Whoever originated the phrase "Writing about music is like dancing about architecture," probably never studied music theory.>•<Think on this a little while.>•< 1 hour ago
"The Global Consciousness Project, also known as the EGG Project, is an international multidisciplinary collaboration of scientists, engineers, artists and others continuously collecting data from a global network of physical random number generators located in 65 host sites worldwide. The archive contains over 10 years of random data in parallel sequences of synchronized 200-bit trials every second."
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, March 10, 2013
The lack of news outlets in the states three major newspapers all which publish only three editions weekly (Birmingham News, Mobile Press-Register, and the Huntsville Times, now known as “Alabama Media Group” which newspapers are all owned by the same privately held mega-firm that owns Sports Illustrated & Conde Nast – Advance Publications, aka Newhouse News) has – in my estimation – contributed to the demise of public involvement in governance, and to a great degree, influenced voters from participating in their own governance by keeping them ignorant.
However, that does NOT mean that there is no news, nor does it mean that there is a news blackout. What it means is that in those three major cities in the state, there is a dearth of reporting of state events.
For example, the Montgomery Advertiser reported recently that in an email message to his staff, Governor Robert Bentley “demanded that his cabinet members and the state employees who work for them not discuss with state legislators any concerns they might have with a proposed overhaul to state law enforcement agencies.
““I do not want any cabinet head or any member of their department to lobby against this. Tell your employees to contact ONLY Blaine Galliher if they have any questions or concerns. NO ONE is to talk to members of the House or Senate in opposition to this legislation,” Bentley wrote in an email sent to cabinet members by his executive assistant on Feb. 12.”"
Governor Bentley is showing his true face… that of a tyrant.
Gov. Robert Bentley talks with reporters in Montgomery last week. Photo: Dave Martin/Associated Press
My father grew up poor and never finished high school but was incredibly resourceful. He could “figure things out.” He did his own plumbing, wiring and construction. But on occasion, Dad’s chief asset became a liability. So confident was he in his ability to fix anything that he refused to admit that he didn’t know everything.
That is a good description of the new Republican Legislature. They were elected for good reasons: The hubris, arrogance, excesses, patronage abuse, corruption and demagoguery of Democrats. But the 2013 Legislature reminds me lots of the Democrats they replaced.
Republicans, who hold all state offices and a veto-proof majority in the Legislature, have decided that they know better than anyone how to do everything.
Take education, for instance. Three successive reform-minded state school superintendents — supported by a business community concerned about the loss of one-third of Alabama manufacturing jobs since 2000 and fearful that schools were not producing a labor force skilled enough to compete in the global economy — began reforming education.
They introduced model early childhood programs, world-class math and science curricula, a reading initiative widely copied nationwide, tougher graduation standards, and took over failing schools and malfunctioning systems characterized by patronage politics and financial profligacy (think Birmingham).
Education reformers organized A+ Education Partnership and joined this battle. Their hugely successful “best practices” center and life-changing college-readiness program that enrolls record numbers of students in demanding advanced placement courses constitute instances where Alabama set national standards rather than followed them.
BIRMINGHAM, Alabama — A Birmingham man was arrested and charged with posting messages on Twitter threatening the life of President Barack Obama.
Jarvis M. Britton, 25, of Birmingham, was charged late Friday with making a threat against the president, according to court documents. The complaint against Britton was filed by the U.S. Secret Service in U.S. District Court in Birmingham.
Britton was arrested after having made three threatening comments aimed at the president in June and then again on Thursday, according to an affidavit filed by Phillip G. Holley, special agent with the U.S. Secret Service in Birmingham.
Holley stated he had received a report from an anonymous citizen on June 30 that Britton was using his computer to make threats against the president.
The agent stated he interviewed Britton on July 2 and determined that Britton had tweeted two messages on June 28 and one on June 29 that talked about killing the president.
If Alabamians were as rabid for APTV as they are for their cockamamie football team from Tuscaloosa, we’d have had a First Rate, Nationally Award-Winning organization & programs a long time ago.
The problem is, it was only once, and a very long time ago.
And we’ve been scraping the bottom of the barrel ever since.
For example, why did APTV close the long-time Montgomery bureau, only to open a Washington, D.C. bureau?
Be sure to ask that of the fired CFO Pauline Howland & fired Executive Director Alan Pizzato. They’re likely to know.
Bear this in mind as well, my commentary, while critical, is in no way reflective upon those individuals as human beings. That is to say, I have no ‘axe to grind’ with any of them, and I have no reason to suspect or imagine that they’re anything other than fine people.
However, they have a job to do, and APTV has been sucking wind for way too long.
In the competitive arena, if you don’t earn market share or provide value, your business dwindles. Keep that up, and the CEO’s head will roll, along with the COO, CFO, and possibly members of the Board of Directors, as well.
And that’s exactly what has happened.
It’s time to change.
To that denunciation, I add this additional withering criticism: The second story indicates that Mr. “Grantham told reporters that commission chairman Ferris Stephens instructed him that he was no longer allowed to talk to the media about the recent upheaval at APT.“
That is an illegal act.
And someone like Ferris Stephens ought to know better than to do something as stupid as that, because he’s an Assistant Attorney General at the Alabama Attorney General’s Office.
Not only is the management of the network a matter of PUBLIC RECORD, but the employees have Freedom of Speech rights under the First Amendment.
Particularly, according to Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 384 (1987) “The threshold question . . . is whether [an employee's] speech may be ‘fairly characterized as constituting speech on a matter of public concern.’” There is little doubt that Mr. Grantham’s public speech may certainly be characterized as being on a matter of public concern.
