Open Thread
By bluegal Sunday May 03, 2009 7:30pmI didn't expect a video from Google to make me cry, but when I got to the aquarium part of this one, I lost it.
Open thread below....
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I work with teenagers who are autistic.........they never cease to amaze me. The world will soon be facing a generation of people with the autism spectrum..........I hope we are ready!!!
"First they laugh at you,
then they ignore you,
then they fight you,
then you win."
Gandhi *
Read and sign these legislative petitions please and get hundreds of people to sign them.
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This petition below includes a demand to fix the lousy Medicare Part D that does not help the middle class.
http://www.change.org/actions/view/i_demand_c...
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I raise mine, also a teenager (autism plus yet high functioning), as a near full-time job. In most of the disability groups, we are starting to see many of us who have aged out of the education system, or are about to .. and we have no idea what to do next.
I've been more aggressively teaching life-skills and trying for educational skills that will lead to employment than most, but I come up dry on options over and over. The economy really is the nal in the coffin. Just the fact that he can't drive, and even if he gets the license would never be safe in high traffic (can't process the needed decisions fast enough) .. something that simple is a huge barrier.
Most of the other moms I talk to say they have no idea how their children will be cared for if they die. Most have few plans for what will happen in the event of their sudden death. The state programs that teach them skills are the first being cut here now with the budget problems. The public schools are struggling, the largest growing group of homeschoolers here aren't the conservatives, they are parents of asperger's & autists and others with special needs. And I feel for the schools, how are they supposed to improve education for all with this flood of special needs children needed more resources than they have as well?
We are definitely not ready. In many areas we are getting less ready.
The autistic children being thrown into the conservative homeschool support network here (which is coping charitably) is going to lead to a generation here with an unusual world view ... I see both groups being changed by the exposure. Too early to tell what to make of it.
An article on Autism and Savant Syndrome:
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/1805
thanks for that link!!
Then disappeared. Then it came back with a vengence.
The current flu virus.
It would be foolish to think that this isn't a serious situation.
http://dissidentvoice.org/2009/05/aporkalypse...
Are you waiting for SARS II : The revenge?
No coverage of normal flu deaths in the tens of thousands here in the US, but this is somehow a pandemic? I guess genocide is when you stub your big toe and say ouch.
Wait.
As the OP posted out, when the Spanish Flu first hit in the summer of 1918, it did not seem to be particularly bad. When it came back in the winter, it was horrendous.
You are also correct - the average flu season kills tens of thousands of people.
My take on A(H1N1)/Swine Flu is that we should take reasonable precautions such as frequent hand washing, covering our mouths and noses when we sneeze, and staying home when we have a fever. Of course, those are the same precautions we should take during flu season.
Still no need to panic. If it's going to get serious, I doubt we can stop it. Just be sensible.
me worry?
NO!
hysteria is still hysteria, even if it is mild.
The folks at CDC won't breathe a sigh of relief about H1N1 until the winter flu season passes.
The southern hemisphere should give us a good indication of how this will play out.
mild hysteria.lol.
Maine hearts gay marriage. The Vatican still doesn't like Ron Howard. Thanks to the Patriot Act, even freedom fighters are now terrorists. Gates seems to be into fisting Iran. Iran's going to re-evaluate that reporter's sentence. Barry's tax cuts may not fly at the IRS.
Credit card company abuses the feds want to stop. The Army finally pretends to care about soldier suicides.
Safety lapses caused that Bayer plant explosion.
SCOTUS conservatives hate minorities voting in the South. A Cali Supreme Court says a religious school can shun lesbians. The IRS goes after more illegal foreign tax shelters. Consumer spending is down. The House fires its first shot at credit card companies. Civil rights leaders want Obama to do more to address race relations. Senators want junk food out of public schools. The Saudi girl was able to divorce her pedo partner. Colleges are still too expensive.
I'm sorry.....how did this video make you cry? why would this video make anyone cry? I wonder if you've ever seen Forest Gump. You would be crying the whole damn time.
And they are amazing. That's why.
Im sure other children can do the same and better
.
(mistake)
Aw, don't cry.
They certainly are bluegal. Confirmed cases of autism have been on the rise over the past couple of decades. Do you think this is because doctors are now better at diagnosing autistic children or is it something in our environment that is causing this increase?
I think we have proof of the gift.
