Check out the definition of "journalist" in Webster's.
Surely there's a picture of Rachel Maddow in the listing.
Watch her destroy this "cure the gay right out of you" charlatan:
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Matt Taibbi on business as usual in DC and on Wall Street:
Wall Street = 1, Main Street = 0 . . . .
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Let's put this whole gay marriage thing to bed (so to speak).
"You're not dead yet."
That oughta do it . . . .
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Quite the interesting contraption, would you not agree?
Used extensively in Ottawa, Victoria and Washington, DC.
(Click to enlarge)
More vindication of our decision to vacate our former Florida locale for a somewhat more civilized Vancouver, BC, Canada:
Police: Burglar showers, tells residents ‘Obama let him in'
November 28, 2009
_________ - A man accused of breaking into a ________ home and taking a shower reportedly told residents who showed up “President Obama let him in” the house.
According to a ________ Police Department report, St. Petersbug resident Donald Leon May, 48, entered a home in the 400 block of East Railroad Avenue Nov. 18 through an unlocked back door and took a shower.
While in the shower, two juvenile children who lived at the house entered with a friend. Thinking their dad was home, one of the children entered the bathroom and “saw a male in the shower who was not his father,” the report states.“The male in the shower stated ‘Obama let him in’” and told the boy to “get out,” the report continues.
The children ran to a neighbor’s house and called police. When they arrived May was still in the house with nothing on but a “towel wrapped around his lower body,” the report states.
May declined to comment when interrogated by police other than to say, “The Yellow Brick Road brought him to __________,” according to the report.
Three days before the incident, May was arrested for trespassing and failure to leave the premises at another property.
He was released from the ___________ County Jail on the trespassing charge two hours before his Nov. 18 arrrest.
May is is charged with felony burglary to an occupied dwelling and petty theft.
It's amazing to me how vanity can take over one's life - and death, apparently.
Today's Toronto Star reports:
Beauty queen dies for 'firmer behind'
December 01, 2009
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina–A 38-year-old former Miss Argentina has died from complications after undergoing cosmetic surgery on her buttocks.
Solange Magnano, a mother of twins who won the crown in 1994, died of a pulmonary embolism Sunday after three days in critical condition following a gluteoplasty in Buenos Aires.
_______________Fashion designer and friend Roberto Piazza said the procedure also involved injections, and the liquid "went to her lungs and brain."
"A woman who had everything lost her life to have a slightly firmer behind," he said.
_______________
Juan Carlos Seiler, former president of the Buenos Aires Association of plastic surgeons, told the Times of London that the doctor who performed the procedure might not have been "a real professional."
I don't want to be Scrooge here (well, maybe I do) but personally, I think this is a positive development. People just don't need all the crap they buy!
Per Reuters this afternoon:
Shoppers spent less over Black Friday weekend
Sun Nov 29, 2009 4:53pm EST | By Nicole Maestri
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Consumers spent significantly less at the start of the holiday season this weekend, dimming hopes for a retail comebackthat would help propel the economy early in 2010.
While shoppers turned out in force as early as Thanksgiving Day on Thursday, many said they had zeroed in on highly discounted items, would buy only what they needed and would walk out of a store if they did not find a good deal.
_______________
Consumers said they will have spent nearly 8 percent less on average, or about $343 per person, over the weekend that includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday and runs through Sunday, according to the NRF.
_______________
Shoppers interviewed across the country by Reuters over the weekend said they were lured by bargains, but would stick to pared-down budgets.
"If they don't have rebates and sales before Christmas, I don't think people are going to go back shopping after Black Friday," said Joel Wincowski, a higher education consultant shopping at a Best Buy store in Plattsburgh, New York. He bought an Xbox 360 game console for $299.
"We're going to cut back on everybody, even the kids."
Christopher Hitchens and Stephen Fry fire shots across the bow at the catholic church.
These are two clips from the BBC's Intelligence Squared presentation of "The catholic church is a Force for Good." Hitchens is up first followed by Ann Widdecombe - a recent convert to catholocism - and Fry finishes up.
bennie and the jerks: 0
Our side: 1 . . . .
H/T BTO
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Tuesday humour . . . .
H/T "The Olde Goat"
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It appears members of the GLBT community in Texas will be enjoying a bit of schadenfreude in the near future.
You're gonna love this one, gang, via McClatchy today:
Texas' gay marriage ban may have banned all marriages
Dave Montgomery | Fort Worth Star-Telegram | November 18, 2009
AUSTIN — Texans: Are you really married?
Maybe not.Barbara Ann Radnofsky, a Houston lawyer and Democratic candidate for attorney general, says that a 22-word clause in a 2005 constitutional amendment designed to ban gay marriages erroneously endangers the legal status of all marriages in the state.
The amendment, approved by the Legislature and overwhelmingly ratified by voters, declares that "marriage in this state shall consist only of the union of one man and one woman." But the troublemaking phrase, as Radnofsky sees it, is Subsection B, which declares:
"This state or a political subdivision of this state may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage."
Architects of the amendment included the clause to ban same-sex civil unions and domestic partnerships. But Radnofsky, who was a member of the powerhouse Vinson & Elkins law firm in Houston for 27 years until retiring in 2006, says the wording of Subsection B effectively "eliminates marriage in Texas," including common-law marriages.
She calls it a "massive mistake" and blames the current attorney general, Republican Greg Abbott, for allowing the language to become part of the Texas Constitution. Radnofsky called on Abbott to acknowledge the wording as an error and consider an apology. She also said that another constitutional amendment may be necessary to reverse the problem.
_______________Radnofsky, the Democratic nominee in the Senate race against Kay Bailey Hutchison in 2006, said she voted against the amendment but didn’t realize the legal implications until she began poring over the Texas Constitution to prepare for the attorney general’s race. She said she holds Abbott and his office responsible for not catching an "error of massive proportions."
"Whoever vetted the language in B must have been asleep at the wheel," she said.
If you think the influence of the US christian right "wrong" is creeping north across the 49th, there's now proof.
On a trip to the US southland last summer I was not surprised to see this ad on television down there. Unfortunately, it is now here.
Two, count 'em two ads for the item within the past hour on "ahem," "choke," "gasp" CTV.
It appears harper is winning, ya'll . . . .
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Since my friend was singing in the pre-show choir for Malalai Joya's Vancouver book tour kick-off, I walked up the hill to her performance this evening.
I had previously heard Ms. Joya on a PBS program in the US, but to hear her story live in person was very moving. It is something I would recommend to anyone that has the opportunity to attend one of her appearances on this tour.
Be advised that neither bush, harper nor obama are positively portrayed. The woman knows where the real element of change for her country lies: Within it's people.
In response to a question from and Afghani-Canadian woman in the audience:
was:
"What will happen to Afghanistan if all the foreign troops leave?" "The Afghani people will work it out. Slowly, they will begin to see that democracy and equal rights for all people, genders, religions is the thing to do. It won't be easy. It won't be fast. But it will happen. Having foreign troops there only more firmly entrenches the Taliban and the war lords in power. Make them leave, and the situation will slowly begin to change."
I'm thinking the military/industrial/congressional complex would not like her answer . . . .
The Lady Alison has the details of the tour . . . .
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