Today, we continue to remember the films of the late John Hughes.
Today – 1986 with both Pretty in Pink AND Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.
Pretty in Pink
Pretty in Pink is a 1986 American teen romantic comedy-drama film about teenage love and social cliques in 1980s American high schools. It is one of a group of John Hughes films starring Molly Ringwald, and is commonly identified as a “Brat Pack” film. The film was directed by Howard Deutch, produced by Lauren Shuler and written by John Hughes. It has become a cult favorite.[1]
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
The film follows high school senior Ferris Bueller (Matthew Broderick), who decides to skip school and spend the day in downtown Chicago. Accompanied by his girlfriend Sloane Peterson (Mia Sara) and his best friend Cameron Frye (Alan Ruck), he creatively avoids his school’s Dean of Students Edward Rooney (Jeffrey Jones), his resentful sister Jeanie (Jennifer Grey), and his parents. During the film, Bueller frequently breaks the fourth wall by speaking directly to the camera to explain to the audience his techniques and thoughts.
Hughes wrote the screenplay in less than a week and shot the film—on a budget of $5.8 million—over several months in late 1985. Featuring many famous Chicago landmarks including the then Sears Tower and the Art Institute of Chicago, the film was Hughes’ love letter to the city: “I really wanted to capture as much of Chicago as I could. Not just in the architecture and landscape, but the spirit.”[2]
Released by Paramount Pictures on June 11, 1986, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off became one of the top grossing films of the year and was enthusiastically received by critics and audiences alike.
Ferris Bueller Quotes
Cameron: I am not going to sit on my ass as the events that affect me unfold to determine the course of my life. I’m going to take a stand. I’m going to defend it. Right or wrong, I’m going to defend it.
……………………….
Ferris: The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It’s a good non-specific symptom; I’m a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony fever is a dead lock, but, uh… you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor’s office. That’s worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you’re bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It’s a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school.
…………………………
Ferris: Hey, Cameron. You realize if we played by the rules right now we’d be in gym?
…………………………
Economics Teacher: Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?
Simone: Um, he’s sick. My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who’s going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it’s pretty serious.
Economics Teacher: Thank you, Simone.
Simone: No problem whatsoever.
…………………………….
Ferris: If you’re not over here in fifteen minutes, you can find a new best friend.
Cameron: You’ve been saying that since the fifth grade.
…………………………………………..
Cameron: The 1961 Ferrari 250GT California. Less than a hundred were made. My father spent three years restoring this car. It is his love, it is his passion.
Ferris: It is his fault he didn’t lock the garage.
………………………………………….
Cameron: Ferris, my father loves this car more than life itself.
Ferris: A man with priorities so far out of whack doesn’t deserve such a fine automobile.
[Ferris caresses the car in admiration]
Cameron: No. No! Apparently, you don’t understand!
Ferris: [ignoring Cameron] Wow.
Cameron: Ferris, he never drives it! He just rubs it with a diaper!
……………………………………….
Sloane: What are we going to do?
Ferris: The question isn’t “what are we going to do,” the question is “what aren’t we going to do?”
Cameron: Please don’t say were not going to take the car home. Please don’t say were not going to take the car home. Please don’t say were not going to take the car home.
Ferris: [to the camera] If you had access to a car like this, would you take it back right away?
[beat]
Ferris: Neither would I.
…………………………
Ferris: Not that I condone fascism, or any -ism for that matter. -Ism’s in my opinion are not good. A person should not believe in an -ism, he should believe in himself. I quote John Lennon, “I don’t believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.” Good point there. After all, he was the walrus. I could be the walrus. I’d still have to bum rides off people.
…………………….
Ferris: Look, it’s real simple. Whatever mileage we put on, we’ll take off.
Cameron: How?
Ferris: We’ll drive home backwards.
………………………….
Cameron: Okay Ferris, can we just let it go, please?
Sloane: Ferris, please. You’ve gone to far. We’re going to get busted.
Ferris: A: You can never go too far. B: If I’m gonna get busted, it is *not* gonna be by a guy like *that*.
…………………………………
Ferris: Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.
Stuff Black Parents Say
‘Black lifestyle’ in Japan
if, at anytime, you have been a fan of General Hospital, it is celebrating 50 years on the air.
the channel SOAPNET is going to air 50 of the ‘best’ episodes of GH beginning Friday, 3/29, 10 pm EST.
