I am doing a volunteer event today with young girls where we are doing the classic vinegar + baking soda = kaboom! I want to wear my dark wash jeans (look presentable and like a role model and all that) but will they be bleached if I get any of the vinegar + baking soda mix on them? I know you can use either to wash clothes but I wasn't sure about them together?

Any suggestions? I leave in under an hour! : D

Too Big to Block? Why Obama Must Stop the Comcast-NBC Merger

By next week, cable giant Comcast is expected to announce a deal to buy NBC-Universal, the biggest proposed media merger in recent memory. Comcast, the largest cable company and the No. 1 Internet service provider in the nation, would take over the NBC empire: a television network, Universal Studios, MSNBC, CNBC, USA Network, Telemundo, the Weather Channel, Hulu.com, 27 television stations and a host of other properties. The merger could be announced as early as Sunday.

This train wreck of a deal will hurt all over. It will mean increased costs for cable television service; currently free online NBC content locked behind a pay wall; less opportunity for the distribution of independent media; even fewer choices and less programming diversity. On average, nearly one quarter of all channels offered to cable subscribers will be owned by the bloated Comcast.
( Read more )

Utah becomes a battleground in the GOP's civil war
Sen. Robert Bennett is under fire from those in the party who find him insufficiently conservative. His battle may be a reflection of an anti-establishment anger that could affect both parties.


Reporting from Salt Lake City - Utah has emerged as an improbable battleground in the fight for the future of the GOP, as the party's veteran U.S. senator -- with nary a whiff of personal or political scandal -- has become one of the most threatened lawmakers up for reelection next year.

Robert F. Bennett is no Northeast liberal. Raised in Salt Lake City, he built a business, manufacturing day-planners, that made him wealthy. His grandfather was a president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. His father served four Senate terms -- meaning that, combined with Bennett's own three terms, father and son have held the seat for the better part of 60 years.

Yet those very attributes -- longevity, seniority -- only compound the challenge facing Bennett, who, like other Republicans across the country, faces attack within the party from those who find him insufficiently conservative.

As last week's elections showed, the 2010 campaign is shaping up as another driven by a deep, throbbing anger against the political establishment. President Obama has been a prime target at rowdy town hall meetings and "tea party" protests, and Democrats certainly have much to fear, as they hold the majority in Congress. But the free-floating hostility may pose a danger to members of both parties.

"This is not a Democrat problem. It's not a Republican problem. It's an incumbent problem," said Cherilyn Eagar, one of three Republicans, so far, taking on Bennett. "It's on both sides of the aisle."

A national poll issued this week reflected that sentiment. Only about half of the registered voters interviewed, 52%, said they would like to see their representative reelected next year, among the most negative findings in two decades of Pew Research surveys.
( Read more )

No more 'too big to fail'

Our company, J.P. Morgan Chase, employs more than 220,000 people, serves well over 100 million customers, lends hundreds of millions of dollars each day and has operations in nearly 100 countries. And if some unforeseen circumstance should put this firm at risk of collapse, I believe we should be allowed to fail. As Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner recently put it, "No financial system can operate efficiently if financial institutions and investors assume that government will protect them from the consequences of failure." The term "too big to fail" must be excised from our vocabulary.

But ending the era of "too big to fail" does not mean that we must somehow cap the size of financial-services firms. Scale can create value for shareholders; for consumers, who are beneficiaries of better products, delivered more quickly and at less cost; for the businesses that are our customers; and for the economy as a whole. Artificially limiting the size of an institution, regardless of the business implications, does not make sense. The goal should be a regulatory system that allows financial institutions to meet the needs of individual and institutional customers while ensuring that even the biggest bank can be allowed to fail in a way that does not put taxpayers or the broader economy at risk.
( Read more )

Ezell Harris, Tea Party Candidate, Arrested On Drug Charges

Ezell Harris, a Florida conservative who launched his campaign for Orlando City Council at a Tea Party rally, has been arrested on drug trafficking charges.

Jail records show he is being held on four counts: trafficking in hydrocodone, dispensing illegal drugs without a license, unlawful use of a two-way radio, and possession of drug paraphernalia.


Details of the case were not immediately available from the Orlando Police Department, though investigators believe he was selling Lorcet and Vicodin - brand names of hydrocodone -- that had been prescribed to him. According to his website, he served as a military policeman in the U.S. Army for three years in the late 1970s, and was classified as disabled in 1980.

