SondraK, Lympian Slayer 
Dig if you will the picture: A middle-aged man stands in an elevator on the 26th floor of the Palazzo, one of the most luxurious (well, expensive) casino/resorts on the Las Vegas strip. At 6-foot-3 and 245 pounds, he’s a pretty big guy, though he “carries it well.” His red hair is cut in a flattop, and he has a closely cropped beard, but he doesn’t look particularly imposing. He’s dressed in a faded sea foam green Banana Republic polo shirt, khaki shorts from Target, and Birkenstock sandals. Over one shoulder is a small messenger bag. He stands in the corner and tries to look like everyone else; he may or may not be checking messages on his PDA, but he’s pushing buttons on it and appears busy.
The doors open and three women step on: a blonde, a brunette and one whose hair has been bleached and blown dry so many times it’s not a discernible color. All of the women could stand to have a good 3 inches cut off their hair. They wear slight variations on the Little Black Slut Dress. They wear too much makeup, a pair of shoes that doesn’t quite match the dress, towering heels.The man in the corner rolls his eyes and thinks to himself, “And I’m the hooker.” ...............
Chicago’s Urban Prep Charter Academy has a mission—for its students to graduate and succeed in college. Now, for the first graduating class at the high school, it’s mission accomplished.
All 107 seniors were accepted to a four-year college, a significant accomplishment considering they are from one of the toughest neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago.
~ * ~ So how did they overcome the odds? King created a school that excused nothing—and expected everything.Each new freshman starting school gets his own wristwatch to keep track of time.
“Kids would be late and say they didn’t know what time it was,” King said. “Part of our creed reads [that] we make no excuses, so we wanted to remove that excuse. ... There was no excuse for me being late. “
Students attend school from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30pm. That’s 72,000 more minutes in high school than most other students—almost an extra school year.
“They are in a double period of English each and every day,” King said. “Four years of math, four years of science, four years of social studies, three years of foreign languages.”
“It’s an eight-hour day so it’s basically preparing us for having a job,”..........................
*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*clap*
Police in Seattle arrested a suspicious man who forced the closure of several streets surrounding the King County Courthouse Friday morning.
Earlier in the morning, the director of the Seattle Union Gospel Mission, Mike Johnson, said the same man walked in, claimed he was a vampire and then showed them what appeared to be a pipe bomb.
“He wanted us to give him access to his food, which is people. He wanted to get into our day room. We wouldn’t let him in,” Johnson said.
“At the mission, we work with folks that aren’t always well, mentally. It didn’t necessarily shock us until he brandished his arm and showed us his bomb.”
Rational Benevolence Collaboratory meeting is down the road not across the street
Join the Rational Benevolence Collaboratory and help end suffering, help create joy.
The Rational Benevolence Collaboratory is an intellectual experiment in which researchers collaborate to deeply re-think our solutions to the problems of widespread suffering and scarce joy.
Researchers try to suspend all ideological biases and approach these problems from a position of neutral objectivity. (They put their sacred cows out to pasture and start from scratch.) To achieve this neutral objectivity, researchers use various methods of radical premise-checking (such as the Socratic Method).
Bring your minds & hearts, and maybe a
notebookrazor blade.
“The door’s wide open now ... Whether you like it or not!”
Thus spake the over-groomed one. And now?
San Francisco Democratic Mayor Gavin Newsom, whose campaign for governor sputtered to an early halt last year, plans to launch a bid for lieutenant governor Friday…
Settling for the most pointless, work-free political job on the planet, eh Gavs? Sounds about right for your skill level.
Side note for those interested:
He received $6,500 each from Mark and Susie Buell, owners of the Esprit clothing company and longtime backers
Claire, Ideologically Stubborn Heatist Ruralite 03/12 at 07:35 AM •
(9) Extra Credit • Pass it on...
yeah… lettuce
The lovely burg of Colorado Springs has made a purely sensible decision in the wake of budget challenges to quit picking up the trash from their public parks and remove all the trash cans. Hey—that’ll save ... er, wait.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.—The animal rights group PETA is offering to help the cash-strapped city of Colorado Springs by paying to put trash cans back in parks - on one condition.
The cans have to carry an anti-meat slogan and a picture of a woman in a lettuce bikini.
Actually, this ain’t such a bad idea, much as it pains me to say PITA had a good idea. Maybe we could broaden it to hardware stores and Puddin’ Pops and lawn food and Toyotas. well - ok; not that last…
Mayor Lionel Rivera says he’ll consider the offer if it PETA also pays to have the trash picked up and hauled to the dump.
But he joked that the Colorado Beef Council might demand equal time.
What the hell—go for it!
Claire, Ideologically Stubborn Heatist Ruralite 03/12 at 07:28 AM •
(12) Extra Credit • Pass it on...
Walmart is raising eyebrows after cutting the price of a black Barbie doll to nearly half of that of the doll’s white counterpart at one store and possibly others.
A photo first posted to the humor Web site FunnyJunk.com and later to the Latino Web site Guanabee.com shows packages of Mattel’s Ballerina Barbie and Ballerina Teresa dolls hanging side by side at an unidentified store. The Teresa dolls, which feature brown skin and dark hair, are marked as being on sale at $3.00. The Barbies to the right of the Teresa dolls, meanwhile, retain their original price of $5.93. The dolls look identical aside from their color.
~ * ~
A Walmart spokeswoman, who could not verify the exact store shown in the photo, said that the price change on the Teresa doll was part of the chain’s efforts to clear shelf space for its new spring inventory.“To prepare for (s)pring inventory, a number of items are marked for clearance, “ spokeswoman Melissa O’Brien said in an e-mail. “… Both are great dolls. The red price sticker indicates that this particular doll was on clearance when the photo was taken, and though both dolls were priced the same to start, one was marked down due to its lower sales to hopefully increase purchase from customers.”
“Pricing like items differently is a part of inventory management in retailing,” O’Brien said.
But critics say Walmart should have been more sensitive in its pricing choice…
I spotted some cute little cowboy boots at WalMart a couple months ago in brown and black. They were a little more than I cared to pay so I waited.......the browns ones went from $35 to $25 within a couple of weeks so I bought the brown pair. Just yesterday I checked and the black ones are still holding strong at the original price of $35 while the brown ones are now down to $17....
So what does that mean?
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s wife and daughter were hospitalized Thursday after their minivan was rear-ended by tractor-trailer truck on an interstate in suburban Virginia, authorities said.
Reid’s wife, Landra, 69, broke her back and neck in the accident.........
~ * ~ .......... the Nevada Democrat went to the hospital after being told of the accident and later returned to Capitol Hill for a meeting with White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on efforts to pass health care legislation....
logdog"complacencyphobe"smith in comments
you tell me
A raadio guy [dunno who] that my pal was listening to was talking about this recently and my pal told me to look this up this morning. This pic [with the big black glasses] made me think of it again…
Read the poem“Pops”,
paying attention to the last 12 or so lines…
Claire, Ideologically Stubborn Heatist Ruralite 03/11 at 05:26 PM •
(18) Extra Credit • Pass it on...
...and imagine this guy standing in front of you naked as a jaybird poking you in the chest and screaming............
DougM (commissarophobe)
Might benefit from a little responsibility.
