Unity in strength: The Complicated History Of The Confederate Flag

excerpt - The confederate flag is a controversial symbol. What it means has changed over time and can depend on who you are and where you come from. And to further complicate this, there wasn't just one confederate flag--there were dozens--and the flag we've come to know as the confederate flag has a history as complicated as it is contentious.

(Video from Youtube user "TheGoodStuff")

Bonus! If you watched the above video & thought that it was interesting, here's another complicated flag origin story video: History of the Italy flag

(Video from Youtube user "Jabzy")

Vexillology is confusing..

End Jury Duty

I recently got summoned for jury duty (again) August 30 I hope to g-d I don't get called in because the last time I did it was not fun nor was it a pleasant experience. I will post about my experience in another post. In the mean time if you have ever been summoned to jury duty or know someone who has please read the following about the tyranny of this practice.  

(exert) - There is a difference between “trial by jury” and “jury duty.” “Trial by jury” means that an accused person’s guilt or innocence is determined by a group of people not associated with the government, and “jury duty” means that unqualified people are forced against their will to serve as unpaid jurors—jury duty is just one of many possible ways to fulfill trial by jury. Our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution call for trial by jury, not jury duty, leaving it up to us the people to decide exactly what comprises a jury and how a jury should be formed, as long as we do not violate any other passages in our Declaration of Independence or in our Constitution. Our court’s practice of jury duty actually violates six distinct passages in our Declaration Of Independence, and six more distinct passages in our Constitution, not to mention seven more distinct statute laws, so when our court tells us that our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution stipulate jury duty they are flat out lying to us. Even our court’s insistence that a jury be “peers” to the defendant is never mentioned in our Declaration of Independence or in our Constitution, and has never been true of our juries anyway, since our first jurors had to be white male landowners, and even today jurors are limited to non-felons, but there is a way to have willing, paid, and qualified jurors who are also peers to dependents, and that is to limit our jurors’ service to part-time: As long as most of a juror’s income comes from some non-governmental job, then that juror can still be considered to be a peer to the defendant.

The problem with random selection also causes hardships on those without public or personal transportation, the need to leave a disabled person or child in the care of someone else (if they can find someone else) and have to pay out money to do so, if the summoned jury prospect has physical/mental/emotional disorders that the jury selectors do not consider to be significant or if that person has to pay to have their physician/psychiatrist make an appointment to write an explanatory excuse letter, or if the potential juror will lose pay (while employers know it is unethical to fire or deny pay for jury service, many get away with it anyway) or lose money and potential clients due to having to close their business for an undetermined period of time.  We also wish that juries no longer be sequestered as this is basically imprisonment away from their families and homes when they themselves have committed no crimes.  Random jurors on the rolls for their period of service only have a few hours the night before of notice of when to report the next day, often not giving enough adequate time to make care giving, job coverage or transportation arrangements.  Failure to report can result in heavy fines and/or jail time far in excess of what is perceived to be the crime of not reporting.  Also, often judges can declare contempt of court with also heavy fines and/or jail time for potential and selected random jurors for what would be deemed by most as a very minor infraction if an infraction at all. Make jury service a paid part-time professional occupation for willing and able jurors, thus removing random selection of jurors from county rolls. 

See the video below for more information.

Feel free to copy or distribute this information in whole or in part. Please help publicize the End Jury Duty movement!

Treasury Department Honors Women With First Female Currency

(TheOnion) WASHINGTON—Saying it was time all Americans were equally represented, the U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday that it would honor the nation’s women by introducing the country’s first female currency. “For too long, our currency has only been representative of half the country, but beginning today, women in the United States will finally be able to carry and use money that’s the same sex they are,” said Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, adding that the new female banknotes would feature softer green hues and a slightly smaller, shapelier form. “By introducing female currency into circulation, we are celebrating the strong and vital roles that women have played in shaping our nation. And when today’s girls see legal tender that is composed of both male and female bills, it sends a powerful message about our nation’s commitment to equality.” Lew followed his announcement by noting that the Treasury would introduce the first openly gay dimes into the economy as early as next year.

