Good morning Conflucians! It’s a cool fall day here in the Mid-Atlantic – a perfect day to linger just a bit longer in bed. Not to worry, your breakfast and Sunday news are being delivered bedside. I’ll just leave the thermal coffee urn. I’m sure it will take a second cup to get you moving..
National and World News
Don’t miss Hillary on Meet the Press this morning! (h/t fif).
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The pool accused of racism when they tossed a group of minority children from the premises is going bankrupt. Embattled pool can’t stay afloat.
Health and Science
Looking to reduce your carbon footprint in the afterlife? Allowing yourself to be worm food instead of a vaulted corpse might be a nice gift to the planet as you make your exit. Green funerals: Funeral fair opens door to eco-friendly exits
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Why we’re better at picking out liars than deciphering when someone is faking their emotions: Emote control.
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This is really neat. Have you ever wondered how big a human egg, a single sperm, a rhino virus, or blood cell really is? You can find out at this Cell Size and Scale chart. Move the bar at the bottom of the picture to the right to see the smaller items.
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Before you head out to that fast food franchise, check to see fat, calorie, and carb content of menu items. Fatburger Nutritional Information.
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Ruh Roh…is the Alpha Male becoming extinct? It looks like a possibility. Dwindling Alpha Males
Oddz ‘n’ Endz
Websites that prove there’s a website for just about anything
Bad Parking.com — if you’re the type that notices and comments on all of the bad park jobs you come across on a daily basis, you’ll love this pictorial site.
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I never knew so many things looked like a duck. But by gawd, here they are: This Peanut Looks like a Duck. No really. It’s an enormous collection of things that look like a duck. {{shakes head}}
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This website needs no introduction other than it’s name: Animals with Lightsabers.
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How about a whole pile of adorable? Yes you say? Then you’ll love Cute Overload. Unfortunately, all that cute must be balanced out by some Ugly Overload (and there is some serious ugly happening there).
Stories to make you go hmmmm…
The New York Times wasted 1000 words on the fact that “douche” and “douchebag” are becoming ubiquitous terms on television. More than Ever You Can Say That on Television. I’m guessing it’s a slow news period.
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Buy an food from a street vendor lately? You may want to walk on by from now on. Police say: Body parts sold to kebab stand.
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Talk about a goat with an attitude — this one is really mouthy. But then again when you see the video, he may just be impressed with his natural endowments.
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As always, share what you’ve found in your internet travels this morning. Happy Sunday all!
SoD
Filed under: General, morning news, Morning News edition
Well, this one jumped out at me…
” Having a penis used to mean something. ”
But current statistics suggest that men are ” both lazy and quitters “.
Discusss amongst yourselves.
Lol! That is an interesting article isn’t it?
Yes, perhaps humans are still evolving. I especially liked this paragraph near the end:
My husband drives a “porch”, but I prefer to drive a “deck” myself. No top, wind in my hair.
Well, I know *my* standards are getting lower.
wow, you really can dig up the interesting articles SoD …
men were genetically built by evolution for short, swift, brutal lives on the savanna, the seem to be evolving in a different direct maybe? Uberlibrarians?
hey who you calling lazy and quitters ?
Meanwhile environmental chemicals are changing many gender based characteristics of boys:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/06/health-eu
Hey, maybe finally something will get the attention of the males that dominate these industries that perhaps they should think about the environment.
This has been freaking me out for a long time. The article brings back memories of a knock-down drag-out fight I had at my oldest son’s daycare back in ’99 about their reluctance to allow me to bring glass baby bottles instead of the plastic ones full o’BPA. Admittedly a little “hormonal” (thanks to the State of Oregon’s generous maternity leave policy — hahaha — the baby was in daycare at the age of 5 weeks), I was sobbing and telling the director that “I don’t want my little boy to grow breasts!” They backed away slowly from the crazy lady and allowed me to bring the glass bottles after I promised about a million times that they were practically unbreakable. The very next day, of course, I dropped one onto the floor and it shattered into a million pieces.
Of course, that kind of mommy neurosis is really just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic — bc it’s the enviro chemicals that you can’t do anything about that are really scary.
