RandySF
RandySF's JournalSuspicious package at Union Square Park prompts evacuation and ruins my evening.
There I was, enjoying a cool evening outside of our hot apartment when SFPD and their bomb cleared everyone out. I don't fault them for doing they job, but DAMN, what a way to ruin the perfect ending to a Labor Day weekend.
http://abc7news.com/news/san-franciscos-union-square-reopens/973597/
Sarah Palin Would Like To Be In Charge Of The Dept. Of Energy
Former Republican vice presidential nominee and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin thinks she'd make a good Secretary of Energy.
Her first order of business if she would be appointed to head the Department of Energy? Get rid of it, she told CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday.
"I think a lot about the Department of Energy. And if I were head of that, I'd get rid of it," Palin said. "And I'd let the states start having more control over the lands that are within their boundaries and the people who are affected by the developments within their states. So, you know, if I were in charge of that, it would be a short-term job, but it would be a -- it would be really great to have someone who knows energy and is pro-responsible development to be in charge.”
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump had said that he would "love" to put Palin in a Cabinet post.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/sarah-palin-department-of-energy-secretary
Obama To Sign Executive Order On Paid Sick Days
President Barack Obama plans to sign an executive order on Labor Day requiring that federal contractors provide their employees with paid sick leave, the latest in a string of executive actions aimed at raising the bar in the U.S. workplace.
According to the White House, the order will give roughly 300,000 workers under federal contracts up to seven paid sick days per year. Workers will earn one hour of leave for every 30 hours worked. The rules will start with new federal contracts signed starting in 2017.
"Many parents are forced to choose between taking an unpaid day off work -- losing much needed income and potentially threatening their jobs -- and sending a sick child who should be home in bed to school," the White House said in a statement.
Although most U.S. workers do receive paid sick days through their jobs, roughly 39 percent of private-sector workers do not, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The workers who don't have paid sick leave are disproportionately employed in low-wage industries like restaurants and retail.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/obama-executive-order-sick-days_55ecf882e4b03784e276240a
Sam Wilson already is.
Steve Rogers lost the benefits of the Super Soldier serum and is now an old man.
Arkansas Republican says he’ll shoot you if you ask him about his job in public
A Republican state senator from Arkansas boasted on Twitter that he is prepared to shoot to kill if people do not approach him with proper amount of respect as he goes about his daily business.
According to the Arkansas Times blog, Sen. Jason Rapert was out at Lowe’s hardware recently when constituent Lance White approached him to ask a question about public policy.
“Wow! I introduce my self kindly to my state legislator at Lowe’s last night. I then ask him a complicated question regarding government/law, to which I legitimately wanted and answer,” wrote White on Facebook Sunday morning.
“He then replies, “I don’t answer questions to smarty pants like you.” Then yelled at the Lowe’s employee to hurry up and load his stuff as he jumped in his truck to avoid me,” White continued. “Later I notice this post on his Twitter account. Didn’t know asking government/law questions to a legislator qualified me for getting shot.
#?loosecanon”
On Twitter, Rapert wrote, “Not smart to come up and harass somebody in a parking lot who’s carrying a handgun. Better be glad you decided to walk away. #armed&ready”
http://www.rawstory.com/2015/09/arkansas-republican-says-hell-shoot-you-if-you-ask-him-about-his-job-in-public/
The next wave of Marvel films will include the strongest female lead imaginable.
There is no doubt in the minds of fans and comic book aficionados that one of the most important and pivotal upcoming movies for the MARVEL Cinematic Universe’s Third Phase involves a superhero that not only has her own book, but also has been part of teams such as the Guardians of the Galaxy, and is still, until now, an Avenger. However, it is still yet to be seen how Carol Danvers, or Captain Marvel will figure in the upcoming “Avengers” movies, “Avengers: Infinity War I & II,” but it does seem likely that she will be a key figure in everything, and might even lead the Avengers, just as she did before. Read on to learn more about why Captain Marvel is so important to the Third Phase of the Cinematic Universe, and as to why the captain might actually lead her own team.
Captain Marvel, or Colonel Carol Susan Jane Danvers, according to MARVEL’s official website, is a highly skilled pilot in the United States Air Force, for those who may not know, became a superhero after she was caught in the explosion of the destruction of a Kree device named the Psyche-Magnitron during a showdown between the Kree villain Yon-Rogg, and the Kree superhero known as Captain Mar-Vell. Carol had known Mar-Vell’s human identity as he worked on the Air Force base with her, and tried to save her from the explosion by flying her away from the area. However, in the process, Mar-Vell dies, and Carol absorbs his Kree physiology, thus making her into a superhero.
As a powered being, Carol can fly, and is very strong and durable and can shoot bursts of energy from her hands.
She was known by different aliases, such as Ms. Marvel, a moniker she had when she led the Mighty Avengers, and it was Captain America who recently advised her to take on the mantle of Mar-Vell as Captain Marvel.
The wonderful thing about Carol is that she immediately allows elements of the cosmic Marvel universe to arrive with her, as she is an Earth bound hero with cosmic powers, and a cosmic origin story, which makes her a perfect fit for the Third Phase, which will introduce another cosmic hero, Dr. Stephen Strange, and since the “Infinity War”, is cosmic in nature.
http://www.movienewsguide.com/captain-marvel-important-third-phase-marvels-cinematic-universe/90014
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Marvel Comics reboot to feature Asian-American Hulk
LOS ANGELES — It's not going to be a Banner year for the Hulk.
The Big Guy is just the latest Marvel superhero to change identities, the comic-book publisher announced Friday. He'll go from Bruce Banner to Amadeus Cho, a 19-year-old boy genius — and that's significant for a couple of reasons.
