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The Jesus Diet
11.23.2009
12:14 pm
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Jesus will let you eat anything you want as long as you believe.

From Mail Online:

But there’s a new diet trend which claims dizzyingly high success rates, promises painless life-long commitment and allows dieters to eat anything they want.

Faith-based diets take the principles of Christianity and apply them to our overwhelming craving for chocolate, chips and cheese.
Advocates say dieters learn to fill the spiritual hole inside themselves with something more powerful than saturated fats.

The basic principle common to the U.S. programmes Christian Weigh Down and Thin Within (‘Helps you grow in faith while shrinking your waistline’), and the British equivalent Fit For Life Forever, is that dieters need to identify the deeper reasons why they over-eat, before they can hope to lose weight and keep it off permanently.

The trend began in America in the Eighties, but it’s finally taking hold here, with Christian weight-loss groups springing up, and dramatically increased sales of ‘spiritual dieting’ books such as What Would Jesus Eat?, Hallelujah Diet and The God Diet.

Read more of Good Lord! It’s the Jesus diet: How more people are turning to religion to help them lose weight

 

 

Posted by Tara McGinley
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11.23.2009
12:14 pm
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KSM trial drives conservatives into hypocritical hysterics
11.21.2009
10:57 am
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Amusing(?) item from this morning’s Media Matters newsletter:

On May 3, 2006, Bill O’Reilly led off his Fox News show with the sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was tried in civilian court and handed several consecutive life terms for his role in the September 11 terrorist attacks. According to O’Reilly: “The al Qaeda savage promptly thanked them by saying ‘America, you lost. I won.’ But like what most of this degenerate says, he is wrong. Moussaoui is condemned to rot in his cell until he does die and if the Federal penitentiary is run properly, Moussaoui will be denied any and all privileges.” O’Reilly explained that “by not executing Moussaoui, the U.S.A. shows the world we are a nation of laws, a nation that puts power in the hands of regular folks.”

Now fast-forward a few years—the Democrats take control of the White House, and the new president announces he’s bringing Khalid Shaikh Mohammed to New York to face trial before a civilian court. O’Reilly, who praised the civilian trial of Moussaoui, says of the decision to Bush White House adviser Karl Rove: “Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, that is a terrible decision. ... Because you know, I know, and everybody knows it’s going to cost the city of New York between $75 and $100 million. These animals are going to get up there. They’re going to lie. The lawyers are going to turn it into an anti-Bush, anti-CIA, anti-American extravaganza.”

Just think about that one for a moment—O’Reilly, who praised the civilian prosecution of Moussaoui in 2006, is complaining about the White House’s civilian prosecution of Mohammed in 2009, to a person who was part of the White House that decided to prosecute Moussaoui in a civilian court.
(emphasis added)

O’Reilly wasn’t the only person to pull the ol’ Moussaoui/Mohammed switcheroo on Fox News. Former New York mayor and 9-11 enthusiast Rudy Giuliani appeared on Neil Cavuto’s show last Friday to attack the Mohammed decision as a “terrible, terrible mistake,” explaining that the terrorist “should be prosecuted in a military tribunal.” Cavuto neglected to point out that in 2006, Giuliani said of the Moussaoui trial: “It does demonstrate that we can give people a fair trial, that we are exactly what we say we are. We are a nation of law.”

Indeed, confusion abounded among conservatives everywhere. Morning Joe namesake Joe Scarborough declared it “unprecedented” to try a terrorism suspect in the U.S. judicial system. To his credit, Scarborough later corrected this false assertion.

No one expects conservatives to support President Obama, particularly on issues of national security. But is a little consistency too much to ask? Well, maybe consistency is too much—how about something less than outright hypocrisy?

BONUS:

Teabaggers jump the shark this time?
11.20.2009
08:52 pm
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Who would be stupid enough to think this is funny…? From Huffington Post:

Apparently, the latest thing in ?

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.20.2009
08:52 pm
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Mother says school work sheet is racist
11.19.2009
10:32 pm
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imageLenape Middle School principal Nick Chubb said administrators are investigating the matter.

When she was helping her son with his homework Saturday night, a Central Bucks mother noticed something that surprised and shocked her.

“I couldn’t understand what I was looking at,” said the woman, whose identity the newspaper has agreed not to disclose.

It was a work sheet called “Solving Equations using Multiplication and Division!” and it featured a photo of a black man wearing a straw hat, shirt and suspenders, with his mostly toothless mouth wide open. As if to underscore the man’s stupidity, at the bottom of the picture was written, “No wai!!!”

The mother learned that her son, the only black student in his eighth-grade pre-algebra class at Lenape Middle School, was teased by another student when the assignment was distributed.

“One of the kids in the classroom turned around and said, ‘Is that your father?’ ” she said.

The Intelligencer: Mother says school work sheet is racist
 
(via J-Walk Blog)

Posted by Tara McGinley
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11.19.2009
10:32 pm
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GOOD: How the Web Liberalized Liberal Arts Education
11.19.2009
04:43 pm
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As a companion to the story about the UCLA near-riots, here’s a DIY education chaser courtesy of GOOD magazine.

We live with an economy and country where education is increasingly becoming either priced out of availability or a lifelong financial ball-and-chain turning students into indentured servants to the state that has paid for their education?

Posted by Jason Louv
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11.19.2009
04:43 pm
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UCLA Students Almost-Riot Over Tuition Increase
11.19.2009
04:16 pm
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UCLA students are near-rioting over a 32% tuition increase. The unrest has resulted in 14 reported arrests and one tazering so far. Quick, deploy Apple Store discount vouchers to pacify them!