Those kinda pancakes are something I really miss…
Fluffy ones, with lots of real butter and syrup.
I want those pancakes. I’m clawing at the screen.
Mmm, Original Pancake House.
Uppity Woman’s post at NQ re: NARAL, NOW, Ms Mag and Emily’s list. worth the read.
Uh oh, she didn’t name a newspaper! Someone alert Katie Couric!
LOL!
Sometimes I think we should call you Wonk the Joke!
Excerpt from Haleh Esfandiari’s My Prison, My Home: One Woman’s Story of Captivity in Iran…
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23439
Hi SoD! Thanks for all the links. I’m dying to read The Boston Globe story, but the link isn’t working.
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2009/11/14/obamas_swelling_ego/
Thanks!
Oh, it’s by Jeff Jacoby. I thought it was a Globe editorial. Jacoby is a wingnut.
Ack! I guess even a wingnut gets a squirrel now and then.
I have to admit, I agree with him about Obama’s narcissism. He always has to throw in the *amazing* fact that the U.S. has a President of “African descent.” What does that have to do with the Berlin wall?
If you go back far enough, we’re all of African descent.
Jacoby is a voice of sanity compared to this wingnut commenter:
“To the people that worked so hard to get Obama elected, we have an obligation to make sure that his presidency succeeds.”
It’s never Obama’s fault, of course.
sorry about that! thanks WTV for the link.
Great roundup, SoD!
I like it when you include light hearted links, “Vidal Buffoon” at Cute Overload had me laughing out loud.
Thanks for a great way to start my Sunday.
fauxgressive “commentary” about the Munley/Todd situation
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1004042423
Yes-gotta love the last throwaway line-
Just coincidence that a white woman got the credit over a black male? We’ll soon find out. Perhaps.
teeth… grinding…
US jail ‘may take Guantanamo men’-from the BBC
The Obama administration is considering moving some Guantanamo detainees to a near-empty top security jail in north Illinois, unnamed US officials say.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8361193.stm
Good morning all. I’m working my way throught the links, but the link to Boston Globe article about Obama’s ego is no good. Can you fix it? Thx!
Nevermind!
Hillary this morning on This Week, dispelling the bizarre rumors that she’s running for NY Gov.
Hillary this morning on MTP, on Palin:
She’s so good. Excuse me while I go cry in a corner.
sniff, sniff. She is so delightful, smart, and clever.
I watched that. She’s so great — didn’t take the bait. And she never will. She sees the value in supporting women political leaders in a smart way, and her comment that her objective would be to try to get Palin to change her mind on some critical issues is an important reminder that we cannot have the knee-jerk reaction to reject these women out of hand. We must find our common ground and THEN work on our differences.
If all we do is focus on what we disagree on, we’ll never, ever, find areas of agreement.
Well said.
Good points. How refreshing to have a leader who knows what’s appropriate and then does the right thing. Every time I see her I am reminded of how much was stolen from us and our country by the DNC.
And she is always so gracious…unlike teh 0ne…likeable enough!
Hillary’s answer on This Week:
http://thepage.time.com/transcript-clinton-on-this-week/
A great “wink” from the great lady.
George Stepha(lupagous) finally got the answer he was pining for re: Sarah Palin, from D. Brooks: “She’s a joke.”
You could see him chomping at the bits, hoping and praying someone–anyone– would say what he was so clearing thinking about the woman. With the endless smirks. And yet no sense when it comes to analyzing Obama. The degree of sexism and disrepect is boundless. SMH.
Good on Madame Secretary for being the class act she’s always demonstrated.
Wonderfully said. Both HRC and Palin bring the classy when it comes to one another — and I think that HRC’s refusal to bow to the pressure to trash other women is one of the things that truly makes her a role model.
I’m amazed at the number of people expressing an opinion on and/or debunking Sarah Palin’s book without having read it.
The AP assigned 11 reporters to review the copy they obtained and they were only able to find 6 alleged mistakes/errors/lies, none of which was earth-shattering.
That’s 1.83 reporters per “error.”