I just spent time clearing out my DVR.
it’s pretty chronological, beginning in 1963 with the first show, and then they jump to the late 1970’s with the Gloria Monty years.
not a #50 – #1 type of showing.
just a sample of what’s gonna be there.
Scotty and Laura are first married
Luke and Laura at Wyndham’s Dept. Store
Luke and Laura on the run from the mob
Luke and Laura at Beecher’s Corners
Luke and Laura get married…complete with the Helena Cassadine Curse
Luke and Laura go over the falls
Luke, Laura, Robert and Tiffany go after the Cassadines
Luke stops the weather machine
Lesley helps Monica give birth
Rick and Lesley get a divorce
Monica gets the blood test on the baby to find out who’s the father.
Crazy ass Heather Webber escapes the sanitarium
Holly and Robert get married
Early Frisco and Felicia
the Maxie heart transplant and BJ death
Monica’s breast cancer
Stone and Robin
Early Sonny/Brenda and Jax/Brenda
this isn’t the whole list, but I think they chose well.
Dang, I’ve got to check this out. I get Soap network. Wuh; no Alan & Lucy Coe?
Take 2: Barb really knows how to serve up a hot cup-o-coffee! LMBAO
Barbara Stanwick shows a muthafucka how to get his CONSENT ON in four easy steps!
REPOST!
KAPOW!
Watchdog group’s double standard with Obama and Bush kids’ vacations
WASHINGTON, DC, September 27, 2012 – Several surveys including scholarship from the US Department of Education have concluded that children who travel over summer break do better in reading, math and their general knowledge than those who do not. Traveling enables kids to broaden their horizons and learn that the world is not made up of the limited confines of their neighborhoods.
But when your name is Malia Obama and your parents include the President and First Lady of the United States, it’s not that easy to head off on a trip without the presence of the Secret Service.
That is just what was required to protect the first daughter during a March 2012 spring break trip to Mexico. It was the same type of protection afforded to Jenna and Barbara Bush when they took a spring break trip to Argentina
The argument has been made by some opponents to Malia’s parents that the security required for the trip was a waste of tax payer dollars. Perhaps at their urging, government watchdog group Judicial Watch chose to sue the US Secret Service for failing to oblige by its Freedom of Information Act request for documentation detailing the cost of Malia’s security detail. The group has compiled details of the cost of the Obamas’ various vacations and trips throughout the president’s first term in office.
A cursory review through the site’s archives does not reveal that the group made similar efforts to obtain information on the travels of the previous Republican administration, however. The conservative organization has filed 18 lawsuits against the Bill Clinton and other Democratic administrations, however.
It smacks of another instance of intellectual dishonesty, as this group and other loud complainers launched no similar outcry when the offspring of a president they favored took advantage of the same privileges afforded all children of US Presidents.
It is reminiscent of the same outcry over the First Lady’s decision to travel to Africa. Several conservative sites made a big deal of it and pointed out the fact that Michelle and her daughters and a cousin went on safari during a diplomatic mission.
Yet, those upset over the Obama safari trip didn’t have the same opposition to Laura Bush who visited Africa 5 times during her husband’s two terms in office. She too attended a safari. Laura and daughters Barbara and Jenna ended their diplomatic mission trip at the Madikwe Game Reserve on the South African-Botswana border.
By the end of George W. Bush’s tenure, Laura had traveled to 10 different countries, the most visits than any other First Lady before her
Read more: http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/politics-raising-children/2012/sep/29/double-standard-obama-and-bush-kids-vacations/#ixzz2Om4bfBi2
Follow us: @wtcommunities on Twitter
They’ve got NOTHING else on the Black Prez & his family. There are NO blowjobs in the Oval Office, or lies about dodging bullets in war-torn countries with their daughters. Their daughters are not roaming wild at drunken parties. Michelle isn’t trying to run the show, instead she’s fabulously popular.
THEY’RE BLACK, SO THEY GOTS TO GET BACK.
The Obamas in the White House is the best thing that could have ever happened to America.
