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SoCalDem

SoCalDem's Journal
SoCalDem's Journal
December 6, 2012

Supreme Court rules for marriage equality

That would be the MEXICAN Supreme Court..

Mexican Supreme Court rules for marriage equality
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/06/mexican_supreme_court_rules_for_marriage_equality/

In a unanimous ruling Wednesday, the Supreme Court of Mexico has paved the way for same-sex couples to marry in every one of the country’s 31 states before the U.S. has federal marriage equality.

Gay marriage has been legal in the Federal District, Mexico City, since 2010, and the Supreme Court had previously ruled that those marriages must be recognized nationwide. Wednesday’s ruling struck down a law in the southern state of Oaxaca that denied same-sex couples the right to marry there.

The ruling could have repercussions beyond Mexico’s borders. The couples seeking to marry in the Oaxaca case based their claims partly on protections in the American Convention on Human Rights, which has legal force in many Latin American countries. In saying that bans on same-sex marriage are discriminatory, the court may establish a precedent that could be used by LGBT activists throughout the region.

This comes before the U.S. Supreme Court has even decided whether it will hear a gay marriage case.

This Oaxaca case, which has broad implications, had an unlikely beginning. It was initiated by a Oaxacan law student, Alex Alí Méndez Díaz, who brought suits on behalf of a handful of couples even though other LGBT activists in his state warned that they were doomed to fail.

snip

December 5, 2012

We have 2 years.. Which representatives are the weakest 34 republicans

234-201 currently

Bachmann almost lost this time.. that leaves 33

(assuming we can hold our own)

Axelrod & Co need to pour their efforts into this so we can re-take the house in '14

The senate will be a tough slog without Obama at the top of the ticket

November 30, 2012

Why is the media still so focused on "Why Romney Lost"?

A 4th grader could tell them why..

bad message
bad candidate
dirty-mean-racist campaign

November 30, 2012

Mapping America's Most Embarrassing Addresses

Mapping America's Most Embarrassing Addresses
Wednesday, November 28, 2012, by Rob Bear

http://curbed.com/archives/2012/11/28/mapping-americas-most-embarrassing-addresses.php






Yes, four lucky families share a cul-de-sac called Broomrape Lane.

Every city has its coveted streets, blocks, and addresses—like Park and Fifth Avenues in New York, Broadway in San Francisco, Chicago's Gold Coast—but this map has nothing to do with those storied bastions of taste. Instead, this is an exploration of the far from prestigious, the sometimes mortifying, the always entertaining worst addresses in America. Welcome to a world where directions include "take a left at Poopoo Place" and "go down Psycho Path."


snip... (the other 9)

November 30, 2012

Former prison to become site for homeless vets

Former prison to become site for homeless vets

Updated: 11/29/2012 02:51:50 PM MST
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_22090072/former-prison-become-site-homeless-vets

By KRISTEN WYATT Associated Press
DENVER—An aging former prison in southeast Colorado is unusable for many purposes and should be turned into transitional housing for the chronically homeless, state budget-writers were told Thursday.

The governor's office is asking for $840,000—and an additional $6 million or so over the next two fiscal years—to repurpose the former Fort Lyon Correctional Facility in Las Animas. The prison was closed last year because of a declining prison population. The fences are down at the century-old facility, but officials have struggled for two years to find a new life for Fort Lyon. The former Veterans Affairs hospital was a major employer in rural Bent County, and lawmakers were told that the federal government won't take Fort Lyon back and that the aging property shouldn't be just boarded up and abandoned.

"We have a facility that is going to be expensive even if we mothball it," said Roxane White, chief of staff to Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper.



snip

November 29, 2012

I think Republicans are JUST FINE, the way they are.

they do not need to "change"

They showed us up close & personal just what kind of people they are, and I am glad to see them being open and upfront about it.

they were only too happy to welcome the racists in, and the bible-thumpers and the anti-science folks, and the xenophobes, and the misogynists, and the 2nd amendment folks.

THIS is their "big tent"..unfortunately for the big shots, the disparate parts have coalesced in the form of the TEA PARTY, and they will no longer hold their tongues.

They now have an unholy alliance.. Their patchwork Frankenstein is feeling his oats and will not sit down & be quiet.

Keep showing us who you are, and telling us what you believe

Let the people decide..and they did

November 29, 2012

Perfect gift for cooks with a sense of humor

About Whipped & Beaten Culinary Works

About Whipped & Beaten Culinary Works, Inc.

The story begins on a cold and snowy evening in a quaint and sleepy little town called Chicago. At a local alcoholic beverage distribution establishment, three friends gathered to discuss politics, religion, the meaning of life…and to get quite drunk. We will call these three Jason, Leslie and Dave (because those are their damn names). Many libations were imbibed that evening, and eventually the alcohol would contribute to one of the most brilliant ideas ever to be borne from a human mind. Well.. an intoxicated human mind.

