/7 stream of "news" on steroids into the public bloodstream.
Like Drudge, Luce pursued his own political agenda but had to recognize some bounds in pushing it.
?Isn?t good editing,? he once asked me, ?figuring out what?s going to happen and then advocating it before it does?? I wish I could report that there was a mischievous gleam in Luce?s eye when he said it, but there wasn?t.
Being a practical man, Luce knew that getting attention is the media?s first requisite. The most compelling evidence is his answer to the question of why, despite his conservative political beliefs, he hired so many Democrats for his magazines? staff.
?Because,? he replied, ?those Republican bastards can?t write.?
For the most part, the man who named the American Century wouldn?t be shocked at seeing his magazine in this one embrace liberal writers, bare breasts and who-knows-what-else to stay alive in the competition.

Read The Full Article:
http://ajliebling.blogspot.com/2012/05/media-feeding-frenzy.html

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Midday open thread

Major elections are getting close, Netroots Nation is right around the corner...the thread is excited. To the links...

• According the NRA, this shouldn't be the case:
  

  German police officers fired a total of 85 bullets in 2011, 49 of which were warning shots, the German publication Der Spiegel reported. Officers fired 36 times at people, killing six and injuring 15. This is a slight decline from 2010, when seven people were killed and 17 injured. Ninety-six shots were fired in 2010.

  Meanwhile, in the United States, The Atlantic reported that in April, 84 shots were fired at one murder suspect in Harlem, and another 90 at an unarmed man in Los Angeles.

  So basically, one our our cities' police departments fired as many shots at one guy as the police in all of Germany fired all year.
• This is the most psychotic anti-gay rant you will ever see. All delivered very calmly and read into a microphone at a meeting of the Lincoln, Nebraska, City Council. No, seriously, you need to watch it. I'm not going to quote it, because you should watch the whole thing. Wait, actually, I will. I'll leave you with this:
  

  Do you choose Jesus, a celibate, or Judas, a homo?

  And with that, I'll let you watch the rest, just, really, because you need to have something that will make you laugh out loud.
• Betty White just endorsed Obama. To be fair, most other cool people do too.
• A brilliant cartoon by Clay Bennett of the Chattanooga Times Free Press. Once a bully, always a bully.
• The irreplaceable satirist Andy Borowitz:
  

  Dear Friends:

  This week, The Washington Post reported an incident from my high school days in which I bullied a gay classmate by pinning him to the ground and cutting his hair off.  This story revealed a side of Mitt Romney that may have been surprising to many of you: the Mitt Romney with an irrepressible and hilarious sense of humor.

  Some of you may say, ?Hold on, Mitt ? isn?t holding a kid down and cutting off his hair going a little far??  Well, the merry prankster in me tells me you can never go too far when it comes to giving the greatest gift of all: the gift of laughter.  And I certainly remember many of us laughing long and hard about what I did to that Nancy-boy.  Was it cruel?  Perhaps, but it?s not like I tied him to the roof of a car or anything.

• More notes from the war on women. a Catholic high school in Arizona has forfeited its baseball championship game. The reason? They refused to play against a girl:
  

  PHOENIX ? Instead of playing in a championship baseball game, Paige Sultzbach and her team won?t even make it to the dugout.

  A Phoenix school that was scheduled to play the 15-year-old Mesa girl and her male teammates forfeited the game rather than face a female player.

  They said it was out of their high respect for women: apparently, a slide into second base could have resulted in, oh, I don't know, some inappropriate hand-on-ankle action? I think that the best way they could have shown respect for her is by treating her as a member of the team they were playing against. But that's just me.
• And we now have a guy selling Trayvon Martin gun range targets. Yep, replete with a silhouetted figure, a hoodie, and a can of iced tea and Skittles. And a big target right on the chest. Offered without comment.

Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/ea_ZrIuOA90/-Midday-open-thread

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Making Sure Obama Loses Even After He Wins

By @KYYellowDog

From Zandar, who always sees through the mothefuckers:

So in the world of Big Moron, Obama game a speech to an "empty arena".  There's no downside to the lie, of course.  It's not like our liberal media will call them on it.  In fact, it's more likely they will repeat the lie until it becomes fact, then a trend consisting of facts, then a President locked in a tight race for his political survival (when the opposite its true.) It may demoralize voters.  It will give observers the illusion of a close race, and of course the opinion-makers of the Village must be heeded in a situation like that.  A boring, lop-sided competition becomes a razor-thin slugfest.  You know, just like 2008 wasn't.

When he wins, it will be "How could he possibly have won when he gave campaign" rallies at empty arenas?  He couldn't possibly have won without his Chicago thuggery!  It must be VOTER FRAUD ON AN UNPRECEDENTED SCALE!  IMPEACH!  IMPEEEEEEEACH!"

And let's be honest:  The next six months of this aren't really about helping Romney win.  He can't and they know it.  It's all about pre-emptively delegitimizing Obama's second term now.  The plan really is simple.  Six months of "empty arenas" and "unspectacular attendance" will prove that the polls showing the President ahead are all "suspect".  When he wins, it will be "hard for the country to accept how it happened when nobody came to the President's rallies".

And that of course, Republican in Congress will have to investigate because the "people will be clamoring to know".  The people lied to by Breitbart, and FOX, and Drudge, and the rest.

Really is that simple.  How well it will work?  For tens of millions who only get their info from FOX and still believe the President's birth certificate isn't real?  For tens of millions more who get their news from the Villagers who insist only they have the power to see the future of this race that's "too close to call"?

