“If you were to judge the success rate of monogamy by the sex lives of public figures, perhaps couples should change their marriage vows to say, "Till a tempting new partner do us part." FULL STORY

  CNN has a story by A. Pawlowski and it is listed as a “Mate debate: Is monogamy realistic?” 
  I know news sites run a lot of stories and reports around subjects like this… anything that talks about sex, sin, stars, mating… People jump on it and want to read it right away… 
  My gut feeling is that this sort of story on CNN does nothing but hurt them.. If I were one of the born again bible beaters this story would set me off and make me think that CNN had a issue and a goal. 
  Now knowing what I know about Faux News (aka Fox “news”) I could not turn to them because they run and show more sex than all the other networks.  They of course pretend that they are showing you how bad the other networks are or that they are showing you how sinful the others are… That would not work on me but I bet it works with a lot of the God squad people.
 
 

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  My God!  That is a shock and a surprise.  I was not thinking that would happen.  President Obama has been awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize. 

“(CNN) — President Obama was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday.

The first African-American to win the White House, Obama was praised by the Norweigan Nobel Committee for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples."

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population."

The committee also said Obama has "created a new climate in international politics."

In his short time in office, Obama has acted on a wide range of issues from the economy to terrorism and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Obama is the fourth U.S. president to receive the award, joining presidents Jimmy Carter, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt.”

  I would hope that the wide and crazy right wing would take joy in the fact that our President has be honored in such a way.
  I suspect that they will jump on “values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world’s population” and try and spin it in some manner.  My guess is they say …see he is not a real American or something like that…I feel sorry for them if they attack him for winning the award.

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  Today is Labor Day in the United States. 
  

“Labor Day is a United States federal holiday observed on the first Monday in September (September 7 in 2009).

The holiday originated in Canada out of labor disputes ("Nine-Hour Movement") first in Hamilton, then in Toronto, Canada in the 1870s, which resulted in a Trade Union Act which legalized and protected union activity in 1872 in Canada. The parades held in support of the Nine-Hour Movement and the printers’ strike led to an annual celebration in Canada. In 1882, American labor leader Peter J. McGuire witnessed one of these labor festivals in Toronto. Inspired from Canadian events in Toronto, he returned to New York and organized the first American "labor day" on September 5 of the same year.

The first Labor Day in the United States was celebrated on September 5, 1882 in New York City. In the aftermath of the deaths of a number of workers at the hands of the US military and US Marshals during the 1894 Pullman Strike, President Grover Cleveland put reconciliation with Labor as a top political priority. Fearing further conflict, legislation making Labor Day a national holiday was rushed through Congress unanimously and signed into law a mere six days after the end of the strike. Cleveland was also concerned that aligning a US labor holiday with existing international May Day celebrations would stir up negative emotions linked to the Haymarket Affair. All 50 U.S. states have made Labor Day a state holiday…”  Wikipedia

  If we did not have a Labor Day I do not think you could ever get it made a national holiday.  That is sad.  It is sad that for most Americans it is just a day off from work.  They have no idea about the holiday.  
  With the unemployment rate almost 10% this is going to be a sad day for many Americans.
  Each year I rave and rant about how the trade union movement has failed to tell their story and failed to connect with the American people.  I will not do it this year.
  I hope next Labor Day the United States is better…Well not just the United States but the entire world.

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  The other day it was an old woman with a hoe attacking camera men in her yard and at her front door.  Today it is a man leaving the court room.
  What to these events have in common?  A large number of Americans say great they love it and the news media deserves it.
 

  In both the events there is no question about it…The attacker was guilty of a crime.  The father attacking the reporters in a public court house…He is going to spend some time in jail If a jury will find him guilty.  You only need one person on the jury to say not guilty.
  In the case of the old woman with a hoe…Her grand daughter…was an underage (a minor) dancer at a bar.  The news media reported on the story and then send camera people to the house to interview and ask questions.  Keep in mind they are reporting on a minor on private property.  The old woman is still guilty and she could have hurt or killed someone with that hoe. 
  It is not going to happen…It would not be legal…Freedom of the press and freedom of speech and all that stuff… But we need a laws that the news media can not come on private property period.  They should have to be given permission.  If the news media points one of those large camera at you on the street, in public, and it is within your arm reach …That is if you can reach out and touch it …The news media should be guilty of a crime.
  Like I said it is not going to happen… The news media is like a pack of wild dogs.
  What I could see happening …Is we could sort of “punish” the media.  They love it when they can have cameras in the court room.  We could do away with cameras in the court rooms.  We would just be going back to the way it has been in the past.
  It would be good if we could not allow news media with cameras of any sort in the court house or in police stations. 
  One thing we could do and there has been some talk about it and that is not give or allow the media to use any 911 calls.  The only time they should be allow to use them is if the police need the call released to the public to get more help on a case.
  Right now the media is out of control and they are going to keep getting attacked.  I might even be doing it one day.  If something happens that they stick a camera in my face I will be attacking.