In his campaign platform, Harris said: "Prescription drugs have replaced cocaine and other illicit substances as the leading cause of drug abuse deaths in Florida, a new study says. Despite this, the state has no prescription drug monitoring program, and the authors of the study say Florida must do more to curb the abuse of legal medication ... The report makes it clear that lax oversight is allowing Florida's legal drug abuse problem to grow out of control."

Hi,

I am a grad student who is looking into dropping one of my studio classes. For those of you who have done this process before, could you tell me if financial aid is affected, i.e. I would need to pay back the $3000?

Thanks in advance.

I swear, the roaches in my apartment are immune to borax and boric acid- I've sugar-coated them and watched them walk around for HOURS without issues. So much for THAT method. And I've put tons of those roach bait traps around, and I've never seen a roach go near one. Ever. Fail on that one. I have cats, and I've had cats die before after pest control sprayed for bugs, so I'm a little leery of going the liquid chemical route. Our landlord refuses to hire someone to do it anyways.

I don't have a job, so I've got nothing to do but clean and blog. Guess what I do a lot of. Yep- cleaning. I'd say the place is not the most habitable to roaches. However, they're living in the walls and I suspect festering in the neighbours' apartment, coming in through the hole in the shared wall by the oven. They're everywhere, and I was FED UP.

Then I discovered something. I was taking a break from laundry and poured myself some deliciously cold champagne. Drank almost all of it, left a little in the bottom of the mug (no, I'm not going to bother with proper champagne glasses mid-day. Mugs I can put in the dishwasher!) Forgot about it and left it on the counter while cleaning the bedroom. Came back hours later. Check glass. Dead roaches floating in it. A lot of them.

AHA!

Sugary liquids draw them like mad- crappy $5 Arbor Mist strawberry wine has more than enough sugars to draw them. And because of the alcohol content, they drown and die off! w00t! All you need is a 25 cent thrift store mug and a bottle of Arbor Mist, or something similarly sweet and cheap. I recommend getting a small cup different from any other you own strictly for this purpose, and make sure it's small so that smaller roaches have no trouble climbing it and finding the alcohol. I used a small teacup and about 1/8c of sweet wine each time. I let it sit out for a day or two before rinsing it out and pouring a new glass. So far, I think I've killed about 30 roaches today, not counting the ones I killed without the alcohol.

Alcohol FTW.

Media Matters breaks it down. Dobbs was fired and the last straw was the "birther" crap. Also included another brilliant breakdown of how Fox News lets their "journalists" (entertainers) get away with anything as long as it brings ratings.

Media Matters: Dobbs, dropped

November 13, 2009 8:25 pm ET - by Simon Maloy



On July 15, Lou Dobbs introduced a story on his CNN news program by saying that "new questions are raised about the president's eligibility to be president." Unbeknownst to the long-time cable news veteran, the moment he uttered those words, he embarked upon a steep downward trajectory that, just a few months later, would result in his departure from CNN, the network he had called home for the better part of three decades.
At least, that's the story told by the New York Post this morning, which reported that Dobbs' coverage of the phony controversy surrounding President Obama's birth certificate ran afoul of CNN president Jon Klein, who sent a memo to Dobbs' staff telling them to knock it off with all the "birther" stories. The Post also reported that Klein's memo enraged Dobbs -- he hadn't let facts, sense, or reason prevent him from covering the "birther" garbage, so it was unlikely that the network president could stop him either. It's a tragicomic tale, when you think about it. Dobbs, after 30 years of success on cable news, decided to make his last stand in defense of a story whose primary agonist is a lawyer/dentist who claims to be the victim of a conspiracy engineered by Obama, the Justice Department, and Microsoft.

The Source is pleased.
( Read more... )

Forget the salarymen, Japan's new 'herbivore' generation of males believe that life is far more important than work Yasuo Takeuchi makes an improbable radical. Skinny, wearing jeans, a striped sports shirt and a baby blue cardigan, he is fidgety and talks in a near whisper. He is 33, works for a major publisher in Tokyo and inspired a label now applied to a new generation of Japanese men. He is the archetypal soshokukei danshi, “herbivorous male” or Ojo-man “girlie man”.

Herbivores are shy and quiet. They seek the friendship of women and spurn aggressive dating. They are thrifty and abhor consumerism. They like quiet evenings in with friends rather than drinking till they vomit in the izakaya bars of Tokyo. They are the antithesis of the macho Japanese salarymen, on whose long-suffering shoulders modern Japan was built.

