Cops in England looking for man dressed as Smurf who waves at women while doing jumping jacks

Priceless. Read the rest of this post...

Pee etiquette

Would you - should you - be offended is someone you didn't know asked, in all sincerity, whether you preferred to be referred to as "he" or "she"? Read the rest of this post...

Millenials losing their religion

There may be hope for the future after all. As a country we can't continue believing in religious fairy tales such as the world being created 10,000 years ago. Older generations are holding firm in their religious beliefs but thankfully the Millenials are starting to figure out how crazy and extreme religion in America is these days.

More from the Huffington Post:

About 68 percent of Millennials say they never doubt the existence of God, a decline of 15 points since 2007, while the number of older Americans with a firm belief in God remains stable. Millennials are defined by Pew as those young Americans born in 1981 or later.

Other studies appear to confirm this trend - more than half of non-religious Millennials have abandoned their childhood faith, according to a recent study by the Public Religion Research Institute and Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs.

Read the rest of this post...

Kid gets year in jail for fatal texting-while-driving accident

The number of people I've seen talking on the phone, or texting, while driving - and making all sorts of driving mistakes - has actually kind of shocked me the time I've spent back here in the Chicago area the past few months.  (We highly suspect a student who rear-ended my sister, and caused her some quite serious neck damage that she has to watch quite carefully the rest of her life, was texting.)

Illinois already bans texting while driving, and the legislature is trying to ban talking on cell phones (without hands-free) while driving.

I'm not very hopeful that any of this will change much.  People are increasingly lousy drivers - which I think goes hand in hand with people becoming increasingly lousy human beings.  America's litigiousness is a reflection of a larger entitlement problem in this country - everyone thinks they're oppressed, and acts accordingly.  And not oppressed in the civil rights way, but in the Republican way.  For Republicans, oppression is "not getting your way 100% of the time, to hell with how your desires impinge on the rights of others."  It's selfish.  And it's destructive.

It also doesn't help that popular culture glorifies some of the worst dregs of society, that glorifies destruction - be it couples acting violently to each other on TV, or thugs being violent to their women, towards gays, and more.  The trash who go on Judge Judy or Jerry Springer come to mind.  Though Fox News and Limbaugh and the GOP play their part as well in teaching Americans to hate pro-actively.

Starting around 2004, in the middle of the Bush years, I started to become increasingly concerned about the future of our country.  My concerns haven't lessened nearly enough with the Obama years.  There's a trashiness (and a meanness) to our culture, our politics, our driving, our health care system, and, more generally, the way we treat, and mistreat, each other.

Perhaps it was there before and I never noticed it as much as now.

More from the AP on the kid who was sentenced. Read the rest of this post...

Team Romney mis-spells "Reagan"

The man is a walking metaphor. Read the rest of this post...

1 in 3 bored with Facebook

As soon as the other two come out of their Facebook trance, they'll also realize what a big bore it is as well. Looking at how poorly their stock is doing, it's only a matter of time until the company starts getting "creative" with advertising and what they do with your personal information. Great times ahead for both users and Facebook!

NOTE FROM JOHN: While I'm not bored with Facebook, I've always found it difficult to understand.  Not just the options, but the overall site.  I thought I'd read that YouTube has been facing a recent decrease in traffic as well.  I wonder if it's not the problem all of us face - over-saturation of the Internet (just too many options out there now), and folks moving on to the next big thing (was Facebook, then Twitter, now Tumblr...) Read the rest of this post...

Neo-Nazi spokesman in Greece repeatedly punches (slaps) female parliamentarian in face on TV during debate

Per CNBC: "Gold Dawn [neo-Nazi] spokesman Ilias Kasidiaris throws water at Syriza party deputy Rena Dourou before attacking Communist MP Liana Kanellis."

Neo-Nazi member of parliament starts to throw water
at other member of parliament.

Mid-throw.

Then he shoves another female member of parliament.

Right after he shoves her.

Then he slaps/punches her in the face.

She raises her hands to defend herself.

He slaps/punches her again.

And again. (And what's with the two in the middle, the woman in salmon
and the guy to her right (our left) - they seem almost bored.)

It doesn't get much crazier or offensive than this.

It all takes place during your normal political talk show with various guests opining at once.  All of a sudden the neo-Nazi member of parliament appears to throw a glass of water in a female member of parliament's face.  Then he stands up and shoves another female member of parliament, before clocking her a few times in the face (some reports say he slapped her - watch the video, it doesn't appear to make much of a difference what it was, it was seriously violent).

The man should be sitting in jail right now for assault. The most shocking part of this ugly scene is that Greeks are actually showing any support for this creepy bunch of thugs (the neo-Nazis just won seats in the Greek parliament).

The attack starts about 38 seconds into the video:



UPDATE: The LA Times, which oddly refers to the neo-Nazi part as simply a "far-right party," reports that there's a nationwide manhunt in Greece for the neo-Nazi spokesman. He's apparently gone into hiding. More from the LA Times:

Using a mangled swastika as its symbol and revering Adolf Hitler, Golden Dawn increased its share of the vote from 0.3% to nearly 7% in last month’s polling by tapping into the anger and pain of two years of austerity cuts and deep economic recession. Its capture of 21 seats in Greece’s 300-member parliament sent chills through much of the rest of the Europe.