2 TERMZ BITCHES! Get over it.
Republican Congressman Attacks Sasha And Malia Obama
By Scott Keyes on Mar 27, 2013 at 3:04 p
CALLER: When I see the First Lady and the beautiful girls going off to the Bahamas waving goodbye to us, it’s really hard to stomach. When we’re tightening our belts, either all of us should do it or none of us should do it. This, I am pretty tolerant, I always have been, I usually shut my mouth. This is not acceptable.
KING: Carla, you’re on point and on the mark all the way through. […] You’re right on the president. He needs to show some austerity himself. Instead he wanted to tell America how bad it was going to be. […] We’ve got the president doing these things. He sent the daughters to spring break in Mexico a year ago. That was at our expense, too. And now to the Bahamas at one of the most expensive places there. That is the wrong image to be coming out of the White House.
AUDIO:
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/03/27/1783981/steve-king-obama-daughters/?mobile=nc
Steve King, back the fk off of Malia & Sasha! You didn’t breathe one word when Laura and the Bush daughters took all those trips to Africa. You racist prick.
CALLER: When I see the First Lady and the beautiful girls going off to the Bahamas waving goodbye to us, it’s really hard to stomach. When we’re tightening our belts, either all of us should do it or none of us should do it.
Bitch, you’re NOT the FLOTUS! So STFU!
They’ve got NOTHING else, SG2. Just hate & jealousy. It’s eating them alive.
All they have is their hate. Flotus and those darling daughters aren’t worried about the haters. Rock on Flotus! You do us proud!
Republican Congressman Attacks Sasha And Malia Obama
By Scott Keyes on Mar 27, 2013 at 3:04 pm
This week, Breitbart News broke a long-standing security protocol and published a story detailing the precise location where President Obama’s daughters are vacationing this week. On Wednesday, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) used the report to attack the First Daughters for taking a vacation.
King’s comments came during an appearance on Mickelson in the Morning, an Iowa-based radio show. A caller, Carla, brought up sequestration and proceeded to criticize the Michelle Obama and her daughters for taking a vacation in the Bahamas. King agreed — “Carla, you’re on point and on the mark all the way through” — before criticizing them for also taking a vacation last year in Mexico. “That was at our expense, too,” King bemoaned.
CALLER: When I see the First Lady and the beautiful girls going off to the Bahamas waving goodbye to us, it’s really hard to stomach. When we’re tightening our belts, either all of us should do it or none of us should do it. This, I am pretty tolerant, I always have been, I usually shut my mouth. This is not acceptable.
KING: Carla, you’re on point and on the mark all the way through. […] You’re right on the president. He needs to show some austerity himself. Instead he wanted to tell America how bad it was going to be. […] We’ve got the president doing these things. He sent the daughters to spring break in Mexico a year ago. That was at our expense, too. And now to the Bahamas at one of the most expensive places there. That is the wrong image to be coming out of the White House.
This notion that the Obamas are living a life of excess is beginning to take hold among conservative members of Congress. At the CPAC conference earlier this month, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) smeared Obama for enjoying “the perks and the excess of the $1.4 billion presidency,” a charge that “fail[s] on the facts in simple fairness,” according to CNN.
http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2013/03/27/1783981/steve-king-obama-daughters/
you >< ME
THEY’RE BLACK, DON’TCHA KNOW! No vacations for the COLOREDS.
when it comes to FLOTUS and the Wee Michelles..
NOBODY is playing with them
very powerful video
Crist may be best Democrat against Scott
.
BY JOY-ANN REID
joyannreid@gmail.com
So it has begun.
Democrats are starting to clear the decks for Charlie Crist, the longtime Republican who became an Independent who became a Democrat. Crist, who skipped out on a second term as governor in order to mount an ill-fated run for the U.S. Senate, appears poised to try and get his old job back in 2014.
In his favor: a current occupant of the governor’s mansion who is singularly unpopular, and not just with Democrats. Rick Scott has angered his former allies in the tea party by bowing to his real friends in the hospital lobby and saying he’d be fine with taking that dirty Obamacare money to expand Medicaid.
Scott’s Medicaid gambit, which has already been rebuffed by the Republican-dominated Legislature, led the tea party’s most colorful has-been, former U.S. Rep./musketeer Allen West, to question his “backbone” and to declare the governor “vulnerable” for reelection; not that West is necessarily looking to “primary” him.
