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July 10th, 2009
awful_books
| 01:41 am - You Light Up My Life
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/awfullibrarybooks/~3/kOnQ3Oj1Ra0/ http://awfullibrarybooks.wordpress.com/?p=714 
Light and Vision (Life Science Library)
Mueller and Rudolph
1966
The Life Science Library is (was) an amazing set of books. However, any science book from 1966 on a public library’s shelves (which this is) has GOT to be reconsidered. Notice, ALB campers, we said RECONSIDERED. This topic is really cool, and I know I could get takers on this subject from both adults and kids. But c’mon… I want the shiny new DK books (or similar) that are more current and will get people excited about science.
Check out the old cars in this example of visual cues to size and distance.
and the light meter in this one:
How many people thought this was the padlock off a gym locker? I know for sure that there are digital light meters on the market now.
Time for an UPGRADE!
Holly
Music Trivia from Mary:
How many remember Debby Boone’s number 1 hit from 1977? How many of you will admit to knowing the words?
      
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daily_kos
| 03:20 am - What staring at an ass really looks like
http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/yScUsWwTA3U/-What-staring-at-an-ass-really-looks-like Since it seems Matt Drudge has forgotten:  Kerri Walsh looks on as George W. Bush gives Misty May-Treanor a playful slap on her lower back in Beijing, 8/9/2008 (Getty) One other point -- even if President Obama did in fact happen to catch a glimpse of a female's backside (gasp), at least he didn't either (a) let the girl he was holding fall down the stairs, or or (b) lean over to the recipient of his alleged stare and whisper sweet nothings in her ear and then pay her to sleep with him and then fire her husband. (He'll need to ask Republicans like John Ensign, Mark Sanford, and David Vitter for for some advice before he takes that particular plunge.)
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claudimp
 | 07:26 pm - Writeathon, Day 20
771 words today
702.3 words per day, average
14,046 words total during writeathon
(After a brief, yet gripping, vacation in Periodontia, Claud returns to the writing desk.)
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daily_kos
| 02:40 am - David Brooks Molested By U.S. Senator
http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/ILN5kXIeP7o/-David-Brooks-Molested-By-U.S.-Senator This is so sad: BROOKS: You know, all three of us spend a lot of time covering politicians and I don’t know about you guys, but in my view, they’re all emotional freaks of one sort or another. They’re guaranteed to invade your personal space, touch you. I sat next to a Republican senator once at dinner and he had his hand on my inner thigh the whole time. I was like, ehh, get me out of here. HARWOOD: What? BROOKS: I can only imagine what happens to you guys. O’DONNELL: Sorry, who was that? BROOKS: I’m not telling you, I’m not telling you. But so, a lot of them spend so much time needing people’s love and yet they are shooting upwards their whole life, they’re not that great in normal human relationships. And so, they’re like freaks, they don’t know how to, they’re lonely. They reach out ... Did nobody give Brooks the "bad touch" speech when he was a kid? "Now, Mr. New York Times Opinion Pundit, please show us on this doll where the senator touched you."
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deviantgrrrl
 | 06:30 pm - Argh! Stupid Internet Forwards!
Today I got the "OMG Social Security Benefits for Illegals" junk email petition. These drive me crazy, and I thought it might be useful to pass on my response. Feel free to reuse if the scourge finds you as well. With a bit of editing, this also can be tailored to other internet forwards of urban legends and chain mails. Hope this helps...
Hi there.
This petition is an internet meme that has been going around since May of 2006. It is based on false information about the Social Security system, and is just as inaccurate today as when it started going around in 2006 with George Bush's name on it instead of Barack Obama's.
For more information on the meme, go to:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/petition.asp
The link below explains the origins of this junk email, which basically entail a mischaracterization of an actual amendment proposed to S.2611 aka the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, or CIRA. The amendment in question has been tabled by the Senate.
http://www.snopes.com/politics/immigration/socialsecurity.asp
For the full text of S.2611 aka CIRA, please see the following Library of Congress page:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c109:s.2611.es:
Online petitions that go via email are rarely verifiable, and frequently discarded. If you are truly interested in participating in our glorious democracy, there are far better ways to do it. One of your responsibilities as a citizen is to be informed. Please take a moment to read up on information that is presented to you and verify its accuracy and impact on you. Should you take issue with something, or want to commend your representative for protecting your interests, do it! Contact your local civic leaders with any questions or comments directly, from your city council to your county commission on to your state representatives and the president. There are many tools available online to help you find the appropriate contact info, and most civil servants -- even on the city level -- have websites with direct contact tools that you can find in just a few minutes. And remember to vote in every election, not just the big ones!