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  I just made my Kiva loan for the month.  This month it was to a 55 year old woman in Nicaragua. She is asking for $1000.00 and I put $25.00 in Kiva for her.  There is still $950.00 that they need to get so they can send her the money.  She has a little store in Nicaragua and wants to buy more stock to sell.

  If you are looking for a way to help people I recommend micro-loaning.
  I have done my good deed for this month and now I can be bad for the rest of the  month. 

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  Brent Bozell on Fox "news" calls the Free Choice Act "Socialism."  The Free Choice Act is just a tool to help workers to get a union.  Right now it is very hard to get a union.  The Republicans have, over the years, made it harder and harder to get a union.  If employees are not being paid fair wages, worked over time without extra pay and treated like crap there is very little they can do.  As it is set up now it is very hard to get a union. 
  Employees will want a union but are in fear of the company.  If some employees try and get a union other workers will be afraid to sign a membership card with a union.  The company will try and keep them from signing the card and try and find out who is signing a card.  The company will commit all sort of unfair acts and nothing can be done about it.  The current labor laws are set up to protect the company and not the workers.
   If employees try and get a union the company will fire pro-union workers.  The company will order all employees to come in for meeting and then bad talk unons…the company will hire organizations and spend lots of money…to keep a union out..
   What unions and workers want is to make it easy to get a union. 
   We should make it very easy to get a union.  What is wrong with workers improving their working conditions?  It is good for the United States and good for people.
   The truth is it is good for the employer.  If a company is fair with employees and treats them well… there will not be a demand for a union. 
  

   This video shows you the company and Republican point of view on this issue.

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  I am a poor person but I believe in Microfinance.  I been doing Kiva for months now.  I am happy with them and will be making a another loan via Kiva in 3 days.  I do a $25.00 loan each month.  I think Micro-loaning is a great idea but I am surprised that it works.
  After I have made 12 Kiva loans I think I will sign up with a different microfinance site and use them for a time.  Just so I can see how it works with a new company.
  I am thinking of going with MicroPlace as the next one.  
  I might go with Grameen Foundation. 
  I wish I could afford to loan more than $25.00 a month.  If I won the lottery I would do a large sum for each of them.
  These loans are made to very poor hard working people in third world and it helps the people and they pay back the loans.
  I think Grameen is now loans in the United States!

“…In the United States, more than 37 million people live below the poverty line; approximately 74 percent of them are located in major metropolitan areas. A wide variety of social, historical, cultural, educational and structural factors contribute to the persistence of poverty in the world’s richest nation. Despite these obstacles, poor people are embracing microentrepreneurship as a pathway out of poverty. In fact, many clients of U.S. microlenders break out of dead-end jobs, unemployment and dependence on public assistance to become successful entrepreneurs, creating jobs for their families and their communities.
Our partner microfinance institutions in the United States:

• Project Enterprise, New York City
• The PLAN Fund, Dallas, Texas …”

    I do not think micro-loaning will work as well in the United States.  I hope I am wrong.  I just see those people in other nations working harder. 
     Grameen says that 37 million people (12.6 percent) live in poverty. 

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  I am not sure if the news media will call the killing of Dr. George Tiller an act of terrorism or not.  It is terrorism.  He was medical director of an abortion clinic in Wichita KS.  He was shot and killed at his church today.  A few years ago he was shot in both arms. 
  I am no fan of abortions.  I do not think many people are fans.  I guess Dr. Tiller did “late term” abortions and those sort of abortions are even less popular.

The United States has defined terrorism under the Federal criminal code. 18 U.S.C. §2331 defines terrorism as:

…activities that involve violent… or life-threatening acts… that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State and… appear to be intended (i) to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; (ii) to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or (iii) to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping…."