Even before he broke faith with the “throw poor people and granny from the train” crowd, Scott was already disliked by, well, just about everyone. No amount of $2,500 bonus bribes could make teachers forget his slash and burn education budgets. And it’s unlikely that the public will soon erase from their minds Scott’s push to drug test poor people and state workers, particularly since he happened to own a few clinics that provided the service.
Even some Republicans privately grumbled when Scott canceled high-speed rail, which had been in the works, under GOP eyeshades, and with all those potential jobs, for a decade.
And he surely can’t escape the fallout from his choice of lieutenant governor. Jennifer Carroll quit last week after the lead client of her consulting firm — an apparent scam called Allied Veterans of the World — went up in federal racketeering flames. Carroll, it turns out, was a bum pick. Sure, she ticked the requisite boxes for a tea party die-hard (she’s black! . . . and also a woman!) who backed draconian immigration restrictions a-la-Arizona (she’s an immigrant!) and whose former hospital company was a poster child for Medicare fraud (her brother-in-law apparently ran a pill mill!) And she’s a veteran, to boot.
Unfortunately, after the election, Carroll and Scott apparently didn’t talk much. Maybe a few conversations about what she used to do for a living might have been helpful. Carroll delivered exactly 3 percent of the black vote for Scott in 2010, and has since added scandalous sexual allegations, offensive statements about how pretty one has to be to not be a lesbian, and so-called “Internet cafes.”
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/20/3297238/crist-may-be-best-democrat-against.html#storylink=cpy#storylink=cpy
You are sorry, Patreaus; SORRY you got caught.
The Class War Comes To The Suburbs
By Charles P. Pierce
at 1:45PM
The first time I met David Cay Johnston, we were both hanging around Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, where people kept mistaking us for each other. (It’s the beards, I’d say.) He’s got a pretty decent media presence, but he remains one of those people in our national dialogue to whom people do not necessarily listen because Joe Scarborough is the only person in America who really understands economics. Anyway, Johnston’s came out with a new analysis last month that concluded, basically, that we’ve all been getting hosed pretty hard since even before Ronald Reagan and the lads rolled into town. Of course, it sank like a bowling ball heaved into a vat of oatmeal. But it did illustrate a fundamental truth about the way economics is lodged in our politics: when Republicans talk about their love for a “pro-growth” economy, and when the Democrats talk about their love for “the middle class,” they’re both pretty much lying to you. The entire economic debate right now takes place in a tightly circumscribed universe of options, and there simply is not enough in that universe to rescue a crumbling middle-class from the forces that are taking it apart, piece by piece. There is nothing being debated that will do fck-all about income inequality, or about the geyser of money that has spouted upward during the period Johnston describes. Instead, we’re fighting over how austere we have to be. This is goddamn insane.
Why this is goddamn insane is illustrated by a terrific Monica Potts piece in The American Prospect in which Potts describes the lives of formerly middle-class residents of the suburbs outside of Denver who have been forced into living week-to-week in budget hotels
Across the country, suburban poverty rose by more than half in the first decade of the new century. Families now find themselves navigating landscapes that were built around wealth: single-family houses that are sold, not rented; too few apartment buildings; and government agencies hidden at the far edge of the suburban ring, more responsive to trash-pickup complaints than rising hunger rates. The Ramada families became homeless because they could no longer pay rents and mortgages and found little help to slow their fall. In 2011, Colorado ranked eighth in foreclosures nationwide. When families in Jefferson County, which encompasses Denver’s western suburbs, lost their home in the recession, they flooded a market that had the lowest number of rental vacancies in ten years. The Section 8 program in the area dispenses vouchers through a random lottery that typically has about 2,500 applicants; in any given year, only 30 to 40 spots become available. The school system, which keeps the best records of homelessness in the county, says the number of homeless students rose from 59 in 2001 to 2,812 in the current school year. Unable to find another home and unable to find space in the county’s shelters, which hold fewer than 100 beds, the new poor disappeared into the suburban landscape wherever they could find a roof. With nowhere else to go, they turned the Ramada Inn into an impromptu SRO.
Potts is most remarkable in her ability to demonstrate the subtle ways in which people not only become poor, but also how they begin to start thinking of themselves as poor people, including the inherent terror of anyone with any kind of authority over their fragile lives.