A few months earlier, Leslie, knowing Jason was a master of the culinary arts, had asked him for a recipe so she could make a special birthday dinner for her beloved, Dave. He mulled it over for a short while, and came up with something he thought would be awesome. This recipe would later come to be known as “Poke Me! Pork”, and as it turns out…. it sure as hell was amazing. For, on that snowy night at the bar, while the three pondered the nuances of the universe, and got more hammered than the teenage offspring of a frat-boy and a crack-whore, Leslie and Dave told Jason that they thought he should write a cookbook. “Write a f%@king cookbook?” Jason slurred, “You two must be drunker than the teenage offspring of a frat-boy and a crack-whore” he continued ”I will tell you what I do think though… I think that you two bit@hes oughta get in the kitchen, and pay me back for giving you that damn recipe”.. Just at that moment, the stars had aligned, the clouds parted and a moonbeam descended upon Jason’s head, time stopped and only he was still in motion, the lights of all of Chicago … well, you get the damn idea. ”How damn funny would a cookbook called “Get in the kitchen, BIT@HES!” be?!?!?!” he said to Leslie and Dave. They both looked at him with their alcohol-glazed eyes, swayed back and forth almost unnoticeably, and produced the widest grins he had ever seen. Jason knew he had just touched upon something great. Either that, or they were simultaneously passing gas. He chose to believe it was the former.

Jason started planning everything in his head as the three zig-zagged and stumbled their way through the frozen tundra that hours before had been Damen Avenue. Jason chose to crash at Dave and Leslie’s because he knew there was no freakin’ way to get home in two feet of snow, plus, he thought there might be a chance for a three-way.

snip

Never before has there been a culinary company so creative, so awesome, and so damn cool.

sample Entrée Recipes:
South of My Border Pasta
Bend Me Over Beef
Artichoke The Chicken
Thai Me Down! Chicken
Pimp Me Out! Pasta
Break My Chops
Here’s the Beef Pasta
Bitchin’ Burrito
Holy Sh!t Ravioli
Fallen Angelhair Pasta
click here for the full list

November 29, 2012

Jon Huntsman should be Sec of State

Republicans don't "love" him, but they would be hard-pressed to vote against his confirmation.
He'd probably do worse as a candidate in 2016...I don't think he'll run again
He's up to date on Asian politics, and speaks Chinese.
Huntsman has already had one appointed position in the Obama admin, as Ambassador to China. I think he would do it again.

It's the easy way out for everyone.. He could appoint Rice as his deputy sec of state, and Kerry could hold onto the MA senate seat.

Obama looks magnanimous, and I think that having a man follow might be a good choice, especially when so much diplomacy will be done in societies that might pay more attention to "suggestions" coming from a man.. as a Mormon, he might also be viewed as more of an impartial person when it comes to Middle east issues.

We have had Albright, Rice & Clinton in recent years, and it may be time to have a man in that position..

November 29, 2012

Real-Life 'Wonderful Life' Boss Gives Business to Employees

http://gma.yahoo.com/real-life-wonderful-life-boss-gives-business-employees-162546267--abc-news-money.html

http://l3.yimg.com/bt/api/res/1.2/iARbnA1ROOAUrOHUTM9Olg--/YXBwaWQ9eW5ld3M7Y2g9MzYwO2NyPTE7Y3c9NjQwO2R4PTA7ZHk9MDtmaT11bGNyb3A7aD0zNTU7cT04NTt3PTYzMA--/

"It's a Wonderful Life" has come to life in Bemidni, Minn., with a hero as public-spirited as the George Bailey of the Capra classic movie.

Grocery mogul Joe Lueken, 70, literally is giving away the store, to his 400 employees.

After 46 years running Lueken's Village Foods, he and his family will start transferring ownership of the three-store chain on January 1 to an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Program), in which each employee will own stock. The number of shares will be based on their salary and years of service. Two of Village Foods' stores are in Bemidji; a third is in Wahpeton, N.D.

Asked by ABC News what prompted him to give away his business, Lueken says it just struck him as the right thing to do. He considered other options, including selling out to a private buyer; but when he talked to his family about it, his wife and four sons agreed that handing it off to the employees made sense, considering how much his employees, past and present, had done for him.

"It wasn't just the best option," says Lueken. "It was the only option." It was too, he thinks, best for the community. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Lueken has been famous for years for his generosity to local charities and causes, including the Sanford Health Foundation and the Bemidji State University Foundation. Lueken tells ABC that after he came down with Parkinson's disease in the 1990s, doctors recommended he have electrodes implanted in his brain to help control his trembling. It wasn't until he was being prepped for the operation, he says, that he realized the surgeon was a man whose education he'd helped pay for. That made him feel a lot better, he says, about having the procedure.

Brent Sicard, an employee who started at Village Foods in 1998 as night janitor, will be the company's new CEO and president.

snip
November 28, 2012

Facebook cannot tell an elbow from a breast

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/facebook-confuses-elbow-nipple-timeline-photograph/story?id=17829690&fb_ref=abc-fb-recs#.ULaEeGf4KCQ




By JOANNA STERN (@joannastern)
Nov. 28, 2012

Look again at that photo. Yes, we know, the first thing you think you see is a breast or a nipple. But look again. It's very clearly an elbow.

You looked closely. Facebook, however, didn't.

Last week a website called "Theories of The Deep Understandings of Things" came across the photo and decided to test Facebook.

"We post lots of art and also funny stuff on our Facebook page. Some of them, naturally, have some skin -- art and the non-art. We have discovered that Facebook standards are pretty much Bible-esque," the CEO of "Theories of The Deep Understandings of Things" told ABC News. He said he preferred not to reveal his name.

snip

(check out the linked site "Theories of The Deep Understandings of Things" for some very interesting art

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