Silenced Majority Portal

Bernie Sanders - "The VA is Socialized Medicine, Right? Mr McCain?"

A Modest Proposal: Palin Debates Kerry or Gore on the Environment

John Kerry at DailyKos today knows it's a debate she can't win. 

& I know she didn't write her Op Ed in the Washington Post because it has short sentences with big words, and Palin uses long sentences with little words.

John wrote:

Someone asked ‘why respond to Palin?’ – my take: when something’s flat out wrong and it’s part of the news cycle, you use the truth to crush it before it takes on a life of its own, and climate change legislation is way too important to topple under the weight of distortions from anywhere or anyone.

Swearing Good For Your Health (Today's Lesson: The Basal Ganglia)

Swearing can make you feel better, lessen pain

“Swearing has been around for centuries and is an almost universal human linguistic phenomenon,” says Stephens.

“It taps into emotional brain centers and appears to arise in the right brain, whereas most language production occurs in the left cerebral hemisphere of the brain. Our research shows one potential reason why swearing developed and why it persists.”

Full article @ Reuters

Up at five AM - fuck yeah

(from "How Stuff Works")

Many studies suggest that the brain processes swearing in the lower regions, along with emotion and instinct. Scientists theorize that instead of processing a swearword as a series of phonemes, or units of sound that must be combined to form a word, the brain stores swear words as whole units [ref]. So, the brain doesn't need the left hemisphere's help to process them. Swearing specifically involves:

• The limbic system, which also houses memory, emotion and basic behavior. The limbic system also seems to govern vocalizations in primates and other animals, and some researchers have interpreted some primate vocalizations as swearing.
• The basal ganglia, which play a large role in impulse control and motor functions.

So, you can think of swearing as a motor activity with an emotional component.

Ron Paul & Barney Frank Team Up Re. Personal Marijuana Use

NORML blog

The measure, entitled an “Act to Remove Federal Penalties for Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults,” would eliminate federal penalties for the personal possession of up to 100 grams (over three and one-half ounces) of cannabis and for the not-for-profit transfer of up to one ounce of pot – making the prosecutions of these offenses strictly a state matter.

Dancing Illegal in Des Moines Iowa After 2 A.M.

Huffington Post reports that dancing is illegal after 2 A.M. in Des Moines but it's more or less a "blue law."  A group found out when they sought to hold an "after hours" party in their own building.  

The city council is considering repealing the law, as Des Moines is often perceives as dull.  The ordinance dates to 1942 and there is no dancing between 2-6 AM during the week and not til 8 AM on Sunday.  This is even true for free dances.  

My son is just now reminding me of when he was six and I took him to North Dakota, where we found out that it was illegal to buy toys in grocery stores on Sunday.

The couple pictured at the left is an actual Des Moines couple dancing.

This all puts me very much in the mind of when I lived in Minnesota in the early '70s and in Mankato, there wasn't an actual gay bar but there was a disco called "Trader and Trapper" which was probably the only possible alternative.

The only possible outlets for vice were volleyball/beer parties on the local farms and the adult bookstore, which was one of the only places that was hiring.

What People Did for Stress in the Old Days

TMZ Science

That's Not A Gay Rights Rally, THIS Is A Gay Rights Rally

Let me apologize in advance for my really crappy camera work here. In my defense I was caught a little off guard by the Christopher Street Rally in Munich yesterday, because I had no idea it was going on and I was in the Marienplatz shopping district on another errand and I just wasn't able to make the mental gear shift that I needed to, so I'm all over the map with this footage that I literally shot from the hip.

My wife was a bit more focused than I was, so I'll be posting some of her stuff once we go through it.

One thing I didn't notice right away until I got home and looked at it is that the thing that really stands out is the thing that doesn't.  

Not a lot of flaming flamboyant Brünö stereo types to be seen in the crowd, save for this guy I spotted while I was on the second floor of a retail store as he was passing by in the street.

I like the color coordination he's got going there, what with him using all the colors of the German Flag in his outfit.

A little irked I didn't spot him 10 seconds earlier though.

When I post some more clips later, be sure to look at the crowd and how 'normal' looking most people are. I'm beginning to form the belief that a lot of socially persecuted/ostracized so-called 'fringe' people go for outrageousness as a defense mechanism.

As in:

'Oh, yeah, you think I'm a freak, do you? Lemme show you what a freak REALLY looks like.'

More on this later in my follow up post.

Shepard Fairey Clean Energy Stickers

  free from MoveOn

Royal Family to Join Twitter / Charles Lectures Against Consumerism

The Royal Family is introducing its Twitter feed. 

  The British Monarchy Twitter account will provide followers with regular updates informing them of the work of the Royal Family.  Regular information on events and ceremonies will be published, as will links to the latest films uploaded. 

 The Prince’s Charities launch their Twitter feed today.  18 of the 20 charities were founded personally by The Prince.  The account will not be used to share personal opinions of the members of the Royal family.  Buckingham Palace’s Web site was launched by the Queen in 1997 as well as her YouTube channel in 2007.

So what does the Bonny Prince have to say? 

The heir to the throne told an audience of industrialists and environmentalists at St James's Palace that he had calculated that we have just 96 months left to save the world.  And in a searing indictment on capitalist society, Charles said we can no longer afford consumerism and that the "age of convenience" was over.

He's right, and has reduced his own carbon footprint by 30%. More at the Independent: Green Living - 96 Months to Save the World

Der Reviews Are In, Der Brünö Häs Länded

 

The New York Times is ambivalent.