He’s sad. He’s angry. He’s tired of the bullshit politics around this issue. And he’s telling it like it is.
Well said, Mr. President.
President Obama’s Statement on the Oregon ShootingPost + Comments (118)
by Betty Cracker| 118 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Proud to Be A Democrat
He’s sad. He’s angry. He’s tired of the bullshit politics around this issue. And he’s telling it like it is.
Well said, Mr. President.
President Obama’s Statement on the Oregon ShootingPost + Comments (118)
This post is in: Cat Blogging, Pet Rescue
From commentor Ann Marie:
The two lovely feline ladies in the attached picture are Lucy (red tabby) and Luna (charcoal). The mother of a co-worker of mine recently died and her two cats now need a home. According to my co-worker, Jennifer, they are very friendly and took good care of her mother during her illness. Jennifer can’t keep them and I can’t take them (my condo has a two-pet limit and I already have my two).
They are both 6 years old, litterbox trained and up-to-date with their immunizations. They are declawed in front.
They are good with Jennifer’s children and probably okay with dogs but have met only one small dog. Ideally, they should stay together.
Anybody is interested in these two, or knows someone who might be, contact me (click on my name in the right column, or annelaurie at verizon dot net) and I’ll put you in touch with Ann Marie.
This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Open Threads, Assholes, Bring on the Brawndo!
Peeple, because Bullee didn't test well.
— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) October 1, 2015
Per Caitlin Dewey at the Washington Post, “Everyone you know will be able to rate you on the terrifying ‘Yelp for people’ — whether you want them to or not“:
…[T]he most surprising thing about Peeple — basically Yelp, but for humans — may be the fact that no one has yet had the gall to launch something like it.
When the app does launch, probably in late November, you will be able to assign reviews and one- to five-star ratings to everyone you know: your exes, your co-workers, the old guy who lives next door. You can’t opt out — once someone puts your name in the Peeple system, it’s there unless you violate the site’s terms of service. And you can’t delete bad or biased reviews — that would defeat the whole purpose…
“People do so much research when they buy a car or make those kinds of decisions,” said Julia Cordray, one of the app’s founders. “Why not do the same kind of research on other aspects of your life?”
This is, in a nutshell, Cordray’s pitch for the app — the one she has been making to development companies, private shareholders, and Silicon Valley venture capitalists. (As of Monday, the company’s shares put its value at $7.6 million.)
A bubbly, no-holds-barred “trendy lady” with a marketing degree and two recruiting companies, Cordray sees no reason you wouldn’t want to “showcase your character” online. Co-founder Nicole McCullough comes at the app from a different angle: As a mother of two in an era when people don’t always know their neighbors, she wanted something to help her decide whom to trust with her kids…
“As two empathetic, female entrepreneurs in the tech space, we want to spread love and positivity,” Cordray stressed. “We want to operate with thoughtfulness.”
Unfortunately for the millions of people who could soon find themselves the unwilling subjects — make that objects — of Cordray’s app, her thoughts do not appear to have shed light on certain very critical issues, such as consent and bias and accuracy and the fundamental wrongness of assigning a number value to a person….
Two skinny upper-class blondes, a marketeer and a professional Mommy. Of course they think publicly rating every other human who comes in contact with their “empathetic love & positivity” would be a great idea — they’re the ones who have nothing but fond memories of their sixth-grade days as Queens of the Slam Book.
Open Thread: What Could <i>Possibly</i> Go Wrong?Post + Comments (178)
by Betty Cracker| 273 Comments
This post is in: Gun nuts, Open Threads, Assholes, General Stupidity
According to CNN, 10 people have been killed and more than 20 injured at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon. Reports are still sketchy, but the anchor says the shooter has been detained, and the cops are on scene making sure there are no other shooters.
by Elon James White| 58 Comments
This post is in: This Week In Blackness
Are Bernie and Hillary not doing it for you? Well, a new poll shows that if Joe Biden chooses to enter the presidential race, he’ll start out as a favorite.
According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 40 percent of Americans have a positive impression of Biden. …That’s compared to fellow Democrats Bernie Sanders (+10) and Hillary Clinton (-8), and to top-tier GOP candidates Ben Carson (+8), Carly Fiorina (+7) and Donald Trump (-33). Part of Biden’s current popularity is almost certainly attributable to the fact that he’s not officially in the 2016 race. Most of the media coverage of the vice president’s potential run has centered around his decision-making about a campaign and the outpouring of sympathy for his family after the tragic death of his son, Beau.
Not exactly surprising news, but couldn’t we use a little new campaign blood?
Team Blackness also discussed Yelp for people, Pornhub’s new findings, and a guy who tries to stop a carjacking with a gun with horrible results.
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If Biden Throws His Hat In The Presidential RingPost + Comments (58)
by Zandar| 175 Comments
This post is in: An Unexamined Scandal, Fables Of The Reconstruction, Vote Like Your Country Depends On It, Ever Get The Feeling You've Been Cheated?, Sociopaths
Can we go ahead and call Voter ID laws sponsored by Republicans what they really are yet?
Take a look at the 10 Alabama counties with the highest percentage of non-white registered voters. That’s Macon, Greene, Sumter, Lowndes, Bullock, Perry, Wilcox, Dallas, Hale, and Montgomery, according to the Alabama Secretary of State’s office. Alabama, thanks to its budgetary insanity and inanity, just opted to close driver license bureaus in eight of them. All but Dallas and Montgomery will be closed.
Closed. In a state in which driver licenses or special photo IDs are a requirement for voting.
It’s not just a civil rights violation. It is not just a public relations nightmare. It is not just an invitation for worldwide scorn and an alarm bell to the Justice Department. It is an affront to the very notion of justice in a nation where one man one vote is as precious as oxygen. It is a slap in the face to all who believe the stuff we teach the kids about how all are created equal.
Every single county in which blacks make up more than 75 percent of registered voters will see their driver license office closed. Every one.
But remember, Chief Justice Roberts assured us that such blatant racism is over in America, and that there’s no need to continue to “unfairly punish” Southern states for the voter suppression tactics of the past with the unnecessary and antiquated provisions of the Voting Rights Act.
Apparently there’s no need to deal with the voter suppression tactics of the present, either.
A Lesson On The Direction Of SuppressionPost + Comments (175)
by DougJ| 135 Comments
This post is in: Sociopaths, Very Serious People, We Are All Mayans Now
Even by the low standards of our wretched elite media complex, this is amazing..the NYT had a buddy of Kissinger review Niall Ferguson’s Kissinger hagiography and this is what he wrote:
[I]f Kissinger’s official biographer cannot be accused of falling for his subject’s justifiably famed charm, he certainly gives the reader enough evidence to conclude that Henry Kissinger is one of the greatest Americans in the history of the Republic, someone who has been repulsively traduced over several decades and who deserved to have a defense of this comprehensiveness published years ago.
(via)