As a graduate of the UC system, I can’t say I’m surprised, but 32% is beyond the pale of previous tuition hikes. How in hell do they expect students or their families to pay that in this economy? How in hell do they expect to be able to fund that in financial aid? Why is California crippling its own workforce for the coming decades? Education is the backbone of any democracy, and by pricing it out of the range of those who need it, California is only hurting itself in the long run.

The Associated Press reports, from this morning:

About 200 demonstrators are chanting and marching around a UCLA building where University of California regents are scheduled to vote on a 32 percent fee increase for next year.

Protesters from several UC campuses stayed overnight at a campus tent city to take part in a second day of demonstrations on Thursday.

UCLA spokesman Phil Hampton says 30 to 50 students also have staged a sit-in at an ethnic studies building and have chained shut the doors. They’re peaceful and are being allowed to stay.

Fourteen people were arrested Wednesday for failure to disperse or disturbing the peace.

Protests are also reported at other UC campuses but no further arrests have been reported.

The regents say cuts in state aid leave are forcing the tuition hike.

You can shout at the UCLA Chancellor here, as this will likely affect the long-term quality of life of all Californians.

(LA Times: UC raising student fees)

Posted by Jason Louv
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11.19.2009
04:16 pm
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Put that in your pipe and smoke it
11.18.2009
10:18 pm
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With a philosophy seemingly diametrically opposed to that of elected law enforcement officials in Los Angeles, the attorney general of Colorado, John Suthers (a Republican), has advised the governor of that state that medical marijuana sales should be regulated and taxed like alcohol and tobacco (and not tax- exempt like pharmaceuticals are, as medical cannabis is not prescribed per se, but “recommended” by doctors). This plan seems consistent with the stark reality in these dark times that state and county governments need to seek new avenues of public funding that will not prove to be politically unpopular. Medical cannabis activists have long been pro-taxation, as it confers legitimacy on the space.

The taxation of medical marijuana sales is something that we hear a lot about in California, and the above graphic gives some idea of how much money would be left on the table should medical marijuana be banned—or merely hounded and harassed out of business—here in Los Angeles. City Atty. Carmen Trutanich and Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley have declared their intentions to continue fighting the medical marijuana dispensaries, but it’s important to keep in mind that 77% of Los Angeles residents indicated that they were for the regulation and taxation of dispensaries, according to a recent Mason-Dixon poll.

No matter what sort of spin you put on the issue, ignoring the revenue-creating potential of taxing cannabis sales—which will continue, legally or otherwise—hardly seems prudent when we live in an era in which local governments can’t afford to fix potholes or hire schoolteachers.

Cross posting this from Brand X/Graphic via Sloshspot

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.18.2009
10:18 pm
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Trial of Gay Spy Threatens German Intelligence
11.18.2009
03:50 pm
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Der Spiegel Online reports on the upcoming trial of a German spy who betrayed state secrets to his lover. The whole thing begs to be made into a movie, and we’re not even fully into the second act yet. Serious drama:

An explosive trial about to start in Munich involves a spy accused of betraying state secrets to his gay lover. It promises to expose the shadowy world of Germany’s foreign intelligence and may end up damaging the service…

The defendants are Anton K., a BND agent for many years, and his interpreter. The trial revolves around money and the betrayal of secrets. Love, sex and a betrayed wife are also part of the checkered tale, which takes place against the seedy backdrop of Kosovo’s criminal underworld. In other words, the case that the federal prosecutor general is now preparing is the stuff of a larger-than-life drama, the sort of material that would normally be found in the movies or in bestsellers.

While the outcome of the trial remains uncertain, it is already clear that there will be at least one loser: the BND. If the prosecution wins its case, the agency will face the embarrassment of having to admit that one of its agents was out of control for years, and that a career spy gave away state secrets in the height of passion while on assignment in Kosovo. But an acquittal would be just as embarrassing for the agency, because it would show that the BND had expended tremendous resources pursuing one of its employees.

(Der Spiegel: Trial of Gay Spy Threatens to Embarrass German Intelligence)

Posted by Jason Louv
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11.18.2009
03:50 pm
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Teabaggers Punk’d in Minneapolis: “Columbus Go Home”
11.18.2009
12:25 am
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An enterprising activist/prankster named Robert Erickson yes man’d a contingent of mentally challenged Tea Baggers in Minneapolis by getting them to chant—it was an anti-immigrant rally, basically—“Columbus go home” like braying jackasses until a few of these dim-bulbs caught on. It’s bust-a-gut funny and disturbing at the same time. Watch the one old guy in the NRA hat guy lose it at the end.

When I was watching this I was thinking how these people are so angry, they don’t like the way things are going, they know they are less well off than they were before and they are pissed off and they have a right to be, but the problem is, their anger is directed at the wrong targets. This is in no small part due to the out-sized influence of assholes like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs and Bill O’Reilly on low IQ Americans. These Tea Bagger’s opinions are simply ignorant—that’s putting it kindly—and their minds are snapped shut like steel traps. They’re so dumb they don’t even know how dumb they are. It’s impossible to take them seriously as a political force. I take heart that as time goes on and demographics change in this country that there will be less of this kind of idiocy moving forward in history. The faces in the crowd here are mostly senior citizens. They’re not going to be around, most of these folks in 20-30 years. We’re watching the death throes of a certain reactionary element of American society that we can all do better without. It’s not going to happen tomorrow, but it is will eventually happen. [To clarify, I still think there will be dumb people, but they’ll be less dumb than the Boomer tea baggers simply because they will be less old-fashioned and have lived in a more interconnected, multicultural world than their parents. Does that make sense?]

Posted by Richard Metzger
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11.18.2009
12:25 am
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How Does David Letterman Get More Action Than Me??
11.10.2009
02:57 pm
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Kid gets extremely angry about David Letterman’s affair. Cool story, bro!

Posted by Jason Louv
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11.10.2009
02:57 pm
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