grantcart

She is pregnant; he had just saved her from a fire in her house, rescuing her by carrying her out of the house into her front yard, while he continued to fight the fire.

When he finally got done putting the fire out, he sat down to catch his breath and rest.

A photographer from the Charlotte, North Carolina newspaper, noticed her in the distance looking at the fireman.

As he raised his camera, she came up to the tired man who had saved her life and the lives of her babies and kissed him just as the photographer snapped this photograph.

(Photo in first comment)

Okay this guy staged a computer software demonstration in a computer science class at UCSD.
Read an overview of the gag here.
Watch it here..

I find the concept good but lacking in authenticity. It is not really nerdy enough. I think this nerdly crew at new worlds could do a remake.
But then - as has been known to occur in the past to me - I could be missing the point of the performance. I’m not sure how I would have reacted as a student being duped in the class. One interesting aspect is that in the “real” world it is really improbable that anything so lame and anyone so inept would ever make it onto a university campus (let alone as the video claims multiple), yet despite this glaring mismatch, no one seems to call out the bull shit. Ironically, if that is the point the artist is trying to make, it worked. It seems that as a society we are far too reluctant to call other people out on ridiculousness.

Disclosure: I found the video so awful that I could not watch it all without skipping. However, I knew before hand that it was a gag. Nevertheless, my inclination to think of it as awful would probably have been no less marked. Highlighting people’s ignorance is trivial, since ignorance is rampant. Trying to demonstrate how and why we tolerate ignorance is a whole new concept. I think I may write a paper on this.

Huffington Post

Going after ACORN may be like shooting fish in a barrel lately — but jumpy lawmakers used a bazooka to do it last week and may have blown up some of their longtime allies in the process.

The congressional legislation intended to defund ACORN, passed with broad bipartisan support, is written so broadly that it applies to “any organization” that has been charged with breaking federal or state election laws, lobbying disclosure laws, campaign finance laws or filing fraudulent paperwork with any federal or state agency. It also applies to any of the employees, contractors or other folks affiliated with a group charged with any of those things.

In other words, the bill could plausibly defund the entire military-industrial complex. Whoops.

Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) picked up on the legislative overreach and asked the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) to sift through its database to find which contractors might be caught in the ACORN net.

Lockheed Martin and Northrop Gumman both popped up quickly, with 20 fraud cases between them, and the longer list is a Who’s Who of weapons manufacturers and defense contractors.

The language was written by the GOP and filed as a “motion to recommit” in the House, where it passed 345-75.

POGO is reaching out to its members to identify other companies who have engaged in the type of misconduct that would make them ineligible for federal funds.

Grayson then intends to file that list in the legislative history that goes along with the bill so that judges can reference it when determining whether a company should be denied federal funds.

The Florida freshman is asking for direct assistance. He has set up a Google spreadsheet where people can suggest contractors who have been charged with violations and include a link to a media or government report documenting the alleged transgression.

I am fully in support of this bill as broadly stated. Blackwater, Halliburton, CACI — all are under investigation for rape, theft, fraud, and assorted other crimes. Let’s defund them IMMEDIATELY. Acorn might lose a million dollars of federal funding — but cleaning out the GOP viper’s nest would be well worth it.

I always liked these guys. But this is a topper.

Thanks, Will Ferrell Dude.

Same old, same old. From a comment by enough on a post by Czar One:

Eric Boehlert

Boehlert quotes and links to a Vanity Fair article by Sam Kasher:

“In that third year of the Kennedy presidency,” Manchester wrote, “a kind of fever lay over Dallas country. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed, ‘Impeach Earl Warren.’ Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas.…Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; corporate junior executives were required to attend radical seminars.”

A retired major general ran the American flag upside down, deriding it as “the Democrat flag.” A wanted poster with J.F.K.’s face on it was circulated, announcing “this man is Wanted” for—among other things—“turning the sovereignty of the US over to the Communist controlled United Nations” and appointing “anti-Christians … aliens and known Communists” to federal offices.

And a full-page advertisement had appeared the day of the assassination in The Dallas Morning News accusing Kennedy of making a secret deal with the Communist Party; when it was shown to the president, he was appalled. He turned to Jacqueline, who was visibly upset, and said, “Oh, you know, we’re heading into nut country today.”

Manchester discovered that in a wealthy Dallas suburb, when told that President Kennedy had been murdered in their city, the students in a fourth-grade class burst into applause.

Smithsonian.com has posted an amazing collection of photos from the last decade of our solar system. Holy cow. What a beautiful sector we live in. It’s not Seven, but it’s close. Well worth the peruse.

PS: Maunder Minimum.

Don’t fear the wealthy bloodsucker — fear the poor! Acorn!! Acorn!!

It is a classic symptom of the conservative that they are wholly obsessed with making sure no one but them makes an undeserved penny. They will tear down the world to make sure that they are the only beneficiaries of its largesse.

I hate it when this happens…

Cynthia is silent for a moment.

She looks at him with — betrayal? Sadness? Her beautiful face gazes at him, the appearance of joy seeming to fade.

Without a word, she slowly turns and accompanies Dominic and Derek. As she goes, she looks back only once, briefly.

Ryan sighs, and stuffs his hands inside the pockets of his robe.