OK, so after 2 major fires and one fatality, they shut the DC Metro down for inspection today

Just look at what they found in 6 places, inspection only 80% complete:

WHEN POVERTY WAS A CRIME

This is long, but it's an even handed examination of the English workhouse system, its punitive as well as its progressive nature. S

It's exactly where the moralists want to take this country, poverty seen as a moral failure as well as contagious disease.

The Victorian Bakery

This is the first of another of the Beeb's "time travel" series, this one concerned with a small village bakery turning out fewer than 200 loaves a day. Check the size of the oven they're doing it in, wow! Other equipment looks familiar, like the big troughs for proofing dough, things I saw in the 70s when I was doing nutritional labeling for a big commercial bakery supplying the entire northeast.

In any case, it's a fascinating look back. Episode 2 is at the site on You Tube, just click the title of this video.

Reshma Saujani: Teach girls bravery, not perfection

For International Womens' Day:

Touched by his noodly appendage

There is a reason big girls don’t cry. We haven’t the time. FROM HELEN:

Margaret, as you would expect, I have been glued to the news ever since the voting started in Iowa and now moves on to New Hampshire…up there near you, honey. I bet politicians are worse than the leaf peepers in fall. Being so close to Vermont, I am wondering if you can tell me why the youngsters are so excited about Senator Sanders? I thought all of us old fogeys were too square these days.

I saw a young woman on MSNBC talking about how Hillary’s feminism was not her feminism. Oh honey. If you only knew. When my mother was your age, she wasn’t allowed to vote. When I was your age, journalists wouldn’t have even bothered to ask for my opinion. They would have wanted my husband’s instead. Your opinion actually made news around the world. That’s just remarkable. Trust me when I tell you that my mother’s feminism became mine. And mine became Hillary’s which most definitely became yours. Feminism isn’t a vote. It’s a birthright.

TCM ALERT: "Hearts and Minds"

It has already started, but if you've ever wondered where this country went so wrong, it's worth watching.

I don't know if I'll finish, the sight of so many conservatives, jowls wobbling, ranting about the "commie-nist conspiracy" is making me want to blow chunks, just like it did 42 years ago.

First, you are conflating dependence and addiction. They are vastly different

Second, healthy people would rather have their heads clear most of the time. Out of 10,880 patients in the early 80s getting powerful narcotics in the hospital, there were only four new addictions. Four. Out of nearly eleven thousand. Think about that one.

Third, doctors are being heavily leaned on not to dispense these drugs to people in pain. Untreated pain is fatal, leading to social isolation, depression and suicide to make it all stop. You call the drugs "ample." They are, in fact, parsimoniously dispensed.

Fourth, adding layers and layers of bureaucracy to discourage people from seeking help with pain is driving them to the black market, supporting the most vicious criminal gangs worldwide, think about that one, too.

Fifth, all the drug war has done is suppress the safer drugs, encouraging the development of bathtub drugs like krokodil that no one, not even a desperate addict would touch if there were any alternatives available. Think about that one, too. All prohibition does is get you more of the same, only more dangerous forms of it.

The drug war, held so dearly by conservatives in both parties, is the most dismal failure of social, legal and military policy this country has ever had, wasting billions of dollars and millions of lives. You need to rethink your stand.

Andrew Lloyd Webber helps the Republcans update their debates

Concerned that viewership was dropping, the Republicans tapped him for help. And help, he did.

https://www.facebook.com/republicats2016/videos/1654433511472554/

Not on You Tube yet, so I can't link directly. Watch it, you won't be disappointed. It's from the foul mouthed knitters.

ETA: for the satire impaired, this is satire. All of it.

**LAST CALL FOR VITRIOL**

Only half an hour left to top up and hit the bricks, kiddies!