Everything is a gift if you know how to look at it. (Maybe not everything... but...) I've always felt lucky to be gay. Wouldn't change for anything (even if I could).
(Note: some people feel it's a curse.)
Resorts resort to hiring unemployed professionals. Will Gitmo still have its kangaroo court?
gitmo will give us a spate of convictions similar to the Jose Padilla case. These people will all shun their lawyers and scream "I'M GUILTY!". The media will continue to ignore the torture and these convictions will be used to vindicate chainey and crumbsfeld. Obama will be happy to accept the convictions and torture-extracted confessions so he can focus on giving the bankers relief while NOLa remains unrepaired.
That's a pretty cool video. We are always mistaken to judge people that are not like us.
Don't ever forget, we all have dreams!!!!!! Never crush someone's dreams.
that Obama has handled the flu crisis much better than Bush did the 9/11 crisis or Katrina. Now that's progress.
Or ANYTHING else, for that matter.
Yea, I can agree with that, I think.
Bush was much better at BEING A DICK. Oh, and he was better at fucking things up. Guess I was only partly right. :-)
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/0...
UAE "torture" scandal and cover-up sparks outrage in the U.S.
As more videotapes emerge documenting the torture inflicted on numerous victims by Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al-Nahyan, a prince of the United Arab Emirates, the controversy is beginning to jeopardize the UAE's relationship with the United States, a country that absolutely loathes torture and demands real accountability for those who do it:
That's what you get when you neglect to destroy the tapes. He should have taken lessons from the CIA.
That's pretty cool! It was especially fascinating to see their hand-drawn sketches and hear how long that took them versus the computer-drawn designs, which were extremely creative. Every kid has some key to get them excited, and the trick is to find it. This must have been very liberating for the kids and their parents. Here's hoping more kids get the opportunity to play with the program or whatever else gets them going.
On May 4, 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University, killing four students and wounding nine others.
At least partially...
It was never the same after, so I hear
..to argue with and taunt a man pointing a gun at you--especially of it is a poorly-trained, redneck national guardsman from a hick flyover state.
Proving the USA should not send armed national guardsmen to university campuses when people are exercising free speech, in "the land of the free".
In Afghanistan, U.S. Troops Told to Become Missionaries for Jesus - http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/0...
This is only going to make it worse...which is probably by design...
How Lehman Brothers Got Its Real Estate Fix - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/business/03...
Mr. Walsh bought and sold loans on properties that were often in foreclosure. There were bargains galore. He generated hundreds of millions of profits for the firm and won the confidence of Mr. Fuld, who gave him the authority to make huge loans.
Then, along with Ethan Penner of Nomura Securities and Andrew D. Stone of Credit Suisse First Boston, Mr. Walsh discovered securitization. This created an entirely new market for commercial real estate debt. No longer would lenders have to shoulder all the risk from real estate lending. Wall Street could make the same loans and sell them off.
The challenge then became lassoing the right kind of developers to back.
Wall Street Crowd Makes His Administration Like Grant's - http://www.usnews.com/articles/opinion/2009/0...
Little that we have seen in his first 100 days suggests that the 44th president sees the danger of over-reliance on high finance. Yet in the Grant administration it was wheeling, dealing, and outright corruption that plagued the nation and besmirched the incumbent. And now that trillions are sloshing up and down K Street, the same muckraked fate looms for the Obama administration.
As economist Simon Johnson observed recently, "A whole generation of policymakers has been mesmerized by Wall Street." And now Obama seems similarly ensorcelled. Johnson, a former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, writes in the Atlantic that America is descending into the financial vortex that Russia, Argentina, and Thailand plummeted into back in the '90s. How so?
The same insiders and self-dealers who created the crisis "are now using their influence to prevent precisely the sorts of reforms that are needed." And yet, he adds, "The government seems helpless, or unwilling, to act against them." That "quiet coup," Johnson warns, could turn America into a "banana republic."
The 'Risky' Business in America's Executive Suites - http://www.toomuchonline.org/articlenew_2009/...
Too bad corporations haven't exercised the same creativity and "sweat equity" in ideas and actions that would actually improve corporate performance as they have with this commonly-used gambit to pay off their CEOs.
Those "risky" stock options are no longer "risky", but guaranteed to generate huge additional profits for CEOs who bear no real risk nor have any standards for their own performance. Of course, we, the taxpayers, are now serving as the "insurance" for the scheme.
Tamiflu May Increase Abnormal Acts - http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2009/04/19/Re...