Something else to think about: No one who has forwarded this email has stripped the email addresses previously listed. This means that I now have all 12 email addresses from ****@cox.net and 11 from -name-redacted-, as well as your full address book. Those 74 people will continue to have their email addresses broadcast to strangers on any successive forwards, whether they like it or not. So, if anyone's looking to get hold of -name-redacted- or -name-redacted- and get a forward of this email, they've got their address.
Sorry to be preachy, but the armchair quarterback approach to politics is a pet peeve of mine, as are junk forwards. People send them along, trying to help out those they love, but they waste tons of time and clog up recipients' inboxes. It's worth taking a minute to check Snopes.com and Google to see if what you're sending is true and your time is worth it, instead of just sending things out.
Anyhow, that's the end of my rant. I'm sorry to take so much of your time.
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/neko/kaokitty/frustrated.gif) frustrated
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daily_kos
| 02:06 am - End of Week Healthcare Reform Developments
http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/XlUuOddrWA8/-End-of-Week-Healthcare-Reform-Developments There's some very good news for public option advocates this afternoon, reported by TNR's Jonathon Cohn. According to a pair of Capitol Hill sources, preliminary estimates from the Congressional Budget Office suggest that a strong public option--the kind that the House of Representatives is putting in its reform bill--should net somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 billion in savings over ten years. The sources cautioned that these were only the preliminary estimates, based on previous discussions--that CBO had not yet issued final scoring on language in the actual bill. But the sources felt the final estimate would likely be close.... At a time when finding the $1 trillion it will take to finance coverage expansions remains the major challenge of reform, the discovery of $150 billion in potential savings is an important--and encouraging--piece of news. That news could somewhat soften the blow of tax increases that will be included in teh upcoming House bill. House Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) said Friday afternoon that the House's health care bill would be unveiled Monday and would include a $540 billion tax increase on people making more than $350,000 a year. The tax increase, which would take effect in 2011, would hit the wealthiest Americans, Rangel said. Rates would become progressively
higher, with those making at least $500,000 paying one rate and those bringing in $1 million or more paying the highest rate. He said the
surtax would be "a very small percentage --- 1, 2, 3, something like that," but did not disclose the precise numbers. According to that Roll Call article, Rangel rejected a proposal to "trigger" the tax increases, and had discussions with Blue Dogs "regional disparities and other issues." And there's Senate news about scheduling, as well. Conrad said while members of both parties are making substantial progress, Democrats probably won’t get the bill through the full Senate before Congress’s month-long August recess, as they hoped. “We can get it out of the Finance Committee,” Conrad, of North Dakota, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” to air this weekend. “I don’t think we’ll be through the floor during this work period. I think that’s too big a lift, but that really isn’t that important.” Conrad could be blowing smoke, as the Committee is still tied up over whether or not there should be a tax on benerfits, something that a significant chunk of the Democratic caucus is still opposed to, but that Conrad will continue to push. At least he didn't wax on eloquently about the value of bipartisanship in this interview with Bloomberg's Al Hunt. Which is good, given the performance we've seen from Republicans today. First, there's Roy Blunt's desire for the elderly and poor just to get sick and die already. But Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA), unbelievably tops Blunt. Rep. Broun: "...and that's exactly what's going on in Canada and Great Britain today. They don't have the appreciation of life, as we do in our society, evidently. And, um. Dr. Roe, a lot of people are gonna die, this program of 'government option' is being touted as being this panacea, the savior of allowing people to have quality health care at an affordable price- is gonna kill people." Ah, bipartisanship. Yup, these guys really need to have a seat at the negotiating table.
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springheel_jack
 | 08:32 pm - ?
Why is it that sexual attraction and sexual activities are beyond any form of criticism or analysis or interrogation?
