Clipmarks | debbyski's clips

Laters . . .

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 01:19:07 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: Fellow clippers Debby hasn't been on a plane since she was 12 years old. My Mom won a contract for a modeling agency for our family for Cold Power Detergent. Our family were flown to NYC and featured in major magazine ads & articles so long ago. . . we were local celebrities . . . Wish me luck babies, I luv you all at CM . . .

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

[Video]

Tags: bye

Now That's Rich

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:34:51 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Of course, all the evidence in the world won’t stop Republicans from claiming, as they always do, that Democrats are going to impose a crippling tax burden on ordinary hard-working Americans. But it just ain’t so."

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Last weekend, Pastor Rick Warren asked both presidential candidates to define the income at which “you move from middle class to rich.” The context of the question was, of course, the difference in the candidates’ tax policies

Mr. Obama answered the question seriously, defining middle class as meaning an income below $150,000. Mr. McCain, at first, made it into a joke, saying “how about $5 million?” Then he declared that it didn’t matter because he wouldn’t raise anyone’s taxes. That wasn’t just an evasion, it was a falsehood: Mr. McCain’s health care plan, by limiting the deductibility of employer-paid insurance premiums, would effectively raise taxes on a number of people

The real problem, however, was with the question itself.

The trouble with Mr. Warren’s question was that it seemed to imply that everyone except the poor belongs to one of these two categories: either you’re clearly rich, or you’re an ordinary member of the middle class. And that’s just wrong.

Tricking The Tongue

Wed, 28 May 2008 12:19:27 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

CARRIE DASHOW dropped a large dollop of lemon sorbet into a glass of Guinness, stirred, drank and proclaimed that it tasted like a “chocolate shake.”

Nearby, Yuka Yoneda tilted her head back as her boyfriend, Albert Yuen, drizzled Tabasco sauce onto her tongue. She swallowed and considered the flavor: “Doughnut glaze, hot doughnut glaze!”

They were among 40 or so people who were tasting under the influence of a small red berry called miracle fruit at a rooftop party in Long Island City, Queens, last Friday night. The berry rewires the way the palate perceives sour flavors for an hour or so, rendering lemons as sweet as candy.

The miracle fruit, Synsepalum dulcificum, is native to West Africa and has been known to Westerners since the 18th century

The cause of the reaction is a protein called miraculin, which binds with the taste buds and acts as a sweetness inducer when it comes in contact with acids

Snail On The Sidewalk

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 21:01:00 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.quoteworld.org

Today I accidentally stepped on a snail on the sidewalk in front of our house. And I thought, I too am like that snail. I build a defensive wall around myself, a 'shell' if you will. But my shell isn't made out of a hard, protective substance. Mine is made out of tinfoil and paper bags."

They Do What They Gotta Do . . .

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:00:33 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: But they shouldn't have to do it.

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

TAN LOC ISLAND, VIETNAM -- Nearly 70 young Vietnamese women swept past in groups of five, twirling and posing like fashion models, all competing for the hand of a Taiwanese man who had paid a matchmaking service about $6,000 for the privilege of marrying one of them.

Sporting jeans and a black T-shirt, 20-year-old Le Thi Ngoc Quyen paraded in front of the stranger, hoping that he would select her.

"I felt very nervous," she recalled recently as she described the scene. "But he chose me, and I agreed to marry him right away."

Quyen has not gotten rich -- her husband earns a modest living as a construction worker -- but the couple have paid off her father's debts.

Poverty and the proximity of foreign businessmen seem to be major reasons for the trend. The biggest complaints come from women's groups, who consider it demeaning, and from young village men for whom the pool of potential brides is shrinking.

A Teacher On The Front Line

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:19:25 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: For me there is no conflict between science and religion; I don't need scientific proof of the character of God. Perhaps the people who are arguing about all of this need to keep their minds occupied from avoiding justice, poverty, and war.

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

ORANGE PARK, Fla. — David Campbell switched on the overhead projector and wrote “Evolution” in the rectangle of light on the screen.

He scanned the faces of the sophomores in his Biology I class. Many of them, he knew from years of teaching high school in this Jacksonville suburb, had been raised to take the biblical creation story as fact

But in a nation where evangelical Protestantism and other religious traditions stress a literal reading of the biblical description of God’s individually creating each species, students often arrive at school fearing that evolution, and perhaps science itself, is hostile to their faith.

“If you see something you don’t understand, you have to ask ‘why?’ or ‘how?’ ” Mr. Campbell often admonished his students at Ridgeview High School.

Yet their abiding mistrust in evolution, he feared, jeopardized their belief in the basic power of science to explain the natural world — and their ability to make sense of it themselves.

Living Without Your Cell Could Get Harder

Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:04:19 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

Ever write a check while shopping and sweat over whether the check would clear? A growing number of banks are offering a new and fairly painless way to eliminate the guesswork.

The solution fits in your pocket.

Eight of the 10 biggest U.S. banks now provide at least basic services on cellphones, allowing account holders to check their balances by tapping away on their tiny keypads.

Millions of U.S. consumers have signed up for mobile banking as those services grow increasingly useful. Depending on your bank, your phone and your wireless plan, you might be able to approve bill payments, transfer money and receive alerts when balances get low, all while riding the bus.

In three to five years, he predicted, you will be able to buy a whole host of things directly through your phone.