Video: Arizona: Weather map goes crazy live on the air

(excerpt) 2960 degrees in Cave Creek?! FOX 10's Cory McCloskey leads viewers through a hilarious weathercast after his weather map malfunctions. Technology doesn't always cooperate, but luckily Cory knows how to handle the "heat!" Via My Fox Phoenix :

Nebraska Nice

: The possibilities were endless when Nebraska set out to dust off its tourism brand. Boiling down nine months of research including surveys and interviews with more than 3,500 people in a $75,000 initiative the Nebraska Tourism Commission says it found the essence of the state.

Nebraska Nice. Like "Minnesota Nice" but Nebraska. 

Sounds Fitting right?

Watch the video & see

Here's another version if you're not convinced:

What's your favorite tourism slogan?

(non sponsored, all opinions are my own)

The U.S. Government Wants to Keep You From Wearing "Comfyballs" Boxers

(The following contains mature subject matter that some may not find suitable, discretion is advised)

(Gawker.com) - The regrettably named Norwegian underwear brand Comfyballs was all set to make its big debut in the U.S. this year when it was shut down by the country's patent and trademark office. A trademark on Comfyballs, USPTO argued, was just too vulgar for Americans to accept.

The Independent reports on the tribulations of the company, which was already comforting balls across Australia, New Zealand, Scandinavia, and the U.K. when its trademark application was denied:

But American authorities banned it from operating under that name, finding that, "in the context of the applicant's goods... Comfyballs means only one thing - that a man's testicles, or 'balls,' will be comfortable in the applicant's undergarments.

"The mark does not create a double entendre or other idiomatic expression... When used in this way, the word, 'balls' has an offensive meaning."

What makes Comfyballs so comfy? According to the company, the fist-sized crotch protrusion you see on the pair above isn't just for looks. Au contraire, it is the pinnacle of testicular technology:

Package Front™ is designed to keep your equipment in place, while being lifted away from the inside of your thighs, preventing unnecessary heating of the balls. Extremely curved panels combined with innovative use of elastic fabric seams lift the user experience to a new level!

Citing successful trademarks on brands like "Nice balls," and "I love my balls," Comfyballs founder Anders Selvig told the Independent he'd like to see the USPTO review its decision to pan his application. Until then, Hanes and Fruit of the Loom will have to suffice for owners of insufficiently cushioned scrotums. Read the rest HERE  

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It's Thanksgiving

High. So I was originally not going to post a blog today in honour of Thanksgiving holiday & with it being so busy & all, yet someone on Facebook reminded me otherwise. Every year people love to remind me that white people tooked native land from natives & other xenophobic rubbish. I am not gonna let these people ruin my holiday. Thanksgiving is more than a holiday it's about family & what you're thankful for. I'm thankful for life, friends, family, that I have a job, food, water, clothes, etc. What are you thankful for? We should slow down & reflect on what is really important in life. Instead of complaining we should be grateful not only this day but everyday. Soon we won't even have a Thanksgiving holiday.  Anyway I'm wishing y'all a..



Until next time.

(image courtesy of Google images)

Is Kansas Really "Flatter than a Pancake"?

Or the Netherlands?

(Via MentalFloss) - In a survey conducted by the American Geographical Society, almost a third of all respondents said that Kansas was the flattest state. Some people even call it “flatter than a pancake.” But what does science have to say about that?

The first, and only, study that we know of that directly compared the Sunflower State to a pancake was done by a trio of geographers in 2003. For their tongue-in-cheek analysis, they acquired a pancake from IHOP, cut out a sample slice and made a topographic profile of it using a laser microscope (assuring us that they would “not be daunted by the ‘No Food or Drink’ sign posted in the microscopy room”). They then compared their pancake to an east-west profile of Kansas taken from a 1:250,000 scale digital model of the state’s elevation data, and calculated flatness estimates for each.

A flatness value of 1.000 would indicate “perfect, platonic flatness.” The pancake was scored as 0.957, which the researchers said is “pretty flat, but far from perfectly flat.” The value for Kansas, meanwhile was ~0.9997, or “damn flat,” as they said.

“Simply put, our results show that Kansas is considerably flatter than a pancake,” the team concluded.

