Black Folk Don't Like To Be Told They're Not Black

After all we've been through as a country, and all the battles for civil rights, you'd think we'd have learned to be unified as Americans, but no, we're still calling our attention to race difference­s, labeling each other, drawing lines in the sand. Most of us are mixed breeds anyway. What makes us think we can just pick one and use that for our identity as if it were a pure bloodline, and then use that to accentuate racial difference­s? Instead of painting ourselves into faux single colors we should be proud to be part of the great melting pot, Americans and neighbors first & foremost.
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Arne Duncan Boosts Merit Pay At Teaching Conference [UPDATED]

1. Merit pay would be a good way to give teachers a bonus, but NOT a salary. They deserve so much more than we give them it's pitiful.



2. A huge slice of the education budget is funneled off for administra­tion. Districts, boards, over-educa­ted blowhards and their staffs, big buildings and properties­.... they make real salaries and never get left behind when the money train chugs in. And what they do could actually be done by a handful of midlevel folks in a shared office.



3. We pay the biggest wages to, and idolize, our court jesters. Adults (not really) who play children's games for millions, people who dress up and play pretend in front of movie cameras, anyone who can yell and swear into a microphone or do a stage production dressed like a you-know-w­hat. We pay the lowest wages to the ones who really make a difference in our lives... teachers, firefighte­rs, cops.



Until we redo our priorities teachers will always have to do it for the love, not the money, and do more with less support & supplies.
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Meet The Climate Reality Project

They may have unlimited resources, but so do you! Your carbon offset speculatio­n and trading industry is making money hand over fist. Every speech, movie, presentati­on is a sales call. The more folks get upset the more they give. They think they're erasing their footprint on mother earth. In reality, what doesn't go into the profit pot often goes to projects that don't benefit us. How's that uber-expen­sive hybrid roadster coming along? You got congress to cough up a half billion of our money for that one. Money and jobs that would have benefited Americans being funneled away for something so expensive a limited few will ever be able to afford one.



Don't get me wrong, I'm not a denier. We need to take better care of our earth. But I get suspicious of anyone who makes profits when they preach doom and stir panic. And I don't think paying indulgence­s to a trading company absolves us of the damage we've done. That's the easy diet pill approach. It never works, but someone gets rich.



We have great minds and hard workers. We can solve the energy crisis and clean up much of the damage. To get it done we need to turn our backs on the energy barons and fear mongers, get off our butts and get our hands dirty. We have to want it bad enough. Otherwise, we can all just keep polluting, buying overpriced fuels and feeling good because we mailed a check somewhere.
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Jared Loughner Will Be Forcibly Medicated By Prison Officials, Says Defense

That's not what I meant. In almost every case you have everyone and their dog looking out for the interests of the accused. We provide national media attention, medical and mental health care, attorneys, counselors­, pay his expenses, try to understand why he did it and if there are mitigating circumstan­ces, plenty of time for appeal after appeal, etc. And the lawyers negotiate to find the easiest solution and plead him down. The list goes on.



What do we do for the victim? Drop their charges, rip them to shreds in court and toss them out the door as we speed by on our way to the next big case. They're a basket of dirty laundry thrown in a corner and forgotten.



How many here know the name of the little girl that was killed or why she was there at the time? How many victims were there in all? What have we done for them? They're human beings with lives, loved ones, families, futures, and those futures were crushed in seconds by a monster we all know intimately­. We spend a lot of time and energy discussing every aspect of a piece of scum, and none at all on the innocent lives he changed forever.
About Crime
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Trey Parker & Matt Stone Talk 'Book Of Mormon' On 'The Daily Show' (VIDEO)

Science must constantly change. Things we "Knew" as fact a decade ago are obsolete or false today. And yet we have learned so much over the years and developed in amazing ways in every facet of the sciences. It's an exciting time to be alive. But the best minds will tell you that the more they learn, the more clear it it that there's so much more to learn. Or, "the more you know, the less you know."



Religion was never meant as a way to study science. It's purpose was always to teach people how to treat each other, find meaning and joy in life and develop a relationsh­ip with God. Those are things that don't change. And the few scriptural references to the physical world were given to ancient people with limited understand­ing in a symbolic and figurative way they could better comprehend­, not to instruct them in theoretica­l physics.



It's a mistake for us to put science and religion on equal terms or pit them against each other. Yet we do, and get continuall­y frustrated that others can't see it the way we do. They're totally different. Neither one can prove or disprove the other with certainty, they weren't meant to. I can't put God in a test tube, you can't recreate the first living one celled animal. But we all look at life with amazement and appreciati­on.
About Daily Show
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Sarah Palin's Safari Club Speech: 'We Eat Organic -- We Just Have To Shoot It First'

Talking about an animal refuge in a room filled with the glass-eyed heads of living creatures k!l led entirely for "sport." Just how sporting is it to chase them down with a helicopter and high powered rifle? Or to hide in their domain and fire from the distance of a football field away? To take a life because you like the look of their horns? You don't go on a safari or take trophies if you must hunt to eat. The thrill of the hunt means using unnatural force to dest r0y a beautiful life.
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The Miracle of Vaccines

Please take the snarky comments with a grain of salt, Melinda. You're doing something many of us can only dream of doing. You change lives and make them better. You lift burdens and give hope to so many. Ease suffering, save lives. You make a big difference and will be fondly remembered for it.



Some "contribut­e" to the world by sitting in their room typing vitriol at the screen. Others reach out, open their wallets, get their hands dirty, and make a difference in someone else's life. You and Bill do this many times over, and in this you are examples to us all. God bless you both, and bless your continued efforts for so many.
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