We really can’t be sure all the “errors” are on Palin’s part either. The way things have gone in the media, I’m loathe to trust their “facts” these days. They seem to have developed a habit of being wrong.
the Huffblow fact check that I saw was predictably stupid and petty.
Pity they didn’t provide the same service for someone else’s 2 autobiographies…
This is the tone of BBCWorld on it:
A number of reporters there acted like the world would fall in if she ever got elected.
Even now they allege that her answers were edited in the Couric interview.
Obama never got that kind of interview from anyone.
The closest he got was the ABC debate in PA, and after that he refused to debate Hillary again.
Yeah and the Failbots whined for months about it. “They’re not supposed to ask him anything harder than. ‘Hey Barack, what is your name Barack, is it Barack, Barack?’ and ‘Do you love yourself as much as I love you? Do you hate that b—- as much as I hate her and want to punch her?’l
“do you want another pillow?”
I just wonder what the editors were doing. It seems like they didn’t bother to ask her to double check some of the stories that are provably untrue, especially knowing that people would go after her credibility.
Overall, I think the book was a rush job. Harper Collins probably wanted to make the most money out of Palin while she is a “hot commodity”.
It’s hard to fathom that they’ll let a high level politician like Palin write a book without index or ANY footnote, something you can’t even do with a term paper.
What stories are provably untrue?
The 50 K bill about her vetting, the whole story about the Couric interview, there are some e-mail exchange documenting some of the stories way differently than what she wrote.
That’s the stuff I have on top of my head because I don’t really have time these days to read lots of stories.
Althouse who’s more right to center and like tormenting Liberals by defending people they hate wasn’t complimentary, au contraire.
I just think the book was really a rush job.
Have you read the book?
It’s kinda hard to judge whether what she said was accurate without knowing what she said.
But I agree – it was a rush job.
I’m just going by the little disputes with the campaign staff I’ve been able to catch. I mean, the book was published by Harper Colloins, not MABlue Publishing.
I just think the editors weren’t very helpful or they didn’t care.
AFAIC the campaign staff has no credibility.
If it comes down to her word versus theirs, I’ll go with her.
Come on Myiq, some of the stuff is documented with email exchange.
I give her the benefit of the doubt in many of the stuff because it was an intense campaign with a lot going on. She can’t remember everything on top of her head exactly even if you take out her own biases and fantasies.
That’s when an editor is necessary and I Harper Collins has tons of them, some are pretty good. I don’t know what happened there.
An then a serious book with substantive policies (the most substantive policy book Rush Limbaugh ever read) WITHOUT A SINGLE FOOTNOTE?
The editors assigned to her should be fired.
How often do non-academic memoirs have footnotes?
Feel free to check.
I’ll take that as a “very rarely.”
You are absolutely wrong. Check around your bookshelf or ANY bookshelf for that matter.
“Very rarely” probably applies to fiction.
I don’t have anything on my shelves that remotely comes under the category of non-academic memoir written by a Republican for a general audience.
And after looking around, I found a grand total of 7 non-academic memoirs written for the popular market, with a grand total of zero footnotes. So either Sarah is sneakily going back in time to reverse this otherwise ubiquitous trend, or, you know, an awful lot of non-academic memoir writers apparently don’t feel much of a need to footnote their own memoirs.
I can’t recall seeing footnoted memoirs before.
Footnotes are for citing sources. If you’re relating your personal views and experiences then YOU are the source.
I looked around what I have too-most have indexes, many don’t have footnotes.
But then I don’t know if Palin’s book has an index or footnotes, it only comes out on Nov 17. (special hard back offer on Amazon only $9!)
I wonder if the Trig birthers would give up if she footnoted his birth certificate?
Okay, I tracked down the story about the emails.
I don’t think the alleged emails prove anything. I would expect there to be a lot more emails, and the fact that they only produced three (one not published) suggests that they were nutpicking.
The funniest thing is that the detractors do not seem to realize the more they whine about her book, the more sales it brings in. All publicity is good publicity, from a publicist’s standpoint.
I don’t think they could stop themselves anyway.
