March 26, 2012

Troll alert!

They are out en masse on Trayvon threads.

March 26, 2012

I taught Trayvon.....

I taught kids Trayvon's age. Some of them appear to be like him from what I have read.

He apparently had some problems at school. So? Few don't. Tardies and marijuana residue do not a felon make. They are pretty standard as problems go.

Nothing I have seen indicates he was more or less than a teenager grappling with the problems that come with that age. He also had to deal with the stereotypes people have about minoritie.

Some fool just posted items from Trayvon's FB page. Gold teeth, tattoos, gang sign by a friend.....So? Kids posture all the time and relate in different ways to their friends than they do to others. Just because I may or not relate in such terms doesn't mean they are sinister.

The kids I taught could appear to be a lot of things. You had to get past the walls and assumptions to reveal more of the true self. I had several who looked like they might stomp you at any moment. They were really some of the funniest and kindest kids I knew.

If you assume the worst, every action might be seen as a threat. Those assumptions become a muddy window that you look through. You have to clean the window of your ideas and the crap they toss to disguise who they really are.

Put down the guns. Clean the windows. Try to find out who people really are. I know too many kids who could be shot by not acting like some think they should. We are all human and that should be enough as a starting point.

March 26, 2012

Family Statement about Trayvon, marijuana, and his suspension:

GottaLaff (@GottaLaff)
3/26/12 1:09 PM
NewsAlert: Family spokesman: Trayvon Martin was suspended from school because of pot residue in book bag

And on the story rolls......
Every mistake or problem Trayvon had will be exposed and used as proof of his character. It won't matter the circumstances or how long ago.
Few people could withstand such scrutiny. I couldn't.

March 26, 2012

Police: Zimmerman says Trayvon decked him with one blow then began hammering his head(!!!)

With a single punch, Trayvon Martin decked the Neighborhood Watch volunteer who eventually shot and killed the unarmed 17-year-old, then Trayvon climbed on top of George Zimmerman and slammed his head into the sidewalk several times, leaving him bloody and battered, authorities have revealed to the Orlando Sentinel.

That is the account Zimmerman gave police, and much of it has been corroborated by witnesses, authorities say.
<snip>
In his version of events, he had turned around and was walking back to his SUV when Trayvon approached him from behind, the two exchanged words then Trayvon punched him in the nose, sending him to the ground, and began beating him.
<snip>
He was visiting his father's fiancée, who lived there. He had been suspended from school in Miami after being found with an empty marijuana baggie. Miami schools have a zero-tolerance policy for drug possession.
<snip>
MUCH MORE:
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-26/news/os-trayvon-martin-zimmerman-account-20120326_1_arizona-iced-tea-suv-unarmed-black-teenager

Never heard the marijuana claim before.
A very different story.....
And a self-serving one. Surprised? NOT!

March 26, 2012

Many absolutely stunning and original bookcases and bookshlves:

Many more pics and info here: http://www.darkroastedblend.com/2012/03/bookshelf-heaven-awesome-containers-for.html

I would love to have any of these!

March 26, 2012

'Rock the Vote' video for 2012

http://joemygod.com

Not bad.

March 26, 2012

A desalination revolution that saves water and energy (could be major breakthrough)

Desalination plants have been controversial, mostly because of their high energy demand and the waste water they produce. But a new desalination technology uses almost no electricity and has the potential to save huge amounts of water.
<snip>
The membrane distillation technology uses waste heat to evaporate waste water through a fine membrane. The evaporated water condenses on the other side of the membrane as treated water – at above tap water standard – for re-use around the plant.

The trial – conducted at Ecogen Energy’s intermittent operating gas fired Newport Power Station – showed the system used 50% less electricity to desalinate water than traditional techniques. An updated design was then shown to use 95% less electricity.
<snip>
http://theconversation.edu.au/a-desalination-revolution-that-saves-water-and-energy-5970
The advantages of DM:
<snip>
 1- The operating temperature of the MD process is in the range of 60 - 85 °C. This is a temperature level where solar thermal collectors perform well.
2- Costly chemical pre-treatment of the water supply is in most cases not necessary.
3- Operation of the MD- module with intermittent energy supply is possible even without heat storage.
4- Robust and easy to use technology
<snip>
http://cm-modellbau.com/index.php?id=255

Water resources are already at the center of many disputes and even wars. The use of desalination
plants has been prohibitive because of the energy needed to run them. The waste products such as excessive heat and salt make them expensive to operate.

This could be a huge breakthrough!




 
 

March 26, 2012

The Power of Prosecutors: Hiding evidence that would have exonerated a man who was convicted.