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Sunday, June 24, 2012
Seriously.
They are.
It’s kinda’ like the gun saying, albeit with a peppermint twist:
“When ‘they’ outlaw science, only outlaws will be scientists.”
The whole scientific process means that folks get up and argue about it, and demonstrate their findings, and argue their conclusions, and implications for the same.
This is a prime example of Republican idiocy.
Utter stupidity brought to you by TEApublican TEAvangelical radicals.
After a state report predicts higher ocean levels, based in part on global-warming data, new legislation seeks to all but outlaw such projections. The bill has drawn ridicule, as well as scrutiny of the state’s new political climate.
RALEIGH, N.C. — When scientists at a state commission predicted that North Carolina’s sea levels could rise 39 inches by 2100, coastal business and development leaders weren’t alarmed at the prospect of flooding. They were outraged by the report itself.
They complained to state legislators, saying the projection could trigger regulations costing coastal businesses and homeowners millions of dollars.
Waves lap against Johnnie Mercer’s Pier at Wrightsville Beach in Wilmington, N.C. (Paul Stephen / The Star-News / May 29, 2012)
The result is House Bill 819, a measure that would require sea level forecasts to be based on past patterns and would all but outlaw projections based on climate change data.
The bill, now under discussion by a legislative conference committee, has been ridiculed nationwide. It was mocked by comedian Stephen Colbert and savaged in a Scientific American blog post titled “N.C. Considers Making Sea Rise Illegal.”
It has also focused attention on the political shift in North Carolina, where Republicans in 2010 won control of the state Legislature for the first time in a century. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Are people really that stupid?
Wait… that’s a rhetorical question.
But this does beg the question: It’s your information, it belongs to you because it’s about you – even if you use FaceBook. Why shouldn’t you have a say in how it’s harvested & used?
I’m not the only one predicting a new era of lawmaking pertaining to this type of electronic stalking.
Just because Facebook has gone public does not mean its user terms and conditions have changed. (Photo by EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/GettyImages)
Since late last month, Facebook users have been posting a legal-sounding “privacy notice.” By putting the notice on their timelines, they hope, they will become exempt from the terms and conditions of Facebook’s “Data Use Policy,” which users agree to upon initially signing up.
Unfortunately, that couldn’t be further from the truth. As the urban-legend-debunking site Snopesexplains, “[T]he basic premise is false.”
“We have noticed this recent status update that is being widely shared implying the ownership of your Facebook content has recently changed,” Alex Kirschner, a member of Faceook’s PR team, told me. “This is not true and has never been the case.”
Recall that “bastard” can have several meanings. One, is as it applies to a type of milled file. Two, is as it applies to the child born to an unwed mother. And there certainly seems to be no shortage of those these days. Of course, it’s not the child’s fault, but words describe things, and like it or not, a child of an unwed mother is a bastard.
I guess next up, they’ll have to remove the French Fat Bastardwine, too. It’s been sold in Alabama for quite some time.
Cycles Gladiator wine label, an 1895 poster promoting the Gladiator brand bicycle.
Of course, the astute readers will recall the last international fiasco with the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board with the Cycles Gladiator wine.
The Hahn Family Wines company had to create an entirely different label specifically for Cycles Gladiator wine to be sold in the state. The label was an historic poster from 1895 – and that same year printer G. Massias unveiled one of the great Parisian art posters showcasing the stylish Gladiator bicycle.
Naturally, news of the rancorous decision by Alabama’a ABC drove sales for the wine through the roof, at home, and abroad.
However, I sincerely doubt it’s any complex marketing ploy.
GRAND RAPIDS, MI — As Michigan craft brewers continue to expand their distribution footprint across the country, Founders Brewing Co. is running into some roadblocks in the South.
The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board is refusing to register two of Founders’ beers after the regulatory agency objected to the word ‘bastard’ on the labels.
“It’s one of those silly things,” said Dave Engbers, Founders vice president.
(Reuters) – The Jackson, Mississippi, school district has agreed to stop shackling students to fixed objects, after it was sued for handcuffing pupils to railings and poles at a school for troubled children, officials said on Friday.
The largest wave of immigration in history from a single country to the United States has come to a standstill. After four decades that brought 12 million current immigrants—more than half of whom came illegally—the net migration flow from Mexico to the United States has stopped—and may have reversed, according to a new analysis by the Pew Hispanic Center of multiple government data sets from both countries.
The standstill appears to be the result of many factors, including the weakened U.S. job and housing construction markets, heightened border enforcement, a rise in deportations, the growing dangers associated with illegal border crossings, the long-term decline in Mexico’s birth rates and changing economic conditions in Mexico.
More than a dozen people spoke either for or against House Bill 579 during a House Commerce and Small Business Committee meeting.
Representatives of the state’s municipalities came out strongly against the proposal, saying it would sap their control over regulating what fireworks can be sold and used locally.
“If something’s not broke, why (do) you want to fix it?” Kenny Clemons, executive director of Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Warm Southern Breeze on Thursday, February 16, 2012
For those whom follow the news, Alabama has come under national and international scrutiny for its harsh law, ostensibly aimed at curbing illegal immigration.
Revelations that the law known as HB56 was written largely in part by Kansas Republican Secretary of StateKris Kobach, and fostered in Alabama by Republican State Senator Scott Beason, approved by the overwhelming majority Republican State House and Senate, then signed into law by Republican Alabama Governor Robert Bentley, have set farmers, religious & charitable organizations and state and local government agencies into motion.
Even Missourians and their renown newspaper, the Kansas City Star, have expressed disgust with their Secretary of State, and wrote on February 9th, 2012 that, Read the rest of this entry »
