Three pickup trucks of TransCanada’s Keystone XL construction workers are arriving on Highway 2088 outside Winnsboro, Texas. Their purpose? Tear down the trees, clear the brush, flatten the land, and erect a portion of the southern section of the Keystone XL pipeline. This pipeline, if completed, will bring the tar sands from Canada down to the Houston area where it will be refined…. then sold to China and other countries. The Canadian Tar Sands is considered to be the most destructive project on Earth.
All the while the corporate leaders and their lobbyists are continually telling the people that the Keystone XL will provide millions of jobs and stock the United States with oil for many decades to come.
Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy has received a torrent of reactions, both opposing and supporting, to his recent comment:
“I think we are inviting God’s judgment on our nation when we shake our fist at Him and say ‘we know better than you as to what constitutes a marriage’ and I pray God’s mercy on our generation that has such a prideful, arrogant attitude to think that we have the audacity to define what marriage is about.”
Today was to be my day of catching up on some doggie graphic work and some new websites, but I keep coming across more and more websites and publishings about the war the GOP has declared on Women’s Rights. One minute I want to scream to everyone the unrighteousness behind these bills. Then the next minute, I want to pack up myself and my dogs and move into a cave in the Northern Territories – with high speed internet, of course. I’m sure I can find a cave, but since I seriously doubt I’ll find one with high speed internet, or even in an area where a wireless card will work, then I must do the former of the two options. More…
I honestly cannot find any other way or words to tell the story of how the upcoming March on April 28th came to be. So here is the short article from Addicting Info. A very important read to understand where so many women are coming from who are in support of the War on Women movement.
With more and more insane bills, some passing into laws, erupting all over the country, a growing number of women are stepping forward and telling the lawmakers, “Stay out of my uterus!” The War on Woman March and Protest is now less than one week away on Saturday, April 28th. There will be a march and protest in every state capital as both women and men join together in solidarity to make sure the politicians and public hear their voices.
With all the recent news of the insanity spreading like a viral disease throughout our country, the War on Women has begun. I have always seen and believed that there are some rather ignorant people in both of our parties, but this year is much different. The Republican Party wins hands down. Bills are erupting all over the country, states ticking off one-by-one with their own bill which in some manner violates women’s rights.
That is IT! I have HAD it up to my pre-menopausal eyeballs! Ladies, and men who support women and see us as your equals, it is time to get MAD! Or get even MADDER! Time to be vocal, time to stand up for our rights!!! I am going to rant, and I mean rant hard! This may end up being a babble-fest, but damn it, I’ve got to get this off my chest. Or should I say breasts, as I am a woman and freakin’ damn proud of it!
When Stephen Slevin was booked into the Doña Ana County Detention Center on Aug. 24, 2005, for DWI and receiving a stolen vehicle near Las Cruces, he was physically healthy and weighed 185 pounds.
Think about this folks…. The government and the lackey politicians have been carrying on that the country needs SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act) in order to stop piracy of copyrighted materials. If we are in such dire need of these two acts, then how did the Fed take down Megaupload and duly make arrests?
The petition drive to recall and remove Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has surpassed all expectations, collecting over one million signatures in just 60 days.
Petitioners were only required to collect 540,000 by law. They far exceeded this number, making a successful legal challenge of the recall highly unlikely. This is the largest recall in U.S. history. Volunteers also gathered over 845,000 signatures to recall Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, as well enough signatures for four of the state senators who voted for Walker’s collective bargaining bill in March 2011, adding hundreds of thousands more petitions to a pile estimated to weigh over one ton. More…
“The potential for abuse of power through digital networks – upon which we as citizens now depend for nearly everything, including our politics – is one of the most insidious threats to democracy in the Internet age … This is no time for politicians and industry lobbyists in Washington to be devising new Internet censorship mechanisms, adding new opportunities for abuse of corporate and government power over online speech.”
- Rebecca MacKinnon (New York Times)
“When ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled and people constrained in their choices, the Internet is diminished for all of us.. There isn’t an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet. There’s just the Internet.”