The hotel’s residents know who Bruce is, though. They’ve seen him come by on Sundays to collect money from the washers and dryers, and they know he issues commands that affect their daily lives. From the perspective of the Ramada families, he has one rule that he wants observed above all others: no children in the lobby or hallways. If he drives up and one of the nice clerks is on duty, she’ll yell, “Bruce!” and whoever is in the lobby runs back to their room. Once, he told a clerk that she should tell Andy to shave his scraggly gray beard. Drew is so terrified of him he rarely ventures out. “These people have rooms,” a guest once heard Bruce say.
Potts’s piece is best read as a companion to the terrific HBO doc — which featured my old college friend, Anne McCarthy, and her husband — a few months back about the economic devastation wrought on some of the people in the financial-services industry when the fraud hit the fan in 2008. There is a useful trope still floating around that goes, “If X were happening to middle-class white people, we’d have a revolution.” Well, X is happening to middle-class white people and, I guarantee you, a substantial number of other middle-class white people, no matter how tenuous their own personal economic circumstances are, will blame the people living in the Ramada Inn for what happened to them. Revolution, hell. We can’t even get the president to shut his yap about “entitlements.” Another day in a nation of suckers.
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Class_War_Comes_To_The_Suburbs#ixzz2OlbANHJK
Profiles in courage: Dems rush to endorse gay marriage before it’s too late
Posted by Greg Sargent on March 27, 2013 at 12:43 pm
With gay marriage being argued before the Supreme Court this week, a parade of Senate Democrats has stampeded forth to endorse marriage equality. In a sense, these Senators are hurrying to get in just under the historical wire, as it were, before the court reaches its decision and makes the direction of this debate inescapably clear. The latest is North Carolina’s Kay Hagan, who has now endorsed gay marriage along with other red or purple Senate Democrats who have done the same in the last week, such as Claire McCaskill, Mark Begich, John Tester and Mark Warner.
As best as I can determine, there is only one Democrat in the Senate from a red or swing state right now who voted against the Defense of Marriage Act back in 1996: Sherrod Brown of Ohio. His perspective is particularly interesting, because he voted against DOMA in a state where gay marriage was so unpopular that Republicans were able to use it to turn out voters by referendum eight years later, in the 2004 presidential election.
“When I made that vote, it was politically unpopular — today that position is politically popular,” Brown said in an interview today. “The No votes on DOMA were almost all east coast or west coast.” Brown voted against DOMA as a member of Congress representing a district southwest of Cleveland.
“Casting a controversial vote forces us as elected officials to go home and take a public opinion bath,” Brown said, in a reference to Lincoln’s famous formulation. “Advocating for a position, you can move the public.”
Case in point: gun control. A number of red state Democratic Senators are refusing to say whether they will back expanded background checks, even though by any reasonable measure this is not all that tough a vote, given that the proposal is supported by nine in 10 Americans. (In a hint of movement, Senator Hagan has now indicated she is open to the idea.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/27/profiles-in-courage-dems-rush-to-endorse-gay-marriage-before-its-too-late/
Bottomline for the pols: VOTE FOR WHAT IS RIGHT, FOR THE GOOD OF THE WHOLE.
The next big target for liberals: State legislatures
Posted by Jamelle Bouie on March 27, 2013 at 11:09 am
Former Vermont governor Howard Dean has announced a new initiative from his group Democracy for America — over the next two years, it will invest in flipping state legislatures and building (or rebuilding) a Democratic advantage in state races around the country. “A little money goes a long way in these state legislative races,” said Dean in a conference call. To that end, DFA will spend $750,000 on behalf of five candidates for the Virginia House of Delegates this year.
It’s hard to overstate how smart a way this is for liberal groups to invest their time and money. Virginia, in fact, is a great case study for why it’s key for Democrats to make gains on the state level. Democrats control both Senate seats in the state, and it was key to Barack Obama’s victories in 2008 and 2012. Despite this, Republicans control all three statewide offices (governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general), the House of Delegates, and have the tie breaking vote in the state senate. The result? Republicans have been able to push a strong conservative agenda in the state.
