July 1, 2013

Man facing 13 years for anti-bank chalk protest found NOT GUILTY by a jury of his peers.

Local man found not guilty in chalk vandalism case
Jeffrey Olson not guilty of all 13 charges

SAN DIEGO - A 40-year-old man was acquitted Monday of 13 misdemeanor vandalism charges that stemmed from protest messages written in chalk in front of three Bank of America branches in San Diego.

Jeffrey David Olson's attorney argued during the trial -- which garnered national attention -- that his client was engaging in a legal protest and was not maliciously defacing of property.

Olson could have faced up to 13 years behind bars if convicted of all counts. Jurors began deliberating Friday.

The rest: http://www.10news.com/news/verdict-in-san-diego-chalk-vandalism-case-070113

I know an incredible amount of very terrible things have been happening...but I swear to God, if this guy had wound up in jail for chalking up a sidewalk, I might have started firebombing.

So shines a good deed in a weary world.

On Edit: P.S. "I might have started firebombing" was pretty straight-up hyperbole. Some of you people really need to get outside more often.

June 28, 2013

Chicago class on full display: Blackhawks post wonderful thank-you letter in Boston Globe

http://www.boston.com/news/source/2013/06/stanley_cup_champion_chicago_blackhawks_take_our_fill-page_g.html?s_campaign=ThisJustIn_Widget

June 28, 2013

Bert and Ernie snuggle on the cover of the New Yorker while watching the Supreme Court

All the Win.

June 27, 2013

The 74-page indictment against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been released

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/read-74-page-indictment-against-dzhokhar-tsarnaev

June 27, 2013

He Can Marry, She Can't Vote: Another Day in Deranged America

Officials speak to supporters of gay marriage
during a rally at City Hall in San Francisco after
the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the
Defense of Marriage Act, on June 26, 2013.
(Photo: Jim Wilson / The New York Times)

He Can Marry, She Can't Vote: Another Day in Deranged America
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Thursday 27 June 2013

Five years ago, I donned my best suit and took my lady out to a fancy restaurant on Copley Square. I wined her and dined her, and when the moment was right, I presented her with a small diamond that had passed from my grandfather to my grandmother to my mother to me, and asked her to be my wife. A year later, we were wed in a small ceremony in a plain white church in New Hampshire.

...and nobody thought twice about it, because I am a man and she is a woman, and we were therefore spared the tyranny of religiously-justified apartheid. Our right to marry, to join our lives together in a moral and legally-binding contract was never disputed, because I am a man and she is a woman, and the hateful interpretation of an ancient, outdated text did not apply to us.

That hate is still here, and will never really go away. The same ancient text that condemns unto death same-sex unions also condemns unto death those who work on the Sabbath, those who plant different crops side by side, and those who wear clothes made from different threads, with nary a word of condemnation for the institution of slavery or the brutal subjugation of women...and as long as there are people whose personal hypocrisy moves them to cherry-pick lines from that ancient, outdated text to justify their hatred (while wearing cotton-polyester blend shirts at the office on Saturday after fiddling with the beans and carrots and potatoes and cucumbers in their garden), we will never truly be free of it.

But on Wednesday morning, two surprising rulings from a conservative-leaning Supreme Court sent the legal justifications for America's anti-gay apartheid into a death spiral from which it will not recover.

(snip)

So that was Wednesday, a bad day all around for hate, and for the apartheid that hate would enforce on a segment of the American populace that has the crazy idea they should have the same rights I do.

But there was also Tuesday, when the same Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by striking down Section 4, an action that allows any number of counties across the nation notorious for suppressing minority voting rights to slip the federal leash.

(snip)

Again, Justice Antonin Scalia is informative. In his rage against the Court's DOMA ruling, Scalia wrote, "We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation." He took this position on Wednesday, one day after voting to strike down Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act, another piece of democratically-adopted legislation passed in 1965 and renewed by a massive congressional majority in 2006.

One segment of the nation is lifted out of apartheid, another is shoved back down into it, and a Justice of the Supreme Court can't remember his justification for the latter a day after ruling against the former.

Just another day in deranged America.

The rest: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/17231-he-can-marry-she-cant-vote-another-day-in-deranged-america

June 26, 2013

Dear America:

Senator Elizabeth Warren. Senator Edward Markey.

You're welcome.

Sincerely,

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts

June 25, 2013

Best thing ever.

June 24, 2013

"Like most others, I was a seeker, a mover, a malcontent...

...and at times a stupid hell-raiser. I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey. It was the tension between these two poles - a restless idealism on one hand and a sense of impending doom on the other - that kept me going."

- Hunter S. Thompson

June 21, 2013

EPA drops fracking pollution study...So I guess I must be a racist...

...because I think this is fucking bullshit, yet another brick in the wall of bullshit standing between what I voted for and what I have to endure.

Go ahead, defenders. Defend this.

EPA Now Won’t Finalize Its Study That Showed Fracking May Have Contaminated Groundwater
TPM

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has dropped plans to have outside experts review its theory that hydraulic fracturing may have played a role in groundwater pollution in Wyoming, and the agency no longer plans to write a final report on its research that led to the controversial finding a year and a half ago.

Instead, the EPA announced Thursday that state officials will lead further investigation into pollution in the Pavillion area in central Wyoming, including ways to make sure people there have clean drinking water.

“We think this is the most pragmatic, quickest way to help the residents of Pavillion. We’re going to work hand in hand with the state to make sure this investigation moves forward,” said EPA spokesman Tom Reynolds in Washington, D.C.

Industry officials who have been doubtful about the EPA’s findings since they were announced praised the change as confirmation of their view that the science wasn’t sound.

The rest: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/epa-now-wont-finalize-its-study-that-showed-fracking-may-have-contaminated-groundwater.php?ref=fpb

Well, as long as the fracking industry people are pleased, that's all that matters.

June 21, 2013

Your Morning Squeeeeeee...

...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!