I have been doing the “happy dance” since I read that WordPress is now strongly voicing their opposition to SOPA/PIPA. If you are not sure what SOPA/PIPA (yeah, I know… saying SOPA and PIPA consecutively sounds like a Mexican fried pastry)… anyway, if you are not sure what it is, please click on my SOPA/PIPA category in the top menu and side bar to catch up on what has been going on. Basically, rather than corporations, such as Disney, Viacom, Nike, and many others, using their attorney’s to file suit against those who infringe upon their copyright’s, these supporters want the government to do their dirty-work for them – thus saving all that precious money and profit even more. On a simple accusation, these bills will allow any corporation to shut down any website WITHOUT PROOF of infringement. As WordPress says: More…
The freedom, innovation, and economic opportunity that the Internet enables is in jeopardy. Congress is considering legislation that will dramatically change your Internet experience and put an end to reddit and many other sites you use everyday. Internet experts, organizations, companies, entrepreneurs, legal experts, journalists, and individuals have repeatedly expressed how dangerous this bill is. If we do nothing, Congress will likely pass the Protect IP Act (in the Senate) or the Stop Online Piracy Act (in the House), and then the President will probably sign it into law. There are powerful forces trying to censor the Internet, and a few months ago many people thought this legislation would surely pass. However, there’s a new hope that we can defeat this dangerous legislation. More…
Father Monk (with a birthname of “Monk,” it was destiny) speaks some very powerful and truthful words at a recent City Council meeting in Pensacola FL. His demeanor is nothing but passive, yet passionate. Apparently, the words he spoke were offensive to some on the council (damn, the truth hurts sometimes), and he was asked to leave. Here is the description of the incident from the video: More…
We are the 99 percent. We are getting kicked out of our homes. We are forced to choose between groceries and rent. We are denied quality medical care. We are suffering from environmental pollution. We are working long hours for little pay and no rights, if we’re working at all. We are getting nothing while the other 1 percent is getting everything. We are the 99 percent.
Brought to you by the people who occupy wall street. Why will YOU occupy? More…
Myself, being an armchair politic, have watched the world of politics from home either via the internet or television. I see our “leaders” in government do things that, in my opinion, are completely insane and irrational. Yet, I see many people support and follow their favorite politician and/or political party faithfully. I have to scratch my head and wonder in complete amazement how and why people can actually believe what I’m seeing before my eyes. Then today, I stumbled across a video about the Asch Experiment, and this helps explain perfectly what is occurring.
The Asche Experiment, according to Wikipedia, were a series of studies published in the 1950s that demonstrated the power of conformity in groups. These are also known as the “Asch Paradigm”.
In the basic Asch paradigm, the participants — the real subjects and the confederates — were all seated in a classroom. They were asked a variety of questions about the lines such as how long is A, compare the length of A to an everyday object, which line was longer than the other, which lines were the same length, etc. The group was told to announce their answers to each question out loud. The confederates always provided their answers before the study participant, and always gave the same answer as each other. They answered a few questions correctly but eventually began providing incorrect responses.
In a control group, with no pressure to conform to an erroneous view, only one subject out of 35 ever gave an incorrect answer. Solomon Asch hypothesized that the majority of people would not conform to something obviously wrong; however, when surrounded by individuals all voicing an incorrect answer, participants provided incorrect responses on a high proportion of the questions (32%). Seventy-five percent of the participants gave an incorrect answer to at least one question.
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Therefore, I have come to conclude that the future of this country, and myself of a citizen of the US, is being built on one fact (although out of many others) that people conform to those around them. People, being social creatures, are in essence followers, and we are often following those who really do not have any business in the lead position. And who knows who our leaders are actually following? “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain…” Should they really be leading? Or are they merely puppets for a stronger, more powerful force behind the curtain?
Activists see this and stand up for what they believe. Isn’t it time that we stop following based upon what those who we consider our peers believe, and start asking our own questions and making our own decisions?
Additionally, my opinion here is not based purely upon this video – but it did help pull things together in my mind. I have always been a people-watcher… forever watching, studying, and learning about the behavior of people. I have watched my friends in larger social circles conform to those who hold a more leadership position – and on occassion, what goes through my head is, “wtf…”
I know that I, myself, have fallen into this following pattern simply due to the fact that I have always been led to believe that if it’s in the media, it must be true. Now, especially in this incredible age of the internet, I see that the news often will only give you the information they want you to know… and the general public follows along like sheep believing everything they’ve been fed.
I implore you to seek out other channels of news, media… gather information, and come to your own conclusions. Stop following, but rather, become more of a participant – standing up for what you believe, and not always believing everything you hear.
Three pickup trucks of TransCanada’s Keystone XL construction workers are arriving on Highway 2088 outside Winnsboro, Texas. Their purpose? Tear down the trees, clear the brush, flatten the land, and erect a portion of the southern section of the Keystone XL pipeline. This pipeline, if completed, will bring the tar sands from Canada down to the Houston area where it will be refined…. then sold to China and other countries. The Canadian Tar Sands is considered to be the most destructive project on Earth.