For one thing, Cho is Korean-American, making Hulk the latest superhero to undergo a race or gender change. He's following in the footsteps of the Muslim Ms. Marvel, female Thor and black Captain America. And more changes are on the way as Marvel reboots its entire line for the "All-New, All Different" initiative starting at the end of 2015.
Perhaps more significant, however, is that unlike Banner — who despised turning into the rampaging Gamma monster — Cho is totally down for Hulkification.
"He's going to love every minute of it," said Marvel Editor-in-Chief Axel Alonso. "In this new series, we are going to lean hard into the fantasy aspects of being the Hulk. It can’t be all bad, can it?"
http://mashable.com/2015/09/04/hulk-amadeus-cho-marvel/
Salon: Can you become addicted to your vibrator?
She likens her reliance on the toy to her alcohol addiction; both, she writes, made her life unmanageable. I’m not going to argue that someone continue doing something that makes them feel bad about themselves, but there are disturbing implications in Michaels’ piece.
According to Carlyle Jansen, author of masturbation how-to book Sex Yourself and founder/sex coach at Toronto sex toy store Good For Her, the first thing we need to look at is the definition of addiction. She cited Wikipedia’s: “a state characterized by compulsive engagement in rewarding stimuli, despite adverse consequences.” Compulsive might mean a woman’s repeatedly late to work cause she’s too busy vibing it up, or wants to stay home rather than go out with friends, á la the rabbit vibe episode of Sex and the City, where Charlotte defends herself, saying, “it’s a vibrator; it’s not like it’s crack.”
Jansen says it’s natural to get used to using a toy, like Michaels did, because “nothing simply human can compare to the RPM of most vibrators.” That doesn’t mean she’s “addicted.” Another possible explanation? “It might be that she’d get frustrated when her fingers didn’t get the same response,” explained Jansen. “When we get frustrated or anxious, our bodies shift into ‘fight or flight’ response and the blood flows out and away from the erectile tissue. Without the blood in the area, it becomes harder to orgasm, which leads to more frustration.” Then again, a woman may simply be wired to like that type of stimulation. “Some of us need glasses to see, others need calculators in order to do math. Some of us need a vibrator to orgasm,” said Jansen.
One of the biggest problems with Michaels’ framing is that vibrators are presumed to be “lesser than,” and therefore, somehow shameful to use on a long-term basis. She pits vibrator use against partnered sex, approvingly quoting Dr. Gilda Carle, who told her, “Use of a vibrator is momentarily satisfying. But it doesn’t answer the need for a partner to hold you, converse with you, commiserate with you, and love you.” Of course a vibrator isn’t going to provide the same sort of emotional support as a human being, but that doesn’t mean the two are at odds—or that they can’t be combined. By judging herself harshly, Michaels inhibits herself from fully enjoying her toy.
http://www.salon.com/2015/09/05/on_becoming_addicted_to_your_vibrator_partner/
Michael and Kitty Dukakis campaign to lift stigma from the electric shock treatment that saved her life
It was June 2001 when “Jane Dee” checked into Massachusetts General Hospital at her own insistence. The 64-year-old woman, who had suffered from severe depression for 17 years, wanted to be hospitalized to ensure she didn’t drink away her fear of what was planned for the next day.
When she awoke, she couldn’t help but think about One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The Jack Nicholson movie and its gruesome depictions of electroconvulsive therapy ran through her mind as she walked to the basement procedure room to get her own, far more modern version of “shock” therapy in hopes of driving away the depression.
Almost immediately, she felt better—lighter, happier. She and her husband were able to celebrate their 38th wedding anniversary that night in awe of the complete turnaround.
Jane Dee, though, was no ordinary patient. She had tried—sometimes unsuccessfully—to keep her history of depression and drug and alcohol abuse out of the public eye during her husband’s political career. Now that her husband was out of office, she had an even bigger secret: shock therapy.
The couple quickly found that electroconvulsive therapy was massively successful at treating severe depression. But it suffered a huge public relations problem: It developed a horrible reputation in the middle of the 20th century when it was used without today’s patient safety protections, it was stigmatized through pop culture and there was no one willing to talk publicly about its effectiveness.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/09/dukakis-depression-treatment-campaign-213116#ixzz3kuhZcuqx
Kim Davis' Attorney Compares Her To Jews Living In Nazi Germany, Invokes Images Of Gas Chambers
An attorney for Kim Davis, who was jailed Thursday after being found in contempt of court for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in Rowan County, Kentucky, compared the clerk's situation to the one Jews were faced with in Nazi Germany.
Mathew Staver, who is currently serving as head legal counsel for Davis, made the comparison on the "Crosstalk" radio show Wednesday, RightWingWatch.com reported.
"[Davis is] there to do a duty, a job and the job duty was changed," Staver argued. "Does that mean that if you’re Christian, don’t apply here? ... What happened in Nazi Germany, what happened there first, they removed the Jews from government public employment, then they stopped patronizing them in their private businesses, then they continued to stigmatize them, then they were the ‘problems,’ then they killed them."
Staver doubled down on his Nazi Germany comparison on Thursday on "Washington Watch," a radio show hosted by Family Research Council President Tony Perkins, going so far as to invoke images of gas chambers while doing so, RightWingWatch.com noted.
"Back in the 1930s, it began with the Jews, where they were evicted from public employment, then boycotted in their private employment, then stigmatized and that led to the gas chambers," Staver told Perkins. "This is the new persecution of Christians here in this country.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/kim-davis-nazi-germany-attorney_55eaed70e4b03784e2760abb
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Gender: MaleHometown: Detroit Area, MI
Home country: USA
Current location: San Francisco, CA
Member since: Wed Oct 29, 2008, 02:53 PM
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