  We should deal with this murder that committed this act of terrorism in the same hash terms as we deal with other people that commit terrorism.
  
  Not having anything to do with this…but we need to try and reduce the number of abortions.  We need sex education.  We need to work with people to try and cut down on people having sex with out using good protection.

  There is no excuse however for killing doctors or bombing clinics.

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When Savana Redding was just 13 years old, she was strip-searched by school officials for allegedly possessing prescription-strength ibuprofen. This traumatizing search was based solely on the false and uncorroborated accusation of a classmate who was caught with similar pills.
Overzealous school officials violated Savana’s rights and called into question basic constitutional protections for all students in schools across America.
This morning, the Supreme Court heard arguments from ACLU attorney Adam Wolf in this powerful case.
Savana and her mother, April, recorded a short video with Graham Boyd, an attorney here at the ACLU who is working with them. I think you’ll find it moving to meet a real hero who’s taken her case to the Supreme Court.
Please watch this powerful video, and send a message of support to Savana and her mother.

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  I just set up two new blogs.  I am looking for some people that want to post to the blog.  Right now I could use a few good conservatives to post to Show Me Conservative.  If you are a Republican and if you want to think about some issues and post to the blog then I could use your input.  Think about it and we can give it a try.
  Now I do not want someone that is just going to call names and get all crazy.  I do not think that is going to work well for the blog.  I would like someone that thinks and have some ideas of their own.  You could post as often as you have content.  I know many of you are busy.  It could be something you do each day, each week or just a couple of times a month.
  I will set up some sort of list with people blogging with a photo, link to send you an email and link to some site that you want to give.
  When you write something feel free to post links.  So you do not have to cover everything in great details.  You can put links to sites.
 
  If you are liberal then you can post to Show Me Progressive. 

  If you are interested email me:  hnbbs@usa.net  
  Keep in mind that my blogs are pretty personal to me so do not feel bad if this does not work out.  It does not mean that I don't like you it just means it did not work for me. 

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And by "deadbeat" parents, the article is referring to parents who are late with paying for school lunches. I don’t know if I would call them deadbeats in this context and singling out kids sounds pretty nasty to me. The parents who call to thank the schools sound like the same compassionate conservatives that we saw too much of the previous eight years. That such a rich country can be so nasty to kids reminds me of why I found the right wingers so revolting in every possible way. I did not grow up in a family with much money but thankfully we were never in such a situation. I can only imagine how mortified I would have been if I was pulled from the school lunch line like this.

Faced with mounting unpaid lunch charges in the economic downturn, Albuquerque Public Schools last month instituted a "cheese sandwich policy," serving the alternative meals to children whose parents fail to pick up their lunch tab.
Such policies have become a necessity for schools seeking to keep budgets in the black while ensuring children don’t go hungry. School districts including those in Chula Vista, Calif., Hillsborough County, Fla., and Lynnwood, Wash., have also taken to serving cheese sandwiches to lunch debtors.
Critics argue the cold meals are a form of punishment for children whose parents can’t afford to pay.
"We’ve heard stories from moms coming in saying their child was pulled out of the lunch line and given a cheese sandwich," said Nancy Pope, director of the New Mexico Collaborative to End Hunger. "One woman said her daughter never wants to go back to school."
Some Albuquerque parents have tearfully pleaded with school board members to stop singling out their children because they’re poor, while others have flooded talk radio shows thanking the district for imposing a policy that commands parental responsibility.

Anyone else reminded of Reagan and his infamous change to declare ketchup a vegetable? What miserable bastards treat kids like this?

  This above is a reprint in full from AmericaBlog. 

  This should not happen.  I feel sorry for you if you think it is OK to pull a poor kid out of the lunch line and feed him a cheese sandwich in front of his friends.  
  All I can say to someone that thinks that is OK is that you are a Republican.

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  Tomorrow I am going to make my first Kiva loan.  It will only be for $25.00 that is all I can afford this month.  I hope to do that each month from now on.  If you sign up to help and do the same thing I think they ask how you heard about Kiva and if they do please list my email address:  hnbbs@usa.net
  Also you can buy gift certificates on their site for other lenders.  If you want you could buy one and they ask the email address and use the one above.  I am looking forward to helping out some people.  I wish I could do more.
  I also have the ChipIn widget on the left side of ShowMeBlog and you can use that to made a donation to me and I will use it to loan out via Kiva.  The ChipIn widget will use PayPal to make the payment to my account. 