( Read more )

Source


Blurring the boundaries

As the future facing Japan's young people changes fast, so too are traditional gender identities

Every society has its own terminology for a young generation regarded as odd or unfathomable, and marketers are quick to give them catchy labels. It's no exception in Japan, which is now abuzz with talk of men with a soft spot who are becoming known as soshokukei, meaning "herbivorous" or "herbivores."

( Read More )

Source

Both article are lengthy, but informative, bolded for your pleasure.

November 13, 2009

A former Louisiana congressman who famously stashed cash in his freezer was sentenced Friday to 13 years in prison for taking hundreds of thousands in bribes in exchange for using his influence to broker business deals in Africa.

The sentence handed down in suburban Washington was far less than the nearly 30 years prosecutors had sought for William Jefferson, a Democrat who represented parts of New Orleans for nearly 20 years.

Agents investigating the case found $90,000 wrapped in foil and hidden in boxes of frozen pie crusts in his freezer.
( Read more... )

Men more likely to leave spouse who has cancer - Divorce rate is 21 percent, compared to 3 percent when husband gets sick

A cancer diagnosis can strain any relationship. But when a woman gets news of a life-threatening illness, her husband is six times more likely to leave her than if the tables were turned and the man got the bad news, according to new research.

The study included diagnoses of both cancer and multiple sclerosis and found an overall divorce rate of nearly 12 percent, which is similar to that found in the normal population.

But when the researchers looked at gender differences, they found the rate was nearly 21 percent when women were the patients compared with about 3 percent when men got the life-threatening diagnosis.

The researchers suggest men are less able to commit, on the spot, to being caregivers to a sick partner, while women are better at assuming such home and family responsibilities.

"Part of it is a sense of self-preservation," said study researcher Dr. Marc Chamberlain, director of the neuro-oncology program at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA). "In men that seems to operate very highly and they don't feel this codependence, this requirement to nurture their significant other who has this life-threatening illness, but rather decide what's best for me is to find an alternative mate and abandon my fatally flawed spouse."

Chamberlain is also a professor of neurology and neurosurgery at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

Life-threatening illness

The findings, announced today, come from a study of 515 patients who had enrolled in 2001 and 2002 at the SCCA, Huntsman and Stanford University School of Medicine. The researchers followed the participants until February 2006.

The men and women in the study (about evenly split) were divided into groups by diagnosis, with 214 having a malignant primary brain tumor, 193 with a solid tumor not related to the central nervous system, and 108 patients with multiple sclerosis.

Similar results were found for all diagnosis types, in which divorce was much more likely if the woman was the patient.

Cancer strain
Chamberlain realizes the enormity of a cancer diagnosis. "We find ourselves as a caregiver with someone with cancer, and that cancer isn't just affecting that patient but it affects profoundly that entire family," Chamberlain told LiveScience.

For instance, the patient may have been the sole provider or income or the person who maintained the home. In addition, with brain tumors and multiple sclerosis, Chamberlain says, a patient's personality can change. "That's not easy for caregivers."

Even so, sticking together could be what's best for the patient, the researchers found.

"We found patients who were divorced or separated had a much higher rate of hospitalization during their illness, which I think reflects lack of social support," Chamberlain said, adding such patients also were much less likely to participate in clinical trials, to seek alternative treatments or to even complete treatment regimens. They were also more likely than those who stayed in marriages to die at home.

The results will be detailed in the Nov. 15 issue of the journal Cancer.

--

I swear, the way society teaches men that they can be selfish assholes pisses me off so bad.

Wal-Mart bans gay couple for NOT shoplifting
by Timothy Kincaid

Not every confrontation that a gay person experiences in their life is based on their orientation. But sometimes it is very difficult to see any other possible explanation.

Take the experience that Joe Paolucci, Thomas Hitchcock, and their special need twins had recently with Wal-Mart.

( Read more... )

I am RAGING over here, guys. RAGING.

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?

Anita Dunn Takes Parting Shot At Fox, Hannity And Beck (November 13, 2009 - HuffPo - Sam Stein)





In a parting shot at Fox News, White House Communications Director Anita Dunn mocked the conservative-leaning network on Friday and laughed off its controversial host Glenn Beck for calling her a Mao enthusiast.

The outgoing administration spokeswoman took a clear and enjoyable dig, first at Sean Hannity for recently airing spliced footage designed to make a crowd of anti-health care protesters seem bigger than reality.