Earlier this week, for example, Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell introduced an amendment to the state’s health care reform implementation bill that would ban abortion coverage in the state insurance exchange. It would also prevent women from purchasing a separate rider to get abortion coverage, a stricter provision than other states with similar prohibitions. Given Republican strength in the state legislature, this is likely to pass, even if Virginians — as indicated by their votes for Democratic Senate and presidential candidates — aren’t hostile to Roe v. Wade. But these voters aren’t the ones voting in state elections (like the one that elected McDonnell, for instance). Their older, whiter, and wealthier counterparts are the ones who turn out, giving them outsized influence on policy in the commonwealth.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/03/27/the-next-big-target-for-liberals-state-legislatures/
Republicans overcome with ‘Sequestration NIMBYism’
By Steve Benen
–
Wed Mar 27, 2013 12:33 PM EDT
It’s been about two weeks since Brian Beutler coined a helpful phrase: “sequestration NIMBYism.” Republicans love the sequester policy they hated as recently as last month, and think it’s terrific that these deep, mindless spending cuts have taken effect.
But they’re not at all pleased about sequestration cuts that hurt their own constituents. As Brian explained two weeks ago, the across-the-board nature of the policy makes it nearly inevitable that lawmakers will see some consequences in their districts and states, “but when those consequences materialize, Republicans either blame the administration or plead for special treatment.”
Jed Lewison explained this morning:
After years of doing nothing but talk about the need to cut spending, Republicans have finally started to get what they want — and it turns out they don’t like it. But instead of doing the obvious thing, which would be to change their position on austerity, they’re simply issuing press releases and statements about how they don’t like the cuts that are taking place in their own back yard.
The problem is that their solution — to make the cuts in somebody else’s back yard — isn’t really a solution. It’s just political spin. There is no magic wand to make spending cuts be painless and for Republicans to pretend otherwise is transparently dishonest and defies common sense.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/27/17487795-republicans-overcome-with-sequestration-nimbyism?lite
When workers die: “And nobody called 911″
A man is scalded by boiling water and citric acid at a plant. His fate points to a dark reality for temp workers
By Jim Morris and Chip Mitchell
By the time Carlos Centeno arrived at the Loyola University Hospital Burn Center, more than 98 minutes had elapsed since his head, torso, arms and legs had been scalded by a 185-degree solution of water and citric acid inside a factory on this city’s southwestern edge.
The laborer, assigned to the plant that afternoon in November 2011 by a temporary staffing agency, was showered with the solution after it erupted from the open hatch of a 500-gallon chemical tank he was cleaning. Factory bosses, federal investigators would later contend, refused to call an ambulance as he awaited help, shirtless and screaming. He arrived at Loyola only after first being driven to a clinic by a co-worker.
At admission Centeno had burns over 80 percent of his body and suffered a pain level of 10 on a scale of 10, medical records show. Clad in a T-shirt, he wore no protective gear other than rubber boots and latex gloves in the factory, which makes household and personal-care products.
Centeno, 50, died three weeks later, on Dec. 8, 2011. The Cook County medical examiner’s report attributed his death to “scald and chemical burns due to an industrial accident.”
A narrative account of the accident that killed him — and a description of conditions inside the Raani Corp. plant in Bedford Park, Ill. — are included in a U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration memorandum obtained by the Center for Public Integrity. The 11-page OSHA memo, dated May 10, 2012, argues that safety breakdowns in the plant warrant criminal prosecution — a rarity in worker death cases.
The story behind Centeno’s death underscores the burden faced by some of America’s 2.5 million temporary, or contingent, workers — a growing but mostly invisible group of laborers who often toil in the least desirable, most dangerous jobs. Such workers are hurt more frequently than permanent employees and their injuries often go unrecorded, new research shows
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/27/when_workers_die_and_nobody_called_911/
At the intersection of ‘Obamacare’ and ‘motor voter’
By Steve Benen
Wed Mar 27, 2013 10:41 AM EDT
Remember the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, better known as the federal “motor-voter law”? The Clinton-era law made it easier for Americans to register to vote while renewing drivers licenses or applying for social services.
And this week, that’s apparently causing a stir on the right because the law also happens to apply to the Affordable Care Act.
Right-wing media fabricated a conspiracy that “pro-Obama groups” will be able to steer health care reform insurance applicants to register to vote as Democrats, ignoring a 1993 law that requires programs offering public assistance to include questions about voter registration.
Right-wing media outlets like The Washington Examiner, the Daily Caller and The Washington Times reported that a draft application for health insurance through the health care reform law twice asked if an applicant wished to register to vote. They claimed that organizations who may register Americans for health insurance through health care reform may steer applicants “to register with the Democratic Party.”