  Update:  I just made my first via Kiva.  

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  I said here that there was going to be yelling and screaming about the Stimulus bill.  The longer it goes the more the right can find things that look and sound bad.  I admit when I just see a listing of things in the Stimulus bill I wonder about some of the items.
  CNN Money has a report on the part of the Economic rescue plan for the unemployed and it seem excellent.  We need more reports like this on the other parts of the bill.

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"These are weapons of war, and they don’t belong on the streets of Miami or any other street in America," Mayor Manuel Diaz said.

  “MIAMI, Florida (CNN) — Miami police issued a plea for information Saturday after at least one person opened fire on a crowd of people on a street corner Friday night, killing two teens and wounding seven others.

"We need the community to come together, someone come forward and give us a tip," Miami Police Officer Kenia Alfonso told CNN.

"There are a lot of people in that area. Someone must have seen something, someone must know who could’ve done this horrific crime."

Alfonso said two teens, ages 16 and 18, died in the attack, which occurred in front of a grocery store about 9:50 p.m. Friday in the city’s Liberty City neighborhood…”

    Sorry Mayor Manuel Diaz but the National Rifle Association does not agree with you.  The NRA believes that Americans have a right to own a AK-47.  The NRA also objects to any limits on the number of weapons that a person can buy and own.
    The NRA would say if all of those kids would have been armed then they could have defended their life and they could have taken out the guy doing the shooting.

   "It was like a war zone," resident Joan Rutherford told CNN affiliate WSVN. "I witnessed this guy laying there with his face, looked like it was completely tore off. His eyes was all I could see, and he had a grip on some money and gasping and trying to lift his head up to say something."

   The NRA would say that the kid was trying to say that he should have used that money to buy an AK-47. 

  Of course the NRA makes a point to say that guns do not blow of a person’s face or kill a person.  Guns do not kill.  It is people that kill.

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  Barack Obama, a negro, will has his inauguration as the 44th President of the United States on Tuesday.  Barack Obama is a credit to his race.
 
  The statements above are racist.  I do not remember the “a negro” from the past but it was not very long ago that it was in all of the newspapers.  The story might be of a “negro” running into a burning building and saving a family but they would have after the name “a negro” and like I said I do not remember that.  It could be that I was not reading or that it was just so common that you did not pay attention to it.
  I do remember hearing “a credit to his race” about blacks.  Well we called them colored at the time.  I remember it about Joe Louis the heavyweight boxing champion.

  In about 1953 or 1954 I would have to check some photos and look on the back for a date to be sure about the date my mother and I went by train from Kansas City (MO)  to Barnwell (SC).  I think we had to change trains in Kentucky.  (Some train buff may correct me on some details.)  We went into a waiting room and sat down and the station manager came over to us and told us that we were in the wrong waiting room.  We were in the “colored” waiting room.  We had to go to the white waiting room.
  In I think it was Augusta (GA) we got on a city bus and went to the back of the bus and sat down.  The bus driver pulled the bus to a stop and called us to the front of the bus and told us that we could not sit in the back of the bus because it was for colored.
 
  We spent that summer in the the South.  We lived for three months in a trailer in Barnwell (SC). My father was working at the Savannah River h-bomb plant.  He was a boilermaker helping to build the plant.

  That summer I saw lots of bathroom when we were out to buy food or shop.  There were four bathrooms one for white men, one for colored men, one for white woman and one for colored women.  If you wanted a drink of water they had signs one white and one colored.

Now in the year of our Lord 2009 on Tuesday January 20th Barack Obama, a negro, will become President of the United States.

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“It is not every day that you meet someone who had a hand in as many civil liberties battles as Charles "Chuck" Morgan, Jr. Chuck was one of the most influential and admired leaders in the history of the American Civil Liberties Union. He was a "larger-than-life" individual who had a profound impact on both the ACLU and civil rights and civil liberties in America.
It is with much sorrow that we say good-bye to a dear friend of so many years. Chuck passed away yesterday at the age of 78 in Destin, Florida. He is survived by his wife Camille and son Charles, a restaurateur, journalist and political activist…”

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