"A fun fact from this week is that an opinion show on a certain news network was using edited footage to make it appear that a rally last week, and political opposition to the president, was much larger than it appeared," said Dunn, during her appearance at the Bloomberg News Washington Summit. "Some of you may have heard about it. The people who went in and did fact checking on that, and actually exposed the spliced edited was... Jon Stewart of the 'Daily Show' on Comedy Central. Well that is where you are getting fact-checking and investigative journalism these days folks. It is a different media environment."
( cut )

Thoughts?

The organizer of a "Tea Party" protest in Virginia says he intends to move forward with plans to burn House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Tom Perriello in effigy next weekend at a rally to protest Democratic health care legislation.

The event is scheduled for next Saturday in Danville, which borders North Carolina and sits at the southern end of Perriello's congressional district. Perriello, a Democrat, narrowly won his House seat in 2008 and is considered a top target of Congressional Republicans in next year's midterm elections.

When news of the rally surfaced Friday, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen condemned the plans as "shocking and despicable."

Nigel Coleman, the organizer of the Tea Party, told CNN he doesn't see what all the fuss is about, especially when it is compared to the Democrats' health care plan.

"We're not going to actually set Perriello on fire or Mrs. Pelosi on fire," Coleman said. "But we have been trying to months to get our point across just how vehemently we are opposed to this health care legislation. For the House vote to come so close and to know that Mr. Perriello is on the other side, it's a kick in the stomach that a lot of people couldn't take."

Coleman said none of Perriello's potential Republican challengers have been invited to the event, which he expects will draw about 100 people.

"Something shocking and despicable is how they've handled this health care legislation," Coleman said, responding to Van Hollen's statement. "Going behind closed doors, writing a bill that is going to fundamentally change what America is. More people are going to be killed by this health care legislation than this bonfire."


Source is incredulous

What. The. Fuck.

How about a happy story now?

Left Vietnam as a Refugee, Returns as a U.S. Navy Captain (November 13, 2009 - ABC World News - CLARISSA WARD and SADIE BASS)

Commander H.B. Le is the First Vietnamese-American Navy Captain


Commander H.B. Le is the first Vietnamese-American to command a Navy destroyer.
(lassen.navy.mil)

Hung Ba Le's first ocean voyage was aboard an overcrowded fishing trawler when he was 5 and his family and hundreds of other terrified refugees fled Vietnam as Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese army.

Today he is Commander Le and at the helm of the warship USS Lassen as it makes a good will visit to the country he once fled.

"To think that 34 years ago… I left here as a little boy and to come back here now, it's incredible," said Le, the first ever Vietnamese-American Navy captain.
( cut )

thoughts?

A misconstrued text message announcing the passing of a beloved pet has sparked a flurry of diplomatic activity in Canada.

Transport Minister John Baird sent a message reading: "Thatcher has died".

Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper was soon informed that 84-year-old former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had passed away.

But it was actually Mr Baird's beloved cat, named after his political heroine, who had died.

Alive and healthy

The confusion spread around a gala event in Toronto, where some 1,700 luminaries were gathered at a black tie event.

Calls to puzzled officials in both 10 Downing Street and Buckingham Palace followed.

Embarrassed aide Dimitri Soudas had reportedly already started preparing an official statement mourning the passing of the Iron Lady.

He was told that Baroness Thatcher - who just a few days ago attended a Remembrance Day service at London's Westminster Abbey - was alive and healthy.

"If the cat wasn't dead, I'd have killed it by now," Mr Soudas is reported to have said of the 16-year-old grey tabby.

Source: BBC

Police Eye Census Worker's Insurance
By JEFFREY McMURRAY and DEVLIN BARRETT, AP
(Nov. 13)

Investigators trying to solve the mystery of a census taker found hanging from a tree with the word "fed" scrawled on his chest are examining whether he manipulated the scene in order to conceal a suicide and make a life insurance claim possible for his son, law enforcement officials told The Associated Press.

The dead man's son, Josh Sparkman, said in an interview with the AP that he found paperwork for the private life insurance policy among the personal files of his father, Bill Sparkman, but wasn't sure of the amount or when it was taken out. He said authorities have told him nothing about the case or produced a death certificate, which is usually needed to make an insurance claim.

Two law enforcement officials, who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case, said investigators were trying to determine whether Bill Sparkman committed suicide but altered the scene to make it look like a homicide, allowing his son to collect.

Life insurance policies typically do not cover suicides within a certain time period after the policy begins.

Sparkman said he was convinced his father was killed, in part because several items were missing and apparently stolen from his car. Police have declined to comment about any of the items removed from the car except for a census computer, which was not found, although its case was.

