Here’s a fine post to really blow your hair back, commenting on a really dunderheaded statement by Mike Huckabee in a NYT piece about online activists pressuring companies not to give financial support to anti-gay hate groups. It includes some of the quiet ways big retailers like Apple, Microsoft, Netflix and Wal-Mart have channels for donations to certain groups, which on the surface are doing “good” work, but actually have ties to or directly support hate groups. And these hate groups claim the right to hate because “it says so in the Bible” as a God-directed mandate. So here’s Huckabee’s…
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First came the “Running Chicken” nebula, and now comes a cosmic “Fried Egg.” A European telescope has captured the best image yet of one of the rarest classes of stars in our universe, and astronomers playfully point out that the cosmic scene resembles an egg white around a yolky center. via Fried egg nebula: European telescope captures image of monster star [VIDEO] – CSMonitor.com.
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UPDATE: Maybe it’s a good thing I didn’t make a fuss about getting in – I was turned politely away by a nice lady who just kept repeating “It’s a Small. Businesss. Forum.” when I asked if it was open to the public. If I’d pressed the issue (could have claimed I’m a really, really SMALL business owner since I have a shop on Second Life’s Marketplace), I might have ended up like these people. When I got to the Prairie Center, there were FIVE media trucks, some guy with good hair smiling as he spoke on camera to the…
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Okay, this is pretty weird. I ran across an article about this guy who faked a career as a Special Ops consultant that mentioned he defrauded the University of Oregon about $45,000… my old school. I did a little looking around and found out he was at UO about when I was there. Weird. BEND, OR — A former instructor at the University of Oregon has been accused of credentials fraud. William Hillar attended the UO for three years in the 1970s, according to court documents, but never actually earned a doctoral degree. That didnt stop the Maryland man from…
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Daily Kos’ David Waldman points out that the horrific events in Norway were not just the acts of a right-wing terrorist – they were deliberately targeting the Norwegian Labour Party’s “Worker’s Youth League.” He likens it to sending a Terminator back in time to eliminate future Parliamentary opposition leaders. The truly stomach-turning aspect of the stunning terrorist attacks in Norway yesterday surely had to be the shooting spree that was initially reported—in English language outlets, anyway—to be at a “summer camp.” I had heard through the grapevine that the “camp” had a very distinct political affiliation, but it didn’t really…
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So sad. Another “national Tea Party convention” cancelled due to lack of interest… and funding, since it was billed as a true grassroots-organized event not supported by one of the AstroTurf groups that pay for the buses and the wall-to-wall FOX News coverage. Organizers of the Freedom Jamboree announced Wednesday that they have canceled the tea party convention planned for this fall, citing low registration. They had hoped the event would serve as a stage for Republican presidential candidates to court the conservative movement, and two — Rep. Michele Bachmann Minn. and former Sen. Rick Santorum Pa. — had already…
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Something I missed before; the phone hack of murder victim Milly Dowler was back in 2002 according to this. I conflated it with the royal voicemail scandal, which is a different but likely related story. I’ll guess that journos and PIs have been figuring out how easy it is to navigate voicemails since the technology was invented. Maybe they found it more convenient and less risky than breaking in to homes and offices to listen to taped messages on the old first generation machines? Since many people never changed the default passwords on their analog and digital voicemails, it just…
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As a progressive who abhors the unprecedented and frighting hold Murdoch holds over Fox News, and by extension the radical Religious Right in the US, his fall from power as Britain’s “uncrowned king” can’t come soon enough. And with the latest news breaking that millions of emails pertinent to the scandal might have been deleted by a News International executive, it’s possible the scandal may jump the pond and take a few of Murdoch’s US institutions down AND even a family member or two. Oh, I hope so. I do hope so. And now, Andy Coulson has been arrested: he’s…
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The tornado horns went off a while ago but stopped; we went to the basement with Riley in the cat carrier for a short time but felt unprepared… And silly. Tornado warnings in most of the Chicago area have expired, but a tornado rning remains in effect until 9:30 p.m. for easternLake County, Illinois.An earlier another tornado warning declared for northwestCook County,DuPage County, Grundy County, Kane County, Kendall County, western Will County, and eastern De Kalb County also has expired.A severe thunderstorm warning for Cook County, eastern DuPage County, northeastern Kane County,Lake County, southeastern McHenry County, eastern Will County, northern…
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After some discussion tonight watching the feed from Netroots Nation, I realized that I don’t want to give my money to Target anymore. Too bad I already started wearing the underwear. I’ll just let it get really… ripe before I wash it, so there. Workers at a Long Island Target store have been attempting to form a union, an effort which comes to a vote on Friday. Target has been waging a pretty standard corporate anti-union campaign—which is to say, lots of intimidation. But now it’s taken a turn for the humorous. Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan, who has been doing stellar…