Palin Derangement Syndrome appears to include Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
This is why we don’t have a clue as to what is in the health care insuance industry bailout. 11 reporters…and this is so important that the AP has to try and destroy Sarah Palin. Sad, Sad Sad!!! No wonder the papers are in such decline. I watched Meet the “Press” today. Three shysters being interviewed by david gregory. Pathetic beyond description.
I should add…the three shysters were Arne Duncan, Newt Gingrich and Al Sharpton. Snake oil must be abundant!
Somewhere between the AP fact checkers and these folks fact checking them lies the truth. Who knows where in this environment?
http://www.conservatives4palin.com/2009/11/fact-checking-fact-checkers.html
My personal favorite is where the AP “debunks” her statement that she “usually opted for less-pricey hotels” by showing that ONE TIME she didn’t.
And, uh, “usually” does not = “always,” so what is the problem again?
SOS Clinton was marvelous as usual.
Does anyone else think it interesting that the biggest critic of illegal immigration on prime time (Lou Dobbs) gets fired and the Obama administration announces it will pursue amnesty as part of an immigration reform — in the same week?
The only reason that illegal immigration has slowed is the disastrous jobs situation. And why can’t this administration concentrate on that for awhile? If they don’t, they will only have one term.
djmm
I dont’ think Dobbs got fired from what I read on it. It was more like they told him to stop the advocacy and go back to neutral reporting or quit, and he chose the quit.
Stop the advocacy? Why should he be the only one under that rule there at CNN?
Oh wait…
of course “stop the advocacy” didn’t apply to Donna “stop the hate” Brazile who hid behind the word “undeclared”
SOD you never fail to bring together a great mix of information and trivia to pique our interest and inform. Thanx
Thanks!
A US judge has ordered South Carolina not to issue a vehicle number plate with a Christian image and slogan.
The state legislature had approved a licence plate with a cross in front of a stained glass window and the words “I Believe” written along the top.
District Judge Cameron Currie said that the plate violated the First Amendment, which enshrines the separation of church and state
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8353598.stm
happy happy joy joy … wish more judges would respect our constitution … if you want to proclaim your faith, there’s always bumper stickers
This activist judge acts like there’s supposed to be separation of Church from State in the Constitution!
Oh, wait….there is. /s
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601013&sid=acJOivSZHQsw
gosh, I hope so considering I just stuck about 1/2 of my portfolio there about a month ago.
When I read this stuff (especially from Bloomberg) all I hear anymore is “c’mon little girl…wouldja like a nice piece of candy? I’ve got a puppy too? wanna see? Just come with me.”
But if Dkat thinks so, I’d go with it.
i moved a month ago … hopefully they drive momentum my way
and there’s a new post up, btw …
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2009/11/15/hillary-clinton-looks-forward-chatting-sarah-palin
I would to be a fly on the wall if this ever happened. These two women both seem to have the best interest of the country in common. They have differences which is a good thing. Lock step harms it does not help
Think how much both working together could accomplish and if you add Martha Coakley just think how much better off the country would be.
This would be one of my wishes come true.
WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS
.
Notice the stark contrast between Hillary’s gracious response regarding Palin’s book, and this one, dripping with condescension:
Obama adviser won’t be buying Palin’s new book
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/11/15/obama-adviser-wont-be-buying-palins-new-book/
and they wonder why we consider them amateur hour
These guys are shooting themselves in the foot with that condescending attitude.
I saw the little exchange between David Brooks and Gwen Ifill on This is Weak with Stephanopoulos and it was telling.
yup, she wasn’t very happy being the only woman at that table today. Who was that obnoxious schmuck who called Palin a joke?
I just couldn’t believe how patronizing all those men were.
I read the comments there and all it did was make me even more embarrassed for my party that it contains such people. Their comments were clueless, elitist and just plain ignorant of the facts.
Palin is unqualified but they all filed in and voted like a lot of sheep for a man who had even less experience than her.
Anyone remember seeing Gwen trying to report on Palin’s speech at the RNC? She looked as though she’d been kicked in the gut.
Yes…I think she was worried about her book release not be simultaneous with it’s subject’s coronation.
This is why I’ve always wanted a parrot. I don’t know if this is the most adorable or the creepiest bird I’ve ever seen. I can’t decide. I think I love him anyhow.