Month: August 2012

Who Said There Is No Justice?

You know I have a problem with windbags….you know those people that go on about something they have no idea of what they speak…..and then there are those blowhards that go off on the religious rants and accuse anyone who does not agree with them as the enemy….you know kinda like the old rants about Jews and their destruction of a society……you know those types, right?

Just  when I doubted that there was any justice in the world for these delusional meat socks….I find this story…….

(AP) – As a rising star in Hungary’s far-right Jobbik Party, Csanad Szegedi was notorious for his incendiary comments on Jews: He accused them of “buying up” the country, railed about the “Jewishness” of the political elite, and claimed Jews were desecrating national symbols. Then came a revelation that knocked him off his perch as ultra-nationalist standard-bearer: Szegedi himself is a Jew. Following weeks of Internet rumors, Szegedi acknowledged that his grandparents on his mother’s side were Jews—making him one, too, under Jewish law, even though he doesn’t practice the faith.

His grandmother was an Auschwitz survivor and his grandfather a veteran of forced labor camps. Since then, the 30-year-old has become a pariah in Jobbik and his political career is on the brink of collapse. Not helping: A recording has surfaced in which Szegedi offers money to a felon threatening to expose his ancestry. (He says he didn’t know until then.) Szegedi resigned last month from all party positions and gave up his Jobbik membership. That wasn’t good enough for the party: Last week it asked him to give up his seat in the European Parliament as well

One down and way too many to hope that justice will find them…….

Prehistoric Africa Was A Busy Place

There is yet another story of interest to those that like the study of man or anthropology…….My daughter should witness this and then we will talk……

(Newser) – The discovery of three new fossils, unveiled today, illuminate and confirm a line of human evolution that is more complicated than scientists once thought. The groundbreaking bones, about 2 million years old and unearthed in Kenya, prove that there were at least two Homo species—in addition to Homo erectus—living simultaneously with each other before the dawn of modern Homo sapiens, reports the New York Times. “Human evolution is not this straight line it was once thought to be,” says one paleoanthropologist, and East Africa “was quite a crowded place, with multiple species.”

The fossils were found between 2007 and 2009 (by the mother-daughter Leakey team) and appear to hold the key to a mystery dating back to 1972, when a peculiar, unidentifiable skull, dubbed 1470, was located in the same area. The new fossils, which are remarkably similar to 1470, provide strong evidence that 1470 was not merely an odd-looking ancient human but a different offshoot of the Homo genus. (The AP notes that that the discovery by the famed Leakeys is being met with some skepticism in the field.)

looks like the savannahs of East Africa were a lot more busy with hominids than we were lead to believe…….and it looks like there were sub species or something similar…..you may concede now!

Pussy Riot UpDate

Last weekend I posted the story about the Russian punk band Pussy Riot and the trouble they were having with the Putin run country…….

Pussy Riot took on two powerful state institutions at once when they burst into Moscow’s golden-domed Christ the Saviour Cathedral wearing bright ski masks, tights and short skirts to protest against Putin’s close ties with the Church.

The judge said the three women had “committed an act of hooliganism, a gross violation of public order showing obvious disrespect for society.” She rejected their argument that they had no intention of offending Russian Orthodox believers.

It became one of Russia’s most high-profile trials since the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and Putin’s critics said it put the 59-year-old Kremlin leader’s policies in the dock.

Opponents depicted it as part of a crackdown by the ex-KGB spy against a protest movement that took off over the winter, attracting what witnesses said were crowds of up to 100,000 people in Moscow to oppose his return to power.

And now for the bad news……

A judge sentenced three members of Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot to two years jail on Friday for staging a protest against President Vladimir Putin in a church, an act the judge called “blasphemous”.

Supporters of the women say their case has put Putin’s tolerance of dissent on trial. Several opposition figures were detained outside the courtroom while protesting in support of the women.

The women have support abroad, where their case has been taken up by a long list of celebrities including Madonna, Paul McCartney and Sting, but polls show few Russians sympathize with them.

