A court has ruled that an "icon" created by Artyom Loskutov and Maria Kiseleva, artists based in Novosibirsk, Russia's third most populous city, offends religious feelings and must be scrubbed from the web (good luck with that). The icon depicts the Virgin Mary, wearing a balaclava like those worn by members of Pussy Riot and holding a little girl with braids instead of the baby Jesus....

....Loskutov told Siberian media that he was both surprised and honored by all the attention that law enforcement officials have paid to his work.

SeaWorld to cut hours for part-time workers  

 ...a move that would allow the Orlando-based theme-park owner to avoid offering those employees medical insurance under the federal government's health-care overhaul.

But that means more total workers to cover the same workload.  :)

Separately:

The AFL-CIO on Wednesday approved a strongly worded resolution saying the Affordable Care Act will drive up the costs of union-sponsored health plans to the point that workers and employers are forced to abandon them.

You can keep your insurance if you like it (only if you can now afford it).

The part I most identified with was the part in which he indicated discomfort with the phrase in which Obama referred to American foreign policies as something that, "makes us (America) exceptional".

I have often thought, after hearing speech after speech in which pols have exhorted us to consider that we are the "greatest nation on Earth", how that must sound to everybody else in the world. I know how I would feel if some leader from any other country were to announce to all and sundry that they were "the greatest nation on Earth". I would think, and murmur to myself, "in your dreams, azzhat."

Putin says:

It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation. There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy.

But, to return to my main point:

We are a unique country in my opinion. We have offered much to the world - in science, in music, in film and the other arts as well.
But I can say the same about just about every other country in the world.

But we have also behaved selfishly, and brutally at times.
And I can say that about just about every other country in the world as well.

Each country has its uniqueness. Each has its own history.
What is wrong with acknowledging that and marching with others, one among equals?

Please let them can the "greatest on Earth" line and bury it.

I've no idea whether she'll have to give up her Northrup-Grumman day job in the Military-Security Complex to take on this lifetime post of in-camera court B/S that seems to be the (unpublished) Constitutional Lawyer-in-Chief's current fetish.

Only the Guardian and a few lonely liberals seem to have noticed and commented on the surveillance abuses for which the George "It's just a freaking piece of paper" Bush chosen FBI Chief Enforcer was directly responsible.

So I will be cheering for the Jets.

And if Assad is overthrown, will our chosen factions having been properly vetted to become US puppets?  Will their US support make them favorites of the people?

Putin can take credit for brokering the elimination of chemical weapons in Syria, unless the US refuses to stop arming rebels.

The Wall Street Journal was not aware of her academic claims when it published her August 3l op-ed.  Moreover, the WSJ claimed that it was also unaware of her affiliation with the Syrian Emergency Task Force at the time, and published a clarification;   The think tank has found no problems with the article but the WSJ editor states that they are investigating the contents of the op-ed.  

Senator John McCain on his trek about "moderate Syrian rebels" read from the WSJ piece to Secretary Kerry at a Senate hearing on the use of force last week, calling it "an important op-ed by Dr. Elizabeth O'Bagy."  The next day, Kerry also brought up the piece before a House Foreign Affairs hearing and recommended that members read it.

The Ruling Cretans must be laughing their faces off. First, they devise the lotteries, the "you gotta be in it to win it" rip-offs and, the poorest, and least capable to take care of themselves rush off to give their lunch money to the 7-11 vendors to "make their dream come true."  Why should the 1% pay for necessary government services when they can trick the ill equipped to pay them for them? The tragedy for those poor folks, besides denying their children basic necessities, they don't even realize how the soul-less, sociopaths running the scams think of the suckers, spitting on them with utter contempt and, very literally, enjoying  inflicting the hurt on those who hurt enough just by waking up each day.

That's the analogy I thought of when those Colorado sycophants rushed off to do the bidding of the NRA puppet masters. Lord, what fools! What sort of self-hating idiot votes out representatives of the People, not even knowing, or caring, whether they were doing a good job, or bad job, in the office they were "elected" to hold?

Why do the 1% pay Rush Limbaugh 200 million dollars? It seems he's being underpaid, as his ability to convince the knuckle dragging gun hoarders that they, and the 1%, are on the same team constitute one of life's grand mysteries.

If there is one government operation that people on both sides of the Atlantic love, it's the postal service. And the Royal Mail is a highly respected institution that was founded in 1512 during the reign of Henry VIII, and the public celebrated its 500th anniversary just last year.

Various proposals for the Royal Mail's privatization over the years, floated by Conservative and Labour governments alike, have consistently proved to be very unpopular with the British people and have always aroused tremendous public opposition, which heretofore has always caused the government to retreat quickly.

We'll see if that's the case once again. British postal workers immediately began organizing for a nationwide strike once word leaked out of the government's plan to complete the £3 billion sale within six weeks. If the general public decides to pile on in support of the Royal Mail staff -- which I suspect they will, given past their responses on the subject -- well, look out below, Mr. Cameron.

(Hey, BTD -- what sort of odds are you offering that David Cameron backs down? ;-D)

The lyrics are taken almost verbatim from the Book of Ecclesiastes.

Handwritten lyrics to the song were among the documents donated to New York University by the Communist Party USA in March 2007.

45% of the royalties for the song are donated to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions because, in Seeger's own words, "[in addition to the music] I did write six words.

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace...

..........

All of this would have been unthinkable ten years ago. And this may very well be the event that future historians look back on as the day...

Dr. Shiping Bao, the Volusia County medical examiner who was in charge of handling slain-teenager Trayvon Martin's body in February 2012, has come out and claimed that the prosecution team was biased against the African-American teenager, and intentionally lost the case.
[...snip...]
According to the former assistant coroner, the results of Martin's autopsy clearly showed that, despite Zimmerman's statements regarding their altercation, there was no feasible way for Martin to have been on top of Zimmerman when the gun was fired, because the bullet entered Martin's back.

U.S. District Court Declares Lance Armstrong Has 1st Amendment Protected Right To Lie.

Things may be looking up for DNI James Klapper and his Security-Industrial complex co-conspirators who find themselves forced to testify before Congress.

The good news, it still holds the 'Highest Peak in North America' title.

LINK

From the article:

Alaska is known for its vast, rugged and, sometimes, dangerous landscape, a place where most communities aren't connected to the road system and residents rely heavily on airplanes for travel. Many of the state's topographical maps go back about 50 years, roughly around statehood.

Topographic data "is the most fundamental piece of infrastructure that any state can own," said Nicholas Mastrodicasa, the state's digital mapping project manager. But before the new mapping effort got underway, he said, "Mars was better mapped than Alaska."

LAKELAND, Fla. (AP) -- A 12-year-old Florida girl committed suicide after she was bullied online by more than a dozen girls and a sheriff said Thursday that he is investigating whether he can file charges under Florida's new law that covers cyber-bullying.