"If it's deemed suicide, there's no point in even looking at insurance," the son said. "There's no such thing as suicide insurance. The money is not the concern. I just want to know what happened to my dad."

Bill Sparkman's naked body was found Sept. 12 near a cemetery in a heavily wooded area of southeastern Kentucky. One of the witnesses who found the body said the 51-year-old was bound with duct tape, was gagged and had an identification badge taped to his neck. Authorities have confirmed "fed" was written on his chest, likely in pen.

Sparkman, 20, who is unemployed, said he's convinced his father could not have committed suicide, even though law enforcement officials previously told the AP on condition of anonymity that they were looking closely at that possibility and increasingly doubted he was killed because of his government job, as was first feared.

There were no defensive wounds on Bill Sparkman's body, and while his hands were bound with duct tape, they still were somewhat mobile, suggesting he could have manipulated the rope, the officials said. He was found hanging from the tree yet was in contact with the ground. Homicide, suicide and an accident were all being considered as a manner of death, authorities said.

Kentucky State Police Capt. Lisa Rudzinski declined to comment Thursday on whether a life insurance policy connection was being probed. She said investigators still have not determined the manner of death and were still awaiting forensic tests.
Sparkman said he also received a letter from the Census Bureau about how to collect his father's final payroll check and information about death compensation the government might owe him.

"It's not much, nothing substantial," he said. "It's not like it's enough to pay off the house or anything."

Because he was a census employee, Bill Sparkman's family would be eligible for up to $10,000 in death gratuity payments if he was killed on the job, according to the Office of Personnel Management. He was not eligible for a separate life insurance policy through the government because his census work was intermittent, Census Bureau spokesman Stephen Buckner said.

Sparkman said his father last updated his will in 1993, listing Josh as the heir to the estate, including the London, Ky., home valued at $80,000, according to Laurel County property records. Friends chipped in to help gather money for him to make one monthly mortgage check, but the son said he remains behind on other payments.

"My dad never really cared about material things," he said. "It's not what mattered to him. His friends, his family — that's the kind of stuff you care about. He would do without to see someone in his family do better."

Sparkman said he noticed no changes in his father in the weeks before his death that would suggest he was upset about anything. In their final phone conversation, his father mentioned he was still trying to land a full-time teaching job but remained upbeat, he said.

Source

For the cops to just show the son the death cirtificate and NOT discuss the case w/him I think is pretty shitty. I mean he finds out his dad is DEAD, and the police are more or less speculating shit...ugh!

Inspired in part by Rekha Kalindi, increasing numbers of young Indian girls are refusing to submit to child marriage. As an article in today's Los Angeles Times makes clear, no small feat:

Although a 2006 law prohibits girls from marrying before 18 (and men, 21) nearly half of all young girls in India are, in fact, married before this age, and child-welfare activists estimate that one-third of all child marriages take place in India. Because the punishment (when the law is enforced, which critics charge is infrequently) falls on guardians and the marriage is subject to annulment in a culture where purity is still valued, many such marriages have gone underground. Marriages are now required to be registered - but this has led to a thriving market in forged birth certificates.

( Read more... )

Source.

According to a new study of college students, men will admit to rape as long as you don't call it that — and the same few men are offending multiple times without getting caught.

According to Thomas MacAulay Millar of Yes Means Yes!, via the Washington City Paper's Sexist blog, researchers David Lesak and Paul M. Miller asked 1882 college students the following questions:

1) Have you ever attempted unsuccessfully to have intercourse with an adult by force or threat of force?
2) Have you ever had sexual intercourse with someone who did not want you to because they were too intoxicated to resist?
3) Have you ever had intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?
4) Have you ever had oral intercourse with someone by force or threat of force?

As the Sexist's Amanda Hess points out, you'd think no guy would admit to any of these acts. But 120 respondents, or 6% of the sample (which, by the way, was ethnically diverse, and included older students, up to the age of 71), answered yes to at least one of the questions. 76 of those men had committed more than one rape or attempted rape — these recidivists averaged 5.8 offenses. That is, writes Millar, "just 4% of the men surveyed committed over 400 attempted or completed rapes."

The study had two important implications. One is that rapists aren't really all that secretive about their activities — as long as you don't come right out and call it "rape." The other is that one common assumption about date rape or "gray rape" — that it's usually the result of miscommunication and happens when good guys get the wrong idea — appears to be wrong.

( Read more... )

Source.

ETA: HOLY FUCK SAUCE, WHEN I FAIL, I FAIL PRETTY DAMN GOOD. HERE. HAVE A COOKIE.