On Fox & Friends, co-host Gretchen Carlson similarly fearmongered over “the bigger concern” for health care reform insurance applicants that “pro-Obama groups…would steer them to register as Democrats.”
As is often the case, when these talking points bubble up in conservative media, conservative lawmakers quickly follow, and Rep. Charles Boustany (R-La.) has now demanded that the Obama administration explain why benefit applications offer voter-registration options.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/27/17486636-at-the-intersection-of-obamacare-and-motor-voter?lite
Of course these dirty low down dish rags are going to recite the old Obama’s tryna buy those black votes by giving them the store of the 2520s. Pew research study on religion, went so far as to claim that Dems are not as religious and are likely to be for more social causes. SKEWED MUCH.
Trayvon Martin Case: Robert Zimmerman, Jr., says tweeted image meant to show “Trayvon Martin 2.0”
Two days after he tweeted a controversial image comparing Trayvon Martin to an alleged baby-killer, Robert Zimmerman, the brother of the man accused of murdering Martin, told CBS News’ Crimesider that the tweet was meant to “provoke discussion” about the difference between how Martin portrayed himself online, and the way he has been portrayed in the media.
“Trayvon Martin has been depicted as a canonized saint,” said Robert Zimmerman, Jr. “But to our family, that’s the person that almost killed my brother.”
Zimmerman’s younger brother, George, is charged with second-degree murder in the shooting death of the17-year-old Martin in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2012. George Zimmerman has pleaded not guilty to the charges and claims he shot the unarmed teen in self-defense during an altercation. His trial is scheduled to begin in June.
On March 24, Robert Zimmerman, Jr., tweeted an image of Martin holding up two middle fingers, beside an image of De’Marquise Kareem Elkins, the Ga. teen accused of fatally shooting a one-year-old in his stroller last week. Elkins also appears to be flipping off the camera.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-57576548-504083/trayvon-martin-case-robert-zimmerman-jr-says-tweeted-image-meant-to-show-trayvon-martin-2.0/
GTFOH We’ve been schooled on how the media depicts black folks! If it weren’t for social media to put out the word on Trayvon’s brutal murder, and keeping the MSM in check on reporting it, we know all too well how the media would’ve portrayed Trayvon.
THERE; FIXED!
BWA HA HA HA If you’ve got to get on tee vee and declare you’re NOT an UNCLE TOM….
WHAT ABOUT ALL DAT VOTER SUPPRESSION, BEN CARSON. YOU NEED TO WAKE THE FUCK UP.
Interesting Carson didn’t get up on his soapbox when the last 43 POTUS’ were in office. Fuck you, Carson.
Dr Ben Carson ‘ I’m Not An Uncle Tom’.
Yes, Ben Carson…you’re a boot licking Uncle Tom! You’ve worked so hard to earn it.
Kelly to Ben: Do you think President Obama should do more? blah, blah, blah… GTFOH
Lee seeks two-thirds majorities on new gun laws
By Steve Benen
Wed Mar 27, 2013 9:00 AM EDT
Under our system of government, federal lawmakers approve legislation by majority rule with only a handful of exceptions. Filibuster abuses notwithstanding, supermajorities are only required for treaties, impeachment, expulsions, constitutional amendments, and veto overrides. For everything else, bills and nominations pass with regular ol’ majorities.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has an idea to change that. Late last week, while senators were considering a lengthy list of budget amendments, the far-right senator pushed a measure to require two-thirds majorities for any legislation that would limit gun purchases in any way. Note, in the Senate, it takes 60 votes to overcome Republican filibusters, but under Lee’s plan, it would take 67 votes to approve literally any bill intended to reduce gun violence.
As the Gun Owners of America told its members on Friday, the “practical effect” of Lee’s amendment is to ensure “that gun control can never again pass the Senate.”
And here’s the kicker: on Saturday morning, Lee’s amendment got 50 votes.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2013/03/27/17485486-lee-seeks-two-thirds-majorities-on-new-gun-laws?lite
Teen’s $28m payday a high price in Yahoo’s quest for cool
March 27, 2013 – 2:09PM
When a 17-year-old high school student can sell an iPhone app based on another firm’s technology and with no revenue for $US30 million ($28.6m), has the world gone mad?