I found this to be really problematic, and equally I find the automatic positing that sexuality comes from a privileged place such that critique, to use the word, is eo ipso either flat inapplicable or actively damaging, to be a curious position. 'You get it or you don't.' A weird inversion of the power/knowledge thing - since to analyze is to control, to know is to dominate, then thou shalt not know and thou shalt not analyze, and whereof we cannot speak.... The best argument I can think of for that - the most charitable, haha - is that we as a culture have so comprehensively failed at understanding sexuality or have so consistently substituted domination for investigation that sex is now temporarily an intellectual no-go area, declared demilitarized. But I'm not willing to go along with that, because I also take it as obvious that there are forms of interaction in this culture that center on sexuality and sexual desire but clearly involve relations of domination and oppression, and those need to be criticized and exposed. And anyway I don't think that is the claim. It's something like the raw datum business from the naive empiricists, the 'how do I know the color blue to you is the color blue to me...' only with a snarl.
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lillianleitzel
 | 09:29 pm
Massie is designing a banner for me for FAERIEWORLDS and just obnoxiously sent this one to me to see what I thought:
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abandonedplaces
[chootoy]
 | 06:02 pm
From long-time watcher to first-time poster.
( Left to ruin in Ladner, BC Canada )
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lemon_says
 | 09:08 pm - Eggs.
I figured out how to get Ez to eat scrambled eggs.
He just doesn't like yellow eggs.
He likes green, blue, or pink eggs.
He thinks they come that way.
Hah. Point for me.
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daily_kos
| 01:30 am - MO-Sen: Blunt Says Medicare and Medicaid are Bad
http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/ecsIn2YZYJk/-MO-Sen:-Blunt-Says-Medicare-and-Medicaid-are-Bad Is this Roy Blunt's idea of health care reform? From a radio interview done yesterday: HOST MIKE FERGUSON: What is the proper role of government, and what are the potential impacts of the direction that we're going right now? BLUNT: Well, you could certainly argue that government should have never have gotten in the health care business, and that might have been the best argument of all, to figure out how people could have had more access to a competitive marketplace. Government did get into the health care business in a big way in 1965 with Medicare, and later with Medicaid, and government already distorts the marketplace. It "might have been the best" if Medicare and Medicaid and SCHIP were never created. If he thinks the government should have never gotten in the health care business, does that apply to veterans care as well? By the way, there are more than 900,000 people on Medicare and more than a million people on Medicaid in Missouri. One wonders how they'll react to the news that someone who wants to represent them in the Senate would rather their health care didn't exist.
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slackerstalker
 | 05:24 pm - Tassajara day 5 writing experiment: "how it was"
Our last writing task at the Jane Hirshfield workshop was to look back from the future (generally), or look from your death, or another's death, back into this world. We were given the provisional titles "How It Was" or "Beyond Even This." Or, we could start with the line "After we die."
I first wrote a poem very much like the ones other people wrote, a literal walk through how I expect to experience death, in a sort of detached and pedestrian way-- like, "there's my body, I guess I'm dead."
Then, walking back to the workshop classroom I realized it wasn't what I wanted to say about my own death. I wrote something much more honest as I walked, finishing it as the other participants read their pieces (not polite, but that's how it happened), and then when it came time for me to read, I lost it in the middle of the poem. I've never had it happen before-- I barely finished reading the poem and could barely keep my shit together for the rest of the session. I just hit a moment of grasping what it really will be like to have lost everyone I have ever loved, to have forgotten everything I've ever known.
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After Leaving
After leaving the snow country
it can be hard to come home for Christmas.
I beg a car from my parents for the sake of my old life.
I keep out of my parents' way for the sake of their new life.
Once, leaving the midnight service, I drove separately
into the dark. My parents were the only ones on the road
besides me. They led the way home,
and soon after the church was behind us
a lake effect gale arose.
The roads hadn't been plowed from the last one.
There was nothing ahead of me but
drifting white and blank dark
and two red tail lights between the drifts.
My parents turned at my mother's office,
a soundless departure,
and then the road I had in my headlights,
the road my baby bones had known, my child skin
the rusted VW,
backseat vinyl pattern on my thighs,
the coasting in the Ford pickup in neutral
downhill to save gas,
all mailboxes memorized, all horizons
exactly known
were rendered meaningless by snow.
