A Quick Rant About Rush

Gender specific insults denote low IQ and history of sexual rejection. In short, it makes you an ASSHAT! A gender neutral asshat. The “Rush” issue and the original Church and State issue in this case have been horrifically intertwined when they are in fact completely separate issues.

1960 called, they want their politics back

A few of the most obvious conflated policy questions I see as obvious:

1. Should preventative care be covered for men and women free of charge under our new health care regulations?

2. Should religious institutions with employee health care benefits also have to abide by the new healthcare regulations regardless of the institutions religious dogma?

3. Should our culture passively endorse an attitude which analyzes the content of a woman’s testimony relative to her sexual behavior, and then further reduces her to a vessel for men to transact with sexually?

These are completely independent issues that have been insidiously enmeshed and given a thick coat of cultural shenanigans. To make any rational intelligent case for one position or the other, these issues need to be looked at independently.

Just my 2 cents.

~The Vault

Anonymous Is Ready to Party-Declares Ohio Occupy Festival: Enagaged

The group known as Anonymous has selected one of the longest standing continuous Occupations in the US for a gathering the week before the G8 in Chicago this Spring.

Which Occupy is this you ask? You’ll never guess… Cleveland, Ohio.

That’s right, Cleveland, home of the Browns, the Rock Hall of Fame, and weather bad enough to rival Buffalo, is also the home of one of the longest continuously Occupied Occupy encampments in the United States.

Ohio’s newest claim to fame appears in this video by the group “Anonymous” that surfaced on Social Media late Friday evening with the cryptic lettering “A28-M5CLE“.

A28-M5CLE seems to refer to the dates of an Occupy Cleveland Street Festival starting April 28th. I’m not sure if Occupy Cleveland planned on hosting Anonymous Party Crashers, but for a town that boasts of it’s own “Factory of Sadness”, I can definitely see an Anonymous/Occupy Street Festival being just the ticket to lift Ohio’s spirits. And in Rock and Roll style if history is any indication.

And the political Junkie in me is well aware of the implications for the Occupy movement.

Ohio is shaping up to be the swing state to end all swing states this year, crawling with candidates and the media trail that accompanies them. If you ask me Cleveland has an opportunity to put on one heck of a Festival (Wonder if they’ll have a burning man?) and really create an amazing, inspirational, non-violent, community Festival showcasing Occupy Cleveland.

I certainly hope so, for Ohio’s sake. But I will at least say this, The Anonymous video is certainly a better “tourism promotion” than this Cleveland gem ;D

What do you think? Will it be a beautiful festival of love and community? Will you stop by?
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Up With Chris Hayes – Culture Wars Video 2/11/12

Does birth control matter to you? Have a socially progressive pet issue? Chances are it’s covered in this weeks Up With Chris Hayes.

1960 called, they want their politics back

Most of my regular readers know I watch every weekend (DVR and online baby! I like to get my beauty-sleep!) and I’m never dissapointed by the dissection discussion. It mimics the feel of coffee with friends after college classes. When all the nerds   my friends and I would gather to add to our professors latest insight, or have a running commentary on the economic impact of default student loans over cheap beer at Becky’s.

Long story short, I dig it. What can I say? I’m a fan.

I’ve read a few books based on show guests, and I haven’t been dissapointed yet.

Baratunde Thurston’s How to Be Black was drop dead hilarious.  I listened to it through my audible account while insomnia/packing and guffawed rather loudly a number of times. I was able to grin while packing (no easy feat) and learn a few things along the way, and according to How to be Black I’m well on my way to cafe au lait. (Happy February, lol, Wink Wink @baratunde )

Next on my list is Going Solo by one of Saturday’s guests, Eric Kinenberg.  He sold me when he commented on our culture’s conflation of “Living alone, being alone, and being lonely” .
Huzzah sir, you’re right on point!

(Scroll down for video)

Going Solo- Kindle Edition

–> CAN.NOT.WAIT. For Melissa Harris-Perry’s show next week. She nailed her analysis of marriage, religious controls,  and women’s control of their fertility! She’s such a smarty pants!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Top Posts for February 3-10, 2012

Top posts for the last 7 days:

Maher Tells Occupiers to Get a Job

Breaking News: Prop 8 Ruling - Full Text

Kasich Mic-Checked at State of State

Susan G. Komen Anonymous Hack (pic)

What does the Guy Fawkes Mask Mean to You?

Fawkes, V, or Anonymous? What does it mean to you?

Governor Kasich ‘Mic-Checked’ at State of State by outraged anti-fracking protestors

Reblogged from ohiofracktion: to save the land and people:

• 
• 

By OhioFracktion

Steubenville, OH  Outside the State of the State address hundreds of Ohioans rallied against Governor Kasich’s false energy solution of hydraulic fracturing, which he has called a ‘godsend’ for the economy and paved the way for.  The rally highlighted the devastating ecological environmental and public health concerns that are already being felt across the state.  Attending were community activists, environmental and labor organizations, and elected officials championing a halt on all fracking.

