TOPEKA | Republicans on Thursday pushed a bill through the Kansas House requiring potential voters to prove their U.S. citizenship ahead of this year's election, although GOP senators are divided on whether the state will be ready to enforce the rule.

The House approved the bill 81-43, with all of the votes for it coming from Republicans. It would impose the proof-of-citizenship requirement for people registering to vote for the first time in Kansas starting June 15, more than six months ahead of schedule and in time for the normal surge before a presidential election.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who introduced the bill, says the rule combats election fraud, but critics believe it will suppress turnout among poor, minority and elderly voters.

Legislators approved a proof-of-citizenship rule last year but — at the Senate's insistence — it's not scheduled to take effect until Jan. 1, 2013. The Senate has a large GOP majority, but its leaders are less conservative than Kobach and his allies and hesitated to move too quickly to impose the requirement.


http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/23/3447637/kansas-house-passes-voter-citizenship.html




What's the matter with Kansas?

This was sent to me via FB. I think the "Meth Lab" is absolutely adorable!

State agent inspects sack lunches, forces preschoolers to purchase cafeteria food instead


http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/homemade-lunch-replaced-with-cafeteria-nuggets.html






A bit odd?

Just a couple of days ago, Scott Walker, Fartfuhrer of the Totalitarian Corporate Plutocracy of Fitzwalkerstan, formerly Wisconsin, was crowing about how he had balanced the budget. He was lying, of course. He had a balanced budget when he was elected, but despite gutting worker’s compensation and services for citizens, all his giveaways to the Koch Brothers and other corporate criminals have built up a significant deficit. Now that Fitzwalkerstan will be getting mortgage relief for homeowners, the Fartfuhrer’s plan for that money has nothing to do with the homeowners.



http://www.politicsplus.org/blog/2012/02/11/walker-steals-mortgage-settlement-money/

A couple in central Pennsylvania found a very unusual critter in their backyard — a purple squirrel.

Percy Emert said he and his wife, Connie, have cage-like traps in their yard to keep squirrels away from the bird feeders. Percy Emery then releases the squirrels into the woods away from his home but joked that sometimes they make it back to his house before he does.

"I came home (one day recently) and my wife said, 'You're not going to believe it but I saw a purple squirrel in the yard,'" he said Thursday. "So I put out a trap with a couple of peanuts inside."

Before too long, the squirrel came back and found itself in the trap Sunday.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/purple-squirrel-spotted-central-pa-couple-15551391#.TzR4f5gnm18


Link with pics.


http://dailypicksandflicks.com/2012/02/09/purple-squirrel-found-in-pennsylvania-photos/

February 1 2012 the entire parliamentary group of The Movement of the Icelandic Parliament nominated Private Bradley Manning for the Nobel Peace Prize. Following is the reasoning we sent to the committee explaining why we felt compelled to nominate Private Bradley Manning for this important recognition of an individual effort to have an impact for peace in our world.

Our letter to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee:

We have the great honor of nominating Private First Class Bradley Manning for the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize. Manning is a soldier in the United States army who stands accused of releasing hundreds of thousands of documents to the whistleblower website WikiLeaks. The leaked documents pointed to a long history of corruption, war crimes, and imperialism by the United States government in international dealings. These revelations have fueled democratic uprising around the world, including a democratic revolution in Tunisia. According to journalists, his alleged actions helped motivate the democratic Arab Spring movements, shed light on secret corporate influence on our foreign policies, and most recently contributed to the Obama Administration agreeing to withdraw all U.S.troops from the occupation in Iraq.

Bradley Manning has been incarcerated for well over a year by the U.S. government without a trial. He spent over ten months of that time period in solitary confinement, conditions which experts worldwide have criticized as torturous. Juan Mendez, the United Nations’ Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment or Punishment, has repeatedly requested and been denied a private meeting with Manning to assess his conditions.


http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=29077

You say TV, I say Internet. Toe-mate-o, toe-maht-o.

Technology increasingly blurs the lines between computer, television, phone and tablet. Online video options grow almost by the hour. A screen, in the era of cyber choice, is a screen is a screen.

You can now plug the Internet straight into the newest TVs. You can buy gadgets that will bring the Web to your old set. Or you can use your phone, tablet or other electronic gizmos to tap into the Internet to give you TV on the go.

Still, to fill your screen with popular sports, comedies and dramas from the brands that dominate your television, generations-old economic models will have to be rearranged for the wild, wild Web.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/02/02/3407319/internet-tv-faces-big-obstacles.html#storylink=cpy


I don't even own a tv and watch everything on my mac. Here's the real obstacle:

"Commerce, meanwhile, hasn’t fully figured out the best way to make a buck off Internet video."

WASHINGTON — Iran's top officials now may be more willing to sponsor attacks in the United States, the top U.S. intelligence official said Tuesday in a warning that reflected rising tensions over Tehran's suspected nuclear weapons program.

Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper also said that while al Qaida remained a danger, the deaths of Osama bin Laden and other key figures had seriously degraded the core terrorist organization's ability to mount major strikes.

Testifying before a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on the findings of an annual report on threats facing the United States, Clapper said that continued "robust" U.S. counter-terrorism efforts could further reduce the Pakistan-based group's status to one of "largely symbolic importance" and fragment the global jihadist movement that bin Laden had inspired.

Iran and the danger posed by al Qaida after bin Laden's death in a U.S. special forces raid May 2 in Pakistan dominated the questioning of Clapper and other U.S. intelligence officials at the hearing on the 2012 Worldwide Threat Assessment.

Terrorism, the spread of weapons of mass destruction, attacks on U.S. computer systems _ especially by China and Russia _ and the cybertheft of government and corporate secrets constitute "the immediate forefront of our security concerns," Clapper told the panel.


Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/01/31/137428/new-us-intelligence-assessment.html#storylink=cpy




What a bunch of BS. Be afraid, be very afraid, and don't forget to give the military complex MORE money