I was as though beyond this life entirely.
I choose this passing for my end.
Because I am responsible for making meanings.
Choosing to slip away in shapeless dark,
without even a guiding moon,
without tail lights in the drifts ahead,
without a thought for those behind.
Only the headlights touching the next turn
as it accepts me
at whatever speed.
My radio blaring in the empty night.
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daily_kos
| 12:56 am - Wiretapping Report Released
http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/ukZo0whG8gQ/-Wiretapping-Report-Released Remember the bone that the Rockefeller and Feinstein threw to civil liberties activists when they were in the process of codifying the Bush administration's illegal wiretapping program in the FISA Amendments Act--that they would order the IG's of the various agencies to write a report about the program? The report is out. While I'm combing through, along with Marcy and Spencer, who are doing fantastic work, I want to highlight a few things that stand out. First, and this is the blockbuster revelation that's going to be hitting the news, is that Bush personally tried to get to Ashcroft when he was in his hospital bed. Bush made phone calls to the hospital and he ordered the visit by Card and Gonzales to try to force Ashcroft to recertify the program, a program that Ashcroft and Comey were opposed to. According to notes from Ashcroft’s FBI security detail, at 6:20 p.m. that evening Card called the hospital and spoke with an agent in Ashcroft’s security detail, advising him that President Bush would be calling shortly to speak with Ashcroft. Ashcroft’s wife told the agent that Ashcroft would not accept the call. Ten minutes later, the agent called Ashcroft’s Chief of Staff David Ayers at DOJ to request that Ayers speak with Card about the President’s intention to call Ashcroft. The agent conveyed to Ayers Mrs. Ashcroft’s desire that no calls be made to Ashcroft for another day or two. However, at 6:45 p.m., Card and the President called the hospital and, according to the agent’s notes, “insisted on speaking [with Attorney General Ashcroft].” According to the agent’s notes, Mrs. Ashcroft took the call from Card and the President and was informed that Gonzales and Card were coming to the hospital to see Ashcroft regarding a matter involving national security. Another key element that reports in the New York Times and the Washington Post don't really cover is that there were separate programs--the "Terrorist Surveillance Program" that was essentially the program uncovered by Lichtblau and Risen in their December 2005 NYT article, but as well other, unspecified and still highly classified programs called in the report "Other Intelligence Activities" which together comprise what the report calls the “President’s Surveillance Program." Other tidbits include the entirely unsurprising revelation that Bush administration offiicials, and particulary Alberto Gonzales, lied about the effectiveness of the surveillance programs to keeping America safe. Here's what Spencer pulls out from the Justice IG. Even though most PSP leads were determined not to have any connection to terrorism, many of the FBI witnesses believed the mere possibility of the leads producing useful information made investigating the leads worthwhile. However, the DOJ [inspector general] also found that the exceptionally compartmented nature of the program created some frustration for FBI personnel. Some agents and analysts criticized the PSP-derived information they received for providing insufficient details, and the agents who managed counterterrorism programs at the FBI field offices the DOJ [inspector general] visited said the FBI’s process for disseminating PSP-derived information failed to adequately prioritize the information for investigation. The CIA IG: "[I]t is difficult to attribute the success of particular counterterrorism case exclusively to the PSP." Right, the law had to be broken to provide all that valuable information to keep the country safe, just like we had to resort to torture to preserve national security. And Congress went along with it. Unbelievable.
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daily_kos
| 12:52 am - Cheers and Jeers: Rum and Coke FRIDAY!
http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/lDcnzHqc_Yc/-Cheers-and-Jeers:-Rum-and-Coke-FRIDAY! From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE... Tonight's late night snark will be read aloud by a good point guard "In a recent study, the United States was ranked the 114th happiest country in the world. Then Sarah Palin stepped down, and now we’re at 17."
---Conan O'Brien
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Clip of former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer on the Glenn Beck show: Only Osama can execute an attack which will force Americans to demand that their government protect them effectively, consistently, and with as much violence as necessary.
Jon Stewart: Is there any way you can yell loud enough into your TV at home for the people inside it to hear? Because I tried real hard last night.