Read more… 112 more words, 1 more video

[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="665" caption="We Can't Drink Money"][/caption] Mic-check text: “John Kasich is selling out Ohio to the Frackers and Wall Street. We will not be silenced. We will not be bought. We are the people. People power not corporate profits.”

Breaking News: Prop 8 Ruling – Full Text

Prop8=H8

Breaking- California Appeals Court rules Prop 8 UNCONSTITUTIONAL!

The court’s website crashed almost immediately after the announcement was made. Coming through as always is the delightful Rachel Maddow, who made this copy available through the Maddow Blog. 

Pass it on!

View this document on Scribd

Maher tells Occupiers to Get a Job

Maher says he find himself “almost in agreement with Newt Gingrich” and tells them to “get a job.”

He has a bit of a point. Throwing a chair through window… That’s more Kristallnacht than revolutionary imo.

 

The groups in heavy media rotation right now are not the basic “Occupier”, the kids with shields, etc are not regular Occupiers, they are a group of Anarchists referred to as Black Block (or more accurately, Black bloc)

Remember when the media was saying all the Tea Partiers are racists and used images of white supremacists etc. at rallies while ignoring the majority?

Tea Party Racism

The mainstream media showed the more racially motivated signage people made, and the minority of Tea Partiers who happened to be racists. A more militant and fringe element was used to paint the entire movement.

I know a number of Tea Party peeps who really bristled at the media’s willingness to lump them together and sell them as a package deal.

I tend to share those feelings when I see media paint the entire Nationwide (Worldwide) Occupy movement with the anarchy brush.

The 2 groups are not mutually exclusive, but painting the anarchists as representative of the whole is inaccurate. Bill should know better.

Susan G Komen Anonymous Hack (pic)

Screenshot that highlights Susan G Komen website hack. Taken at 11pm PDT. From @JC_Christian

Screenshot from Susan G Komen site-Post hack

What Fox News isn’t Showing You (Video)

For my “Anti-Occupy” friends: What Fox News Isn’t Showing You.

I know you disagree with a lot of what Occupy stands for, and I respect your right to have those ideas. I’m asking you to try to put that pov aside for 10 minutes to watch this raw unedited video you won’t see on MSM.

Please ask yourself what was accomplished? How much taxpayer money was spent to surround a group of protesters who simply wanted to have a protest march through public space.

Also ask yourself if you think it is morally, ethically, or legally right to prevent any exit route for peaceful protesters, declare the entire group under mass arrest, and stick the taxpayers with the bill.

Even if you disagree with why they are assembling, they have a right to assemble without being herded and corralled like cattle, beaten, intimidated, shot at, gassed, etc.

NOT because I agree with what they are protesting about, but because I believe they have a constitutionally guaranteed right to protest and express dissatisfaction with their Govt.

As does the Tea Party, and the NRA, and Westboro Baptist. (JustSayin)

Uploaded by RTAmerica on Jan 31, 2012
According to the eye-witness who captured this footage, an Occupy march was stopped by Oakland PD at Telegraph Avenue and William Street. There protesters were asked to leave but were surrounded. Cops used flash grenades, pointed guns at protesters and used batons against the unarmed demonstrators. Eventually the protesters find a way out.

This video courtesy of @ryanj

Watch the original video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfhrmtNXrOk

See the clip with enhanced brightness:

Stop Fracking up God’s Country!

TRIPLE DIVIDE is a new documentary film that lights the shadows about America’s quest for energy, where Paradise Found meets the visible hand of natural gas development.

Take a second to watch the trailer, it’s pretty compelling.  My connection to this project isn’t just about fracking and it’s effects.  You see, my mother, my mother’s mother, my grandfather, etc. etc, were born in Potter County.  My family has gotten their drinking water from a mountainside spring for a hundred years.  And that water was clean and pure for hundreds of years before that.

Now I have to worry about whether or not my children will someday drink from that spring, or if it will become yet another source of flammable drinking water.  And I haven’t even begun to consider the seismic implications.  See my article on the Fracking earthquakes in Youngstown Ohio for an example of my fears.
Long story short…..

Please, learn about fracking and it’s negative impacts.  It is NOT a “clean” energy source, no matter what Big Oil tries to tell us.  

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/publicherald/triple-divide/widget/video.html
From the Triple Divide Kickstarter page.

Potter County, Pa. (focus of the film) is home to a geological phenomenon called the Triple Divide, one of five widely-recognized in the United States where water drains into three different basins. The headwaters of this Triple Divide are ecological sanctuaries for all things living deep in Appalachia, and provide drinking water for millions of people downstream.

The natural gas industry is tapping the Marcellus Shale in the north eastern U.S., beneath the landscape of Potter, and  promising America a new dream of energy independence and economic prosperity. In the heart of the Pennsylvania Wilds, this modern-day Gold Rush is filling pockets.