Back in 1987, Michael Morton was convicted of murdering his wife. Upon being led to prison, he vowed that he was innocent, telling onlookers "I did not do this."
After almost 25 years in prison, DNA evidence proved that Morton was innocent, with samples connecting a different male to his wife's slaying. Morton was freed on Oct. 4, 2011, and "60 Minutes" brought his case into the national spotlight on Sunday.
<snip>
As the case wore on, Morton and his attorneys sensed that there was evidence that would have exonerated him. But they were never given full access to the police reports in the prosecutor's file.
Morton and his original trial lawyers always suspected there was evidence that would have helped establish his innocence, that [Williamson County District Attorney Ken] Anderson wasn't telling them about. But they were never given full access to the police reports in the prosecutor's file. It wasn't until recently, after years of legal wrangling, that lawyers Barry Scheck and Nina Morrison of The Innocence Project, and John Raley, a private attorney in Houston, finally got a look at Anderson's file from the original trial.

John Raley: It was one of those moments where you almost f-- you almost faint. To hold in my hand a copy of a document that the district attorney at the time had and didn't tell anybody about it on the defense side...
Lara Logan: That document would've proved what?
John Raley: Would've proved that Michael Morton is innocent.

<snip>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/25/michael-morton-60-minutes_n_1378773.html

More about real perpetrator:
GEORGETOWN — Mark Alan Norwood, a 57-year-old Bastrop resident, was arrested today and charged with the 1986 murder of Christine Morton. Michael Morton, her husband, was exonerated of her murder last month after spending nearly 25 years in prison, when DNA connected Norwood to the Morton murder and to the murder of another Austin woman, Debra Masters Baker.

Williamson County Sheriffs Office Sgt. John Foster said Norwood was arrested at his Bastrop home and that police had known his whereabouts since his DNA was identified in August. He is being held on a capital murder charge; his bond is set at $750,000.
http://tinyurl.com/6sglaqv

This is appalling and scarey. He knew Morton was innocent.
The women who were murdered afterwards by the real killer are on his head.

March 26, 2012

Frank Rich: GOP’s woman problem is that it has a serious problem with women.

At the time, back in January in New Hampshire, it didn’t seem like that big a deal, certainly nothing to rival previous debate flash points like “9-9-9” and “Oops!” But in retrospect it may have been one of the more fateful twists of the Republican presidential campaign. The exchange was prompted by George Stephanopoulos, who seemingly out of nowhere asked Mitt Romney if he shared Rick Santorum’s view that “states have the right to ban contraception.” Romney stiffened, as he is wont to do, and took the tone of a men’s club factotum tut-tutting a member for violating the dress code. “George, this is an unusual topic that you’re raising,” he said. “I know of no reason to talk about contraception in this regard.” The partisan audience would soon jeer the moderator for his effrontery.

Afterward, Romney’s spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom accused Stephanopoulos of asking “the oddest question in a debate this year” and of having “a strange obsession with contraception.” It was actually Santorum who had the strange obsession. He had first turned the subject into a cause in October by talking about “the dangers of contraception in this country.” Birth control is “not okay,” he said then. “It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”
<snip>
The hostilities would break out just weeks after the New Hampshire debate, with the back-to-back controversies of the White House health-care rule on contraceptives and the Komen Foundation’s dumping of Planned Parenthood. Though those two conflicts ended with speedy cease-fires, an emboldened GOP kept fighting. It had women’s sex lives on the brain and would not stop rolling out jaw-dropping sideshows: an all-male panel at a hearing on birth control in the House. A fat-cat Santorum bankroller joking that “gals” could stay out of trouble by putting Bayer aspirin “between their knees.” A Virginia governor endorsing a state bill requiring that an ultrasound “wand” be inserted into the vagina of any woman seeking an abortion.
<snip>
GOP apologists like Noonan are hoping now that Limbaugh and Limbaugh alone will remain the issue—a useful big fat idiot whom Republicans can scapegoat for all the right’s misogynistic sins and use as a club to smack down piggish liberal media stars. The hope is that he will change the subject of the conversation altogether, from a Republican war on women to, as Noonan now frames it, the bipartisan “coarsening of discourse in public life.” That’s a side issue, if not a red herring. Coarse and destructive as sexist invective is—whether deployed by Limbaugh or liberals—it is nonetheless policies and laws that inflict the most insidious and serious casualties in the war on women. It’s Republicans in power, not radio talk-show hosts or comedians or cable-news anchors, who try and too often succeed at enacting punitive measures aimed at more than half the population. The war on women is rightly named because those who are waging it do real harm to real women with their actions, not words.
<snip>
Much More: (a great read)
http://nymag.com/news/frank-rich/gop-women-problem-2012-4/index2.html

Noonan is a hack. She does write great speeches, but they covered up a multitude of sins. She knows it isn't just Limbaugh.

March 26, 2012

For a laugh: Ninja Cats - Les Chats Ninjas

Heh! I for one welcome our stealthy and lethal overlords.