But that’s not the whole story. When the playful study first came out in the Annals of Improbable Research, Lee Allison, then the Director of the Kansas Geological Survey,quipped that “everything on Earth is flatter than the pancake as they measured it.”

Clarifying Allison’s retort in a paper from earlier this year, geographers Jerome Dobson and Joshua Campbell explain it like this:

“The pancake measured in the article was 130 millimeters, and its surface relief was 2 millimeters. Apply that ratio to the east-west dimension of Kansas, approximately 644 kilometers, and the state would need a mountain (2/130 x 664,000 meters) 9,908 meters tall in order not to be flatter than a pancake. Since the highest mountain in the world is 8,848 meters tall, every state in the U.S. is flatter than a pancake.”

So, go ahead and rejoice, Kansans. Your state’s not alone in being flatter than a flapjack. But breakfast food comparisons aside, which state is the flattest? Dobson and Campbell’s research has more good news for Kansas: it’s not even in the top five.

For their study, The Flatness of U.S. States, the pair developed a measure of human-scale perception of flatness by creating an algorithm that approximated what a person of average height would see if they were standing in a given spot and turning around in a circle, taking in 16 different views in a revolution. Then they took elevation data for the country from NASA’s Shuttle Radar Topography Mission, divided the contiguous U.S. (sorry, Alaska and Hawaii, but they already figured you wouldn’t be the flattest) into 90-meter cells and ran the algorithm to get a flatness score for each cell (calculated by the number of views in the cell that appeared flat: 0-4 flat views was considered “not flat”; 5-8 flat views, flat; 9-12, flatter and 13-16, flattest). Each state was then measured in terms of percentage of land that was not flat, flat, flatter and flattest, and then ranked.

The state with the most land in the flat, flatter and flattest categories is, perhaps surprisingly, Florida. Illinois, North Dakota, Louisiana, Minnesota, Delaware, Kansas, Texas, Nevada and Indiana round out the top ten.

Kansas isn't as flat as we think it is when we stand there and look around, and Florida is flatter looking than most people probably give it credit for. It raises interesting questions for future research, the scientists say: “What drives human perceptions of flatness? Do Florida’s dense forests mask its flatness? Does standing water influence human perception of flatness?”

For now, you might ask if flatness and perception of it matters much. Dobson and Campbell think so. First, they say, “business, academic, and other recruiting, for instance, are hampered by negative attitudes about the perceived flatness” of the Midwest, and revealing Kansas for as not-flat as it is can combat that stereotype (I can see the billboards now, “Welcome to Kansas: Not as Flat as Delaware!”). A second benefit to having a measure of nationwide flatness is that it can help in finding good homes for wind turbines, highways or other infrastructure that requires flat land.

(SOURCE)

Satire: Maybelline Introduces New Ideal-Woman Rubber Mask To Use In Place Of Makeup

Maybe it's Maybelline..

NEW YORK—Touting it as their most stylish and advanced beauty product to date, officials from global cosmetics brand Maybelline unveiled Thursday the Ideal-Woman Rubber Mask, a flexible facial covering that can be worn over the head in lieu of makeup. “Instead of spending hours each morning applying multiple cosmetic products, now women can simply roll out of bed, grab their stunning latex polymer beauty mask that has been molded to accepted standards of female beauty, and stretch it snugly over their face and hair,” Maybelline spokeswoman Jessica Healy said of the one-size-fits-all contoured masks, which designers carefully crafted with rouged cheeks, pouty full lips, high cheekbones, and a small taut chin for maximum physical appeal. “In the short time it takes to line up the mask’s mouth, nose, and eye holes with your own features, you’ll easily achieve a look that would have otherwise taken hours to create, allowing you to confidently go through the day without ever having to pause to reapply.” Maybelline executives noted that the Ideal-Woman Rubber Mask is only available in Caucasian.

Read more HERE

Happy Holi(Independence)day!

Wishing you all a




(Image is not mine. No infringement intended)

America: Country or Continent?

What do you think?

(Video courtesy of Youtube by the user "WonderWhy")

Meanwhile in Alabama...

(no infringement intended)