The Connection Between Free Trade and Mexico's Drug War - http://therealnews.com/t/
The Legacy of 30 years of Reaganomics/Bushonomics/Rightwingnut Fantasyland 'Trickle Down' BS policies: US families rely on handouts in world's richest country. Working parents feed their children in soup kitchens as cost of living soars.
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/01/r...
What's Missing From Every Media Story about H1N1 Influenza - http://www.naturalnews.com/026185.html
Tamiflu comes from an herb...To live in a world that's saturated with natural anti-viral medicine and then not even acknowledge it in the media is beyond bizarre. It's Twilight Zone-like. It's like we've been teleported to an alternate universe where anti-viral plants have disappeared... or at least everyone is pretending they have.
George W. Bush Becomes a GOP Lone Star Pariah - http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-storie...
I'm sure he doesn't care...he's getting drunk again, watching Baseball, and counting the days until the family moves to Paraguay to become water barrons...
Ethanol test for Obama on climate change, science - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090503/ap_on_go_...
The only ethanol that should be produced is celluosic and we should also use algae biodiesel...
"Workers' earnings are stagnating or even declining as employers big and small resort to slashing hours and once-unthinkable wage cuts."
- http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/...
Meanwhile executive bonuses live on....
Step away from the armageddon Fox Noise: Official: Swine flu in 'declining phase' in Mexico - http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090503/ap_on_re_...
The New Homeless - http://www.charlotteobserver.com/408/story/70...
They are among a growing number of newly homeless who don't fit old stereotypes. Many of them work regular jobs, or did until recently, nursing the sick, caring for other people's children, vacuuming offices, driving cabs.
They lived in apartments or houses, surviving paycheck to paycheck. One thing went wrong in this bad economy, and they didn't have far to fall before they ended up on the street.
But its 'their fault' right? Why do the wealthy 'elite' have to have it all? What is their human malfunction?
Inspectors find safety problems at nuclear weapons complex - http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/67375.html
TomDispatch: What will China become in this century? There can hardly be a more important question to ask. TomDispatch regular Dilip Hiro, who has followed shifting global power balances as the planet's former "sole superpower" edged into decline, offers a vivid picture of a potential rising superpower weathering bad times as we head toward a multipolar planet.
- http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175067
If we lead the world in the green economy race, we will stand a chance to prevail, we wait at our own peril...
Why Latin America's Left Keeps Winning - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifam...
Washington's foreign policy establishment has been proven wrong. Latin America is more stable and democratic than ever.
The economic hitmen...can only do so much...when the people are active in a democracy, it will thrive against all odds...
How stupid will this state get? Poll: almost half of Georgia GOP think state would be better off seceding. Go for it Peach staters!
- http://*******.com/cfodzl
Russia to build floating Arctic nuclear stations. Environmentalists fear pollution risk as firms try to exploit ocean's untapped oil and gas reserves.
- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/03/r...
The American Debate: This party's over: Specter's departure is one more sign of the GOP's slide into immoderation and irrelevance.
- http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/200905...
Texas State Board of Education is using its powers to ensure that textbooks give a nod to creationist theories - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belie...
Well, it looks like Texas will be stocking McDonalds & Walmart with employees for the forseeable future...
Michael Moore on Bernie Madoff - http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/ar...
*******Moore's new documentary on the wonders of capitalism will be in movie theaters this fall.******
Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal in Peril, And So are We All - http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/world/asia/...
Australia Coming To Terms With Fading American Power, Says PM - http://www.smh.com.au/national/america-will-n...
Pew Research: Black women had the highest voter turnout rate in November's election -- a first. - http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1209/racial-ethni...
Former MI6 chief says Britain was 'dragged' into Iraq war - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/po...
'Coalition of the Willing', eh?
What else is new? Laura Ingraham Uses Edited Clips to Misrepresent Gore - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/ingra...
And so as usual right wingnuts get to see only what their puppet master infotainment lords want them to....see why they're uninformed and ignorant...
No Data, No Market: the EU Gets Serious About Chemicals - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/no-da...
New Study Says, You're Dead Meat if You Eat Red Meat - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/new-s...
Australia Moves Slowly Closer to Complete Plastic Bag Ban - http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/05/austr...
Gore and Inhofe, United at Last - http://www.desmogblog.com/gore-and-inhofe-uni...