No matter what happens, no matter what he accomplishes, Barack Obama will always be "that ni**er in the White House" to a certain segment of the population. The question is whether the rest of us will fight to keep the polite version of that from becoming conventional wisdom.


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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheyGaveUsARepublic-FrontPage/~3/b9AK8hy41DE/makin
g-sure-obama-loses-even-after-he-wins

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Blissfully Childfree

I’m so glad I didn’t have children.

Every Mother’s Day affirms it.

I’ve never understood the desperate fertility treatment dance so many women go through in order to have children that they can’t conceive naturally. It’s a miracle it’s an option, but the torture of it all. But when I found out my niece and her husband finally conceived we cracked a bottle of Tequila and did shots in their honor.

Some girls want a different life.

When I grew up it was an expectation you would get married and have children. It’s what women did. I refused, wearing the childree stigma from those days as a badge of independent bravery. Because when the modern age of feminism blasted off Phyllis Schlafly’s harping was a loud noise in our ear.

Thankfully, it’s not so anymore.

As a kid, the doll I loved was Barbie. She was independent, had lots of clothes and cool car and dream house, though I wasn’t interested at all in Ken. What did Barbie need him for anyway? Her perfect body didn’t faze me. All I saw was her freedom. She wasn’t one of those loathsome dolls that I was expected to pretend feed, pantomime diaper changing and roll around in a fake stroller, which was obviously meant to prepare me for something I always knew I didn’t want.

When I got a Thumbelina for Christmas one year, she came in a pretty basket all cuddled up. My interest lasted about a second.

I love being around little people. Their reaction to me is entertaining, because I don’t treat them like children. The encounters are inevitably magical for me, but it’s a vacation zone not a landing strip.

What’s your life all about without children? Everything you can think of to do and then more. It’s about discovering or creating something else you’re passionate about that teaches you, inspires you and expands you. It’s a never ending cavalcade of experiences. As a thinker, artist and writer it’s been about making an impact in my little corner of the world.

Contrary to the stereotypical propaganda, not having children can also keep you young. You are the kid in your life, just with heaping responsibilities and the rewards that come with adulthood.

I can’t imagine my life any other way and wouldn’t have it any other way either. It’s been a madcap, non-stop whirl of amazing miracles and evolutionary thrills.

That was before I met Mark and got married, when it was thought a feminist was more likely to be hit by a terrorist than get married in her 40s. What has made it so strong and exhilarating is we’re on this journey together. I’ve married the strongest feminist I know who stands beside me in all I do, as we create our life lived in a perpetual roller coaster of events. He’s a great dad, but that’s his life to manage, not mine in which to interfere. I can hardly wait ’til his kids come visit us in Virginia. What fun that will be!

Every day begins when I ask myself what will I explore or discover today? Then off I go.

I’m grateful I had the guts to say no to kids when I was very young and hold on to that vision all of my life.

When I read about more and more women today putting off motherhood or choosing to forego it entirely, I send them a secret blessing for what is possible in front of them if they choose to stay childfree. A big, messy board of bright colors and life free of being tethered to shepherding anyone’s journey but your own. Loads of hours and days and weeks and months where you have nothing to think about but your own adventure.

If you get really lucky, you’ll find someone who wants to come along and has great ideas of trouble to get into and together you’ll have a madcap blast.

For all you mothers out there, happy Mother’s Day. I hope you’re as blissfully happy with children as I am childfree.

graphic via 7DeadlySinners

Read The Full Article:
http://taylormarsh.com/blog/2012/05/blissfully-childfree/

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Dimon Doesnt Know If JPM Broke the Law in Fail
Whale Trade

If you can find another CEO answer a point-blank question about whether or not their company broke the law with, essentially, "I don't know, the regulators should come in and find out," you win a cookie.[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/firedoglake/fdl/~3/ToPb7Q91rgo/

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Trayvon Martin Gun Range Targets Sell Out in Two
Days

Click here to view this media

A person selling gun range targets modeled after slain Florida teen Trayvon Martin says that their "main motivation was to make money off the controversy."

WKMG's Mike DeForest reported on Friday that the unidentified seller told him that the targets "sold out in 2 days."

"The response is overwhelming," the seller said.

While the item appears to have been removed from GunBroker.com, a cached version of the page was still available at the time of publication.

Photos of the item, which was titled "10 Pack Trayvon Martin Targets," showed crosshairs over a hoodie similar to the one Trayvon Martin was wearing when he was shot by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in February. The figure has a bag of Skittle in his pocket and is holding what appears to be a can of iced tea, similar to what Martin had purchased before being gunned down. The pack of 10 targets was being sold for $8.

"Everyone knows the story of Zimmerman and Martin," a description on the targets reads. "Obviously we support Zimmerman and believe he is innocent and that he shot a thug. Each target is printed on thick, high quality poster paper with a matte finish! The dimensions are 12"x18" ( The same as Darkotic Zombie Targets) This is a Ten Pack of Targets."

The seller's ID was listed as "hillerarmco" from Virginia Beach, Virginia. A website by the same name is registered to Hiller Armament Company in Virginia Beach, but the associated phone number had been disconnected.

Zimmerman attorney Mark O'Mara told WKMG that this type of "hatred" just makes his client's defense even more problematic.

"This is the highest level of disgust and the lowest level of civility," O'Mara said. "It's this type of hatred -- that's what this is, it's hate-mongering -- that's going to make it more difficult to try this case."

"I hope there is a crime that we can charge that person who made that with," he added. "I'm not sure what it is, but we need to come up with one because that's disgusting."

(h/t: Gawker)

Read The Full Article:
http://crooksandliars.com/david/trayvon-martin-gun-range-targets-sold-out-tw

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