The Summly app, which at its core uses technology from Silicon Valley nonprofit research institute SRI International, summarised news articles to make them easier to read on a small screen.
It had been downloaded less than a million times before Yahoo pulled the app after acquiring the firm for a reported $US30 million. Founder Nick D’Aloisio, who lived in Australia until the age of seven, is now arguably the world’s youngest self-made millionaire.
Cornell University computer science professor Emin Gün Sirer claims Summly “developed no natural language processing technology of its own”.
They are the quintessential bolt-on engineers, taking a Japanese bike engine, slapping together a badly constructed frame, and laying down a marketing blitz. That’s why the story sells,” he said.
Summly itself says SRI International “built the summarisation technology behind [the app] with the help of the Summly team”.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/teens-28m-payday-a-high-price-in-yahoos-quest-for-cool-20130327-2gtgt.html#ixzz2OkMU3LQp
Bill Gates’s $100,000 Condom Challenge
By Tim Locke
WebMD Health News
Reviewed by Rob Hicks, MD
March 25, 2013 — The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is offering a $100,000 grant to anyone who can develop what’s being called the next generation of condom.
The aim is to help curb unwanted pregnancies and the spread of sexually transmitted infections around the world.
The foundation’s Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative says it is looking for the next-generation condom that “significantly preserves or enhances pleasure, in order to improve uptake and regular use.” This could mean safe, new materials to “preserve or enhance sensation.” Most condoms are made of latex.
Other important features include making male and female condoms easier to use (perhaps with better packaging or easy-to-use designs) and attributes that “address and overcome cultural barriers.”
http://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=168758
@Rikyrah
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched “Pretty In Pink”. Love the movie. :)
LOL Me too! Ferris Buehler’s day off, OK. My daughters got some of their best moves from Broderick’s character.
Why it Matters That a Woman Will Run the Secret Service
The next director of the elite law enforcement agency has to overcome the legacy of a sex scandal and earn back the trust of her agents. By Shane Harris
President Obama has tapped a new director of the Secret Service. And she will be the first woman director in the 148-year history of the elite law enforcement agency.
Julia Pierson has been with the Secret Service more than 30 years. She was a police officer in Orlando before she joined the agency, in 1983. She ran the Miami field office, which is one of the most prestigious. And she was most recently the chief of staff at headquarters in Washington.
Pierson’s name had come up in conversations I had recently with Secret Service agents about who might replace Sullivan, but she didn’t seem to be the odds-on favorite.
The appointment of a woman is historic. But it is also politically significant, coming one year after a major sex scandal, which I write about in the current issue of the magazine, that battered the agency’s public image and exposed a culture of male agents behaving badly.
Revelations that Secret Service agents had hired prostitutes during a presidential trip to Cartagena, Colombia, shook the agency in two fundamental ways, and Pierson is going to have to address both of them.
First, and most obviously, it was a political and public relations disaster. In an instant, the image of the stoic, suit-clad, shades-wearing agent–the vast majority of whom are men–was replaced with a carousing, drunken, unhinged party animal. We learned that the unofficial motto among married agents on foreign trips was “Wheels Up, Rings Off.” We heard about self-styled “rock stars without guitars” who were not above using their elite status to pick up women in bars. The thirteen men implicated in Cartagena humiliated the agency and their ultimate boss, President Obama. Nine of them lost their jobs.
But there was a second and harder-to-discern set of consequences to the Cartagena affair. For many agents, the bigger disgrace lay in how the Secret Service’s leaders handled the misbehavior and the intense media and congressional scrutiny that followed. The agents in question were subjected to intense, some of them say improper interrogations, which included polygraph exams, threats of losing their security clearances, and instructions not to cooperate with an independent investigation by the Homeland Security Department. When the agents’ misdeeds became public, as the result of a press leak, senior officials insisted that the bad behavior was aberrant, and not part of a pattern of sexual indiscretion on trips.
http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/dead_drop/secret-service/why-it-matters-that-a-woman-will-run-the-secret-service.php
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Morning, everyone!
I have a sore throat and coughing. The bug finally got me. I feel awful! :(
get you some tea with honey and lemon.
gargle with Listerine- a lot.
Thanks for the tip!
Good Morning, Ladies & Everyone! Happy HUMP day. :-)