Barbara Boxer should be the next president, anyone who can stomach & be around Inhofe for more than 5 minutes can sit down with world leaders and make the right decisions
15 green-leaning mayors - http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-10-15-gr...
Biggest WTF in a long time: Smithfield brings home McDonald’s corporate responsibility prize - http://www.grist.org/article/2009-04-30-smith...
The mega agribusiness corp that brought you swine flu...gets a 'corporate social responsibility prize' from McDonalds...home of the high fructose corn syrup 'diet'
If you need an analogy....take this one....its like Halliburton & Cheney giving a prize to ExxonMobil for failing to clean up the Exxon Valdez disaster & not having to pay billions in compensatory damages (latter of which is 100% true - thanks to con-servative supreme court)
Political Irony: Unbecoming a Senator - http://politicalirony.com/2009/05/02/unbecomi...
What was FOX's stated reason for not covering Obama's 100-day presser?
They probably, rightly, felt their viewers would not watch. Must sell Cheetos.
ok so where are the shovel ready jobs? what was the urgency for obama pushing the senate to pony up billions for bank and financial institutions for not giveing the senaters enough time to even read that bill? when is he going to produce thoes green power jobs he touted ? and dont tell me hes not had enough time to get these things started, the banks got thiers the credit card companys ditto, so now that the rich have been taken care of wheres our piece of the pork? its the same old song being played by the same old political hacks regan trickle down policys , the rich get richer and the poor can go fluck thierselves, yeh yeh! only a hundread days , hasnt had time to help the working man!
morning edwin!
all righty then , how about the bush cheny obama wars still in progress? wasnt that a popular subject on here when the republicans owned them? jesus i remeber when videos of women and children being burnt to death by american chemicle shells brought screams of rage on here [falugia] oh i forgot thier are no videos now of the war in afganistan , out of sight out of mind, it would seem that wars are okay now that obamas in charge, the same people who thought these wars were unacceptable under bush now remain silent , what other then its obama in the whitehouse has changed ? people are still dieing , being maimed , on both sides , few speak out about it now , that would be unpatriotic , afganistans an unwinable war and its an unjust war , billions wasted , and in the end its going to be just another vietnam !
i watched the frost nixon video saturday night , it was interesting, it reminded me that obama is supporting obstruction of justice with his lets move forward mentality, and palosi and ried allso are guilty of the same thing, but since obama see no evidence that thier were no crimes commited by the bush administration then thoes tortures didnt happen and thoes wars bush started were justified , its allmost like the more things change the more thier still the same, nothing good can come from obama covering up for the bush cheney crimes , and now i see ol jeb warming up in the bullpen , the start of the next elections not far off,
Jeb, looking to be in campaign mode, is very very disturbing!!!!!!! Can you imagine a third Bush presidency??? OMG!!! OMG!!!
OMG!!!
poppy bush must be so proud, the repigs are still being held in high esteem by the obama administration , and why not the democrats except for kucinich are just a bummed down version of the republican party!
The reason I started coming to C&L was BuschCo./CheneyInc. lies. I had found tiny snippets in the newspaper about Valerie Plame, but basically no one was covering it. I remembered my friend had e-mailed me a clip of Colbert roasting Bush, so I decided to look on-line for news. That’s how I first came to C&L: you guys were reporting all this stuff about the wars and the lies. Then I began learning how corrupt America had become; to the core.
The way I see it, still, none of that has changed. The wars continue, the torturers go free, people are still detained (and most likely still tortured—elsewhere), No one is being held accountable for anything to do with the illegal wars, and the list of crimes remains as long as it ever was. What change?
Sure, Obama is really cool and I like him. He’s doing some great things for Americans, and has a good ‘brand’. But the above also remains true, the wars continue, the criminals go free. So, forgive me, but still rotten to the core! And none of it is in the news.
You can't just change presidents, and be all, "that was them, but this is us". America did that. You can't sweep it under the carpet.
i have come to the conclusion that the fights no longer worthwhile , nothings going to change and nothings going to change setting here pounding on a key board , people are so silly they actually believe a politician cares about them, perhaps kucinich does none of the rest do , thier mostly bought and paid for whores, the corporations buy them for peanuts, maby its time for me to leave here , let the botts get on with thier fuckfest, my how this blogs changed the good posters have gone, cant even find a descent troll here anymore , well maby not all of them, thiers still some willing to point out were still being screwed , and few willing to care,
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