On Thursday, Golden Dawn leader Nikos Mihaloliakos refused to condemn the incident, arguing that Kasidiaris, who fled the TV set before security guards could stop him, was “provoked.”

More on the attack via CNBC:

Video of the incident, posted on Youtube but since removed, shows Ilias Kasidiaris in heated exchanges with Syriza party deputy Rena Dourou. The video shows both politicians shouting over the other. Communist party member of parliament Liana Kanellis is also involved.

Toward the end of the footage, Kasidiaris picks up a glass of water and throws it across the table at Dourou. Kanellis then jumps back out of her seat next to him and throws a number of papers at him. His reacts by pushing Kanellis and then striking her multiple times.

NOTE FROM JOHN: You elect the far right to congress and what do you expect them to act like? Read the rest of this post...

The idle youth of America

The NYT's Paul Krugman laments the fact that we now have a generation of American youth that will never recover economically from the collapse of the US economy.

The thing is, for all of Mitt Romney's cat-calls that the economy is getting worse, what's happening is no surprise. Krugman and Stiglitz have been saying for years that the current economic slump might not improve for a decade without some serious government intervention. But the Republicans said "no.' The Republicans said the stimulus was a bad idea from the start, and a failure after the fact. After Ronald Reagan and George Bush bankrupted the country, the Republicans yet again called for more tax cuts, because that's all they've got.

And Democrats refused to call them out for it at the time.  Some even pulled punches, refused to criticize the GOP for threatening our economic recovery, in the hopes that a kinder and gentler approach would help us cut a deal with the Republicans.

The alternative?  How about what I suggested at the time of the stimulus: Tell the American people that the economy isn't going to recover if the Republicans get their way.  That's a substantive strategy (pushing for more money) and a PR strategy (educating the public about what's to come and who's to blame).  Both are always necessary for political victory.

The Democrats should have been hanging the current economy around Olympia Snowe's, Susan Collins', John Boehner's and Mitch McConnell's heads for the past three years.  The Republicans wanted a smaller, or no, stimulus - then so be it.  They will be personally responsible when the economy doesn't fully recover for years to come.

Instead, Democrats let the GOP cut the pill in the half and then express shock when the medication didn't fully work.

There's a political, and economic, price to be paid for unnecessary capitulation.  Far too many influential Democrats defended the appeasement strategy of 2009, while some of us warned that it would come back to haunt us.  We were told that we were politically naive, that we didn't understand the importance of compromise.

In fact, we were right, and they were wrong.  The economy is screwed, and the President's re-elect compromised.  Just as we predicted.

This isn't about gloating.  It's about calling for a necessary reckoning in our party.  Or the same thing is going to happen next time, to the detriment of party and country. Read the rest of this post...

eHarmony and LinkedIn passwords stolen

Okay, does anyone use any of the password programs that are out there to help you store, and keep track of, various passwords for various Web sites?  While advice like this is good, it's all terribly impractical:

The eHarmony blog post recommended that people create strong passwords of at least eight characters, mixing upper- and lower-case letters, numbers and symbols, use different passwords for each Internet site and change passwords every few months.

I've read about the various programs to help you keep track of passwords, but haven't found them terribly comprehensible. How do they work, and what are some good ones? Anyone? Post in the comments. (I'll start researching this more today.) Read the rest of this post...

Iowa, South Dakota & Nebraska still serving Pink Slime at schools

They could easily opt out of serving the disgusting excuse for food but they don't. What parent wants their kid eating that garbage?

All but three states have opted out of ordering the controversial beef product famously dubbed "pink slime" for their school lunch programs says the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Iowa, South Dakota, and Nebraska will continue to buy ground beef with added lean finely textured beef (LFTB), ammonia-treated scraps that are used as filler.

The term “pink slime” was coined by former USDA scientist Gerald Zirnstein and used in a 2009 interview by the New York Times on the safety of beef processing. In 2011, the product was featured on a segment of Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution.

But hey, the parents got their precious tax cuts, right? Isn't that all that matters? Read the rest of this post...

Video: Hey Soul Sister

Chris is at Netroots Nation so I get the morning shift. I love this song. Though on now seeing the video, I can't say I love the video. It kind of looks like they decided to make it themselves. Whatever. Great song in any case.

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Regulators consider JPMorgan clawbacks

Only in today's world could the issue of clawbacks on bad deals actually be debated rather than immediately forced. The deals were lousy and the bank lost money. Why should this even be debated? Weren't we supposed to have addressed this already after the 2008 crash, or was that just talk to sooth the public?

U.S. bank regulators will review whether JPMorgan Chase executives should have to give back compensation due to the bank's failed hedging strategy that has produced at least $2 billion in losses, the head of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency said.

OCC chief Thomas Curry said his agency will evaluate the compensation of the chief investment office responsible for the trading loss, and will assess JPMorgan's determination on clawbacks as part of that evaluation.

In written testimony prepared for a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Wednesday and obtained by Reuters, Curry also said JPMorgan's trading loss will affect its earnings, but does not present a solvency issue and does not threaten the broader financial system.

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