bapifar01: Midday open thread

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Midday open thread

Today's This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow:
No word if Bachmann will tell them to go to hell:
A Christian group says it will target U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann over her opposition to President Obama?s jobs plan.
The group, Spirit of Faith Community, is planning a Wednesday afternoon demonstration at Bachmann?s Woodbury office using the biblical story of loaves and fishes to convince her to support a tax increase on the wealthiest Americans to help create jobs.

?Jesus would support this bill,? said Brandon Nessen, the group?s spokesperson. ?Ask the wealthiest to contribute so that ordinary families can get back on two feet again.?
Be sure to catch Saturday Night Live's take on the "seventh or eighth Republican debate."
He should wear it as a badge of honor:

Exit: George Soros. Enter: Warren Buffett, stage left.
Buffett, the investment mogul and Berkshire Hathaway CEO, is slowly drifting into the role Soros played during the first decade of this century: billionaire boogeyman to the right, and go-to example cited by the left to show that one can support Democrats? economic policies and still be pro-business.
Rest in peace:
Former elementary students who planted saplings alongside her, world leaders charmed by her message and African visionaries on Monday remembered a woman some called the Tree Mother of Africa. Maathai, Africa's first female winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, died late Sunday in a Nairobi hospital following a battle with cancer. She was 71.
Maathai believed that a healthy environment helped improve lives by providing clean water and firewood for cooking, thereby decreasing conflict. The Kenyan organization she founded planted 30 million trees in hopes of improving the chances for peace, a triumph for nature that inspired the U.N. to launch a worldwide campaign that resulted in 11 billion trees planted.
This would have been interesting to see:
... on Sunday, Obama was greeted by a crowd that included one of only two people in the world who has more Twitter followers than he does: pop singing sensation Lady Gaga. [...]
According to a White House press pool report, Gaga tottered in on ?sky-high heels? shortly after her song ?Poker Face? played on the stereo system. [...]

Gaga, who towered over the 6-foot-1 Obama, took a seat at a middle table and stood with the other guests when the president arrived. He did not acknowledge her during his remarks, which lasted eight minutes.
What a charmer:
A year ago, dozens marched to protest the Confederate flag a white woman flew from her porch in a historically black Southern neighborhood. After someone threw a rock at her porch, she put up a wooden lattice. That was just the start of the building.
Earlier this year, two solid 8-foot high wooden fences were built on either side of Annie Chambers Caddell's modest brick house to shield the Southern banner from view.

Late this summer, Caddell raised a flagpole higher than the fences to display the flag.
Get your suggestions in:
For the first time, living people will be eligible to be honored on U.S. postage stamps.
The U.S. Postal Service announced Monday that it is ending its longstanding rule that stamps cannot feature people who are still alive and it's asking the public to offer suggestions on who should be first.
Pathetic repeat of an old whine about the oppressed white man:
Campus Republicans at the University of California Berkeley are stirring up controversy with their plans for a ?diversity bake sale? - with the idea being that prices are determined by race and sex.
The sale, scheduled for Tuesday, determines prices for the baked goods as follows: white men can purchase them for $2.00, Asian men for $1.50, Latino men for $1.00, black men for $0.75 and Native American men for $0.25. All women will get $0.25 off of these prices.
Let's all dip our heads in a moment of prayer ... or have a chip:
Arch West, a retired Frito-Lay marketing executive credited with creating Doritos as the first national tortilla chip brand, has died in Dallas at age 97.
A statement issued by the West family says he died Tuesday at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. A graveside service is scheduled for Oct. 1. Daughter Jana Hacker of Allen tells The Dallas Morning News the family plans on "tossing Doritos chips in before they put the dirt over the urn."