---The Daily Show
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"Anybody here from Minnesota? Congratulations, you have a brand new senator---our old friend Al Franken. Al is an interesting guy. Went from being a comedian to politician. George Bush, the other way around."
---David Letterman
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"Dick Cheney is writing his memoir. It's going to be called, To Kill a Mockingbird While Aiming at Your Lawyer. It'll be published by Satan and Schuster. Well, Schuster's not really involved."
---Craig Ferguson
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"The world's oldest man died. He was 113 and a leading voice of the Young Republicans."
---Bill Maher
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Clip of Anderson Cooper on CNN: Tonight...connecting with one of Michael Jackson's old friends and perhaps one of his oddest: Bubbles the chimp.
Stephen Colbert: He got the chimpsclusive!! I'm so mad I could throw my own feces! ... Congratulations, Anderson. This is even bigger than your 2006 sit-down with Saddam Hussein's beloved pet, Khalid Sheik Mohamster.
---The Colbert Report Or his 2005 exclusive with the Libyan leader's duck, Muammar Gadaffy. Oh, this keg is so getting tapped. Your west coast-friendly edition of Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
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daily_kos
| 12:22 am - Late afternoon/early evening open thread
http://rss.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/Bx_LluLSMRU/-Late-afternoon-early-evening-open-thread Coming up on Sunday Kos .... - Devilstower will look at the cost of
not having a public option on health care. - Laura Clawson thinks Sarah Palin is unqualified, unethical, and at the very least intellectually incurious -- and it's not anti-feminist to say so.
- DarkSyde will have two essays, one of which will explore how investment in new technology is nothing new to American history in East meets West. He also will review Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens our Future.
- SusanG will review Jon Jeters' Flat Broke in the Free Market: How Globalization Fleeced Working People.
- Do the flagging poll numbers for a number of Democratic governors have you worried? Steve Singiser thinks you should be concerned, but will caution that the abysmal stats are reversible, and they are not solely limited to Democrats.
- DemFromCT will interview Dr. Judith Palfrey, FAAP, President-Elect, American Academy of Pediatrics, on health reform, tobacco, and pandemic preparation, and the special needs of children in all regards.
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mercuryglare
 | 05:24 pm
if that abusive asshole Joe Jackson doesn't shut the fuck up NOW I am personally going to kick his ass.
"foul play"?!
give me a fucking break. if he tries to put those kids in show business I am.... UGH!!
/rant
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slackerstalker
| 04:53 pm - Day five at Tassajara: Jane's talk on "detachment"
On our last day Jane Hirshfield gave a superb talk on detachment that I'm still thinking about a lot.
Here are my notes.
Note: the workshop was titled "Poetry and the Intimacy of All Things," based on the Buddhist teaching by Dogan Zenji:
Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.
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A way to greater intimacy is through greater detachment.
We fear detachment will make us cold.
Another word for "understanding" is "grasping."
How can we understand with an open hand?
Non-attachment is a better descriptor of what is usually translated as detachment.
...where the relationship is noncoercive
...whatever happens, that's going to be ok with you
...you agree to not own (differentiating ownership from guardianship)
...you accept people as they are, not as you want them to be
...you agree to live within time and with the consequences of time
...you agree to this moment's limitless eternity, which is real
...you agree to hunger
...you agree to death
You grant the world
its full measure of passion
and the enormous magnitude of what we lose
when we die,
but do not rage at the fact of departure.
I come, I go, and I do not believe the world is diminished by my going.
It's just a turn of the kaleidoscope.
The sum of existence will always be 100%.
You get to love the world fully and completely.
Non-attachment frees the heart to its fullest capacity
because it frees your mind from the small self.
(Your small self's reach is only two yards wide.)
Nothing is left out. You embrace all. Including compassion for all.
The zen saying is: live as though you're already dead.
This is a dangerous teaching. It can lead to insanity and depression.
It's not advocating being a corpse.
Live without obsessive desire, without so much concern for your personal fate.
Care for your life in the same way a parent in a crisis would care for her child.
(You'll run into the burning building after your life.)
Your life will be larger because it's not behind a blocked view.
The intimacy that comes will be
larger, more passionate
after the barricade of ego is made smaller.
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![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif){kind=small}
amused
