Destor on Ordering a Pizza Conservatively in Texas
Ramona: Hatred in a Lovely Church
Gallup: Obama 46, Romney 46
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Destor on Ordering a Pizza Conservatively in Texas Ramona: Hatred in a Lovely Church Gallup: Obama 46, Romney 46 |
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Long ago I was told that the Russian word подполья which is usually translated “underground” and which is part of the title of Dostoyevsky’s short essay “Notes From Underground” is a word for a place that does not exist. Specifically it denotes the space between the ceiling of one floor of a building and the floor above that ceiling. It is neither the ceiling nor the surface of the floor above. [Read more]
I just had to pass along this blog post by someone I follow:
http://www.prairie2.com/2011/03/those-lying-cows.html
And if you are looking for an alternative appreciation of the whole subject of fallout, this heavily footnoted presentation is interesting I think. Start with the section titled “Bending Fear Into Insight.”
http://doctorapsley.com/RadiationTherapy.aspx
It’s 11 AM in Portland and it hasn’t rained yet. Could this be the beginning of The Rapture?
Yesterday the queen read her message at the opening of the new Parliament. Understandably she was pre-occupied with the royal fears surrounding the apparent disappearance of much of the crown’s most treasured jewel encrusted and artfully wrought precious metal diadems and brooches and other symbols of stature and privilege. With the pluck characteristic of her nation’s personality, she waved aside any fears that the dignity and status of her noble peerage had disappeared along with the diamonds and emeralds. On the contrary as she encouragingly pointed out, they sat quietly in their manors and castles patiently waiting for the inevitable “recovery” of their glorious raiment. [Read more]
The Christmas season in the year 2000 was filled with extra anticipation. No one knew what to expect from the President Elect whose victory had the most sober observers of public affairs emptying their caches of superlatives to describe what might be in store for the nation. One Liberal wag penned that it was an event as momentous as Caesar crossing the Rubicon. A Conservative former Congressman predicted that every value of his party was in play. Everyone had an opinion on the impending Administration of President Bernie Sanders. [Read more]
Most measuring devices require some form of calibration, especially meters or gauges. Usually the meter or gauge has a way to adjust its display of values so that when a known value is applied then the needle or other pointer can be adjusted to read out that value. The device is then said to have been calibrated and can be used for purposes of taking a measurement. Sometimes experiences in life are a kind of calibration, helping to set one’s internal gauge of understanding. I think the current response to the recent WikiLeaks document release is a moment for a personal “calibration.”
By Elizabeth Weingarten, ForeignPolicy.com, May 23, 2012
It was 2009 in Peshawar, Pakistan, and Mossarat Qadeem was sitting on the floor of a house with about a dozen young Pakistani men -- some of whom had nearly become suicide bombers. Qadeem's goal: to undo the destructive brainwashing of the al-Qaeda and Taliban teachers who trained them in extremism, in part by asking the students to narrate their life stories.
"We were handling one of the boys, and he just came, put his head here in my lap, and he started crying and weeping," Qadeem recalls. "I was taken aback. It is very unnatural in my country that a man that tall can just sit at your feet and put his head here. [The other men] were all crying with him, and I was looking at him, and thinking, ‘my God.'"
All in a day's work for Qadeem. She's the national coordinator of Aman-o-Nisa, a coalition of Pakistani women that convened in October 2011 to combat violent extremism in Pakistan at the grassroots level. [....]
The issue of sexual assaults on American Indian women has become one of the major sources of discord in the current debate between the White House and the House of Representatives over the latest reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994.
.......
“We should never have a woman come into the office saying, ‘I need to learn more about Plan B for when my daughter gets raped,’ ” said Charon Asetoyer, a women’s health advocate on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, referring to the morning-after pill. “That’s what’s so frightening — that it’s more expected than unexpected. It has become a norm for young women.”
The difficulties facing American Indian women who have been raped are myriad, and include a shortage of sexual assault kits at Indian Health Service hospitals, where there is also a lack of access to birth control and sexually transmitted disease testing. There are also too few nurses trained to perform rape examinations, which are generally necessary to bring cases to trial.
By Ismail Kahn, New York Times, May 23/24, 2012
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency pin down Osama bin Laden's location under cover of a vaccination drive was convicted on Wednesday of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a senior official in Pakistan said.
A tribal court here in northwestern Pakistan found the doctor, Shakil Afridi, guilty of acting against the state, said Mutahir Zeb Khan, the administrator for the Khyber tribal region [....]
By Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2012
MOSCOW — Stiff new penalties aimed at opposition protesters were given preliminary approval Tuesday by Russian lawmakers loyal to President Vladimir Putin, the target of mass rallies and demonstrations before his March election victory.
The bill, which opposition parliament members termed draconian and protested by threatening to file out of a legislative session, calls for fines of up to $50,000 and up to 200 hours of community service for organizers of rallies and demonstrations that grow violent or exceed the approved number of participants.
The sanctions were approved on first reading by parliament's lower house, which is controlled by Putin's United Russia party. They mark a return by the Kremlin to a tough stance against critics after concessions during the recent election campaign [...]
Also see:
Russians back Putin, strong leadership
Washington Post, May 22, 2012
A Pew survey of 1,000 Russians found that President Vladimir Putin is well-liked by more than 70 percent of citizens, especially older adults.
Associated Press, May 21, 2012
HAVANA — It was all sunshine, smiles and celebratory speeches as officials marked the arrival of an undersea fiber-optic cable they promised would end Cuba's Internet isolation and boost web capacity 3,000-fold. Even a retired Fidel Castro had hailed the dawn of a new cyber-age on the island.
More than a year after the February 2011 ceremony on Siboney Beach in eastern Cuba, and 10 months after the system was supposed to have gone online, the government never mentions the cable anymore, and Internet here remains the slowest in the hemisphere. People talk quietly about embezzlement torpedoing the project and the arrest of more than a half-dozen senior telecom officials.
Perhaps most maddening, nobody has explained what happened to the much-ballyhooed $70 million project....