Judge Marina Syrova found the women guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, describing them as blasphemers who had deliberately offended Russian Orthodox believers by storming the altar of Moscow’s main cathedral in February to belt out a song deriding Putin.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, 22, Marina Alyokhina, 24, and Yekaterina Samutsevich, 30, stood watching in handcuffs in a glass courtroom cage.

Read More…

Now the question is how will the rest of the world react……..and if there are still “gulags” these women are so screwed……thoughts?

10 Things About Ryan

The hoopla of the Ryan VP candidacy is winding down and so am I….he is an interesting person….but it is a short lived interest, at least for me…….this will be my last post on Ryan for at least the foreseeable future and I want to leave the reader and hopefully voter with a few things to keep in mind about Rep. Paul Ryan……..

The list was compiled by MoveOn.org a liberal group that few Right wingers put any validity in their words…..but I say get creative and use your Google button and find out for yourselves…….

1. His economic plan would cost America 1 million jobs in the first year. Ryan’s proposed budget would cripple the economy. He’d slash spending deeply, which would not only slow job growth, but shock the economy and cost 1 million of us our jobs in 2013 alone and kill more than 4 million jobs by the end of 2014.[1]

2. He’d kill Medicare. He’d replace Medicare with vouchers for retirees to purchase insurance, eliminating the guarantee of health care for seniors and putting them at the mercy of the private insurance industry. That could amount to a cost increase of more than $5,900 by 2050, leaving many seniors broke or without the health care they need. He’d also raise the age of eligibility to 67.[2]

3. He’d pickpocket the middle class to line the pockets of the rich. His tax plan is Robin Hood in reverse. He wants to cut taxes by $4.6 trillion over the next decade, but only for corporations and the rich, like giving families earning more than $1 million a year a $300,000 tax cut. And to pay for them, he’d raise taxes on middle- and lower-income households and butcher social service programs that help middle- and working-class Americans.[3]

4. He’s an anti-choice extremist. Ryan co-sponsored an extremist anti-choice bill, nicknamed the ‘Let Women Die Act,’ that would have allowed hospitals to deny women emergency abortion care even if their lives were at risk. And he co-sponsored another bill that would criminalize some forms of birth control, all abortions, and in vitro fertilization.[4]

5. He’d dismantle Social Security. Ironically, Ryan used the Social Security Survivors benefit to help pay for college, but he wants to take that possibility away from future generations. He agrees with Rick Perry’s view that Social Security is a “Ponzi scheme” and he supported George W. Bush’s disastrous proposal to privatize Social Security.[5]

6. He’d eliminate Pell grants for more than 1 million low-income students. His budget plan cuts the Pell Grant program by $200 billion, which could mean a loss of educational funding for 1 million low-income students.[6]

7. He’d give $40 billion in subsidies to Big Oil. His budget includes oil tax breaks worth $40 billion, while cutting “billions of dollars from investments to develop alternative fuels and clean energy technologies that would serve as substitutes for oil.”[7]

8. He’s another Koch-head politician. Not surprisingly, the billionaire oil-baron Koch brothers are some of Ryan’s biggest political contributors. And their company, Koch industries, is Ryan’s biggest energy-related donor. The company’s PAC and affiliated individuals have given him $65,500 in donations.[8]

9. He opposes gay rights. Ryan has an abysmal voting record on gay rights. He’s voted to ban adoption by gay couples, against same-sex marriage, and against repealing “don’t ask, don’t tell.” He also voted against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act, which President Obama signed into law in 2009.[9]

10. He thinks an “I got mine, who cares if you’re okay” philosophy is admirable. For many years, Paul Ryan devoted himself to Ayn Rand’s philosophy of selfishness as a virtue. It has shaped his entire ethic about whom he serves in public office. He even went as far as making his interns read her work.[10]

I do suggest that if you want to know the truth about anything then search for apolitical sites that have NO political affliation….I know that this is an uncommon way to get facts nowadays….but ….try it!  You may like it!