Until then, at least you can use your phone to see whether you can afford the things in the first place.

Please Get Laid

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:23:04 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.latimes.com

This week, while you were distractedly waiting for one of the presidential candidates to just go ahead and pick Michael Phelps as his running mate, a Manhattan lawyer sued Columbia University for discriminating against men.

Roy Den Hollander, who's best known for suing Manhattan nightclubs because they offered free or discounted Ladies Night drinks to women, claimed the university could not use government money, such as federal financial aid, to fund its Institute for Research on Women and Gender.

Two questions come to mind (and, for the record, I have a degree from Columbia). First, how did an institution that kept its undergraduate women in a separate college across the street (Barnard) until 1983 manage to become a "bastion of bigotry against men" in such a short time? Second, when did women's studies gather enough steam to pose a legitimate threat to men?

Digging Ourselves A Black Hole

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 13:12:55 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The Large Hadron, you may remember, is the 17-mile-long particle accelerator being built near Geneva.

Its critics think it may create a black hole that will swallow up the universe. This is what is known as a wide range of possibilities.

I am bringing this up now because it is always important to remember that things could be worse.

For one thing, it makes it much easier to schedule unpleasant tasks for the second half of Septembe

Black hole eats everything. All the air molecules decide to march off to the other side of the room and hold a caucus. I have totally gotten over worrying about reforming the Electoral College.

In truth, we’ve been down this road before

This is the same humankind that went out of its way to invent nuclear warheads, S.U.V.’s and deep-fried Twinkies-on-a-stick.

Giant Problems

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:38:53 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "We discussed what might have made her life better. If every time strangers spotted her, they focused on how they identified with her, perhaps her Indiana drawl, her Pacers hat, her jewelry (Allen loved jewelry, the only mainstream women’s apparel she could fit into), things would have been different.

No stares, no questions, no cellphone cameras. No hiding inside a nursing home, no abandonment. She would have loved that, I think. She would have been madly popular. "

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

SANDY Allen: superhero. That is how I perceived the world’s tallest woman, 7 feet 7 1/4 inches, from my vantage point as the tallest little girl in Delmar, N.Y. Ms. Allen, who died last week at the age of 53, appeared invincible in her photograph in the Guinness Book of World Records.

But when I drove to Shelbyville, Ind., last year to interview her, I found her alone in a claustrophobic convalescence-home room, made smaller by her 8-foot-long bed. She lived down the road from her childhood home, on $54 a month in discretionary income.

She greeted me with a hug and a joke: “If you ever want the ceiling painted, put a hat on my head and tell me which way to walk.

But she tried not to give into bouts of depression, which are shared by other giants, who live in isolation and poverty.

“I try to be friendly with everyone I meet,” she told me last year. “Some make it tougher than others

The decency was rarely returned to her

Mission Creep

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:22:45 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: "Our empire exists so we can exploit a much greater share of the world's wealth than we are entitled to, and to prevent other nations from combining against us to take their rightful share."

So why don't our politicians be honest with us? Because they are bought off by special interests in the name of wealth and power and greed. Now that FUCKING pisses me off that they think the American people are so stupid, save the Neocons who never cease to amaze me in any particular area of greed and stupidity.

Clip Source: www.motherjones.com

Imperialism, meaning militarily stronger nations dominating and exploiting weaker ones, has been a prominent feature of the international system for several centuries, but it may be coming to an end

The United States now seems to be the last of a dying species—the sole remaining multinational empire.

Counting domestic military bases and those on US territories, the total is 5,429.

But despite the wartime origins of many overseas bases, they have little to do with our national security.

In fact, the purpose of our overseas bases is to maintain US dominance in the world, and to reinforce what military analyst Charles Maier calls our "empire of consumption."

The United States possesses less than 5 percent of global population but consumes about one-quarter of all global resources, including petroleum.

A Contractual Life

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 13:03:13 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

The first contract I ever signed was probably a promissory note for a student loan at U.C. Berkeley in 1970. It was an august document — a notary moment. I recall legal-length pages in triplicate and small, portentous boxes that needed initialing.

Now I find myself wondering just how many contracts I sign — explicitly or implicitly — in the course of a year. The biggest of them all is the social contract, which I renew every morning, whether I like it or not, by getting dressed and going out into the world. Nearly everything I do — every Web site I navigate to, song I download, item I purchase — comes wrapped in a contract of sorts.

To say that I do it without thinking is to state one of the basic conditions of electronic life.

These contracts are here not to guide my steps through the world, but to warn me against straying.

You Are Never Too Old Or Frail In China

Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:59:01 GMT

clipped by: debbyski

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

BEIJING — In the annals of people who have struggled against Communist Party rule, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying are unlikely to merit even a footnote.

The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth.

But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.

“Can you imagine two old ladies in their 70s being re-educated through labor?”

HOLY SHIT JT!!!

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 13:43:11 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: So it probably comes as no secret that jt3600 is my favorite new clipper and we need more people like him to bring us laughter in the world! Having said that, I'm praying that he will make it ok through all of this . . .

Clip Source: www.bloomberg.com

Aug. 19 (Bloomberg) -- Tropical Storm Fay slammed into Florida's Cape Romano with 60 mile-per-hour winds after killing dozens in Haiti and the Dominican Republic during its passage over the Caribbean.

``It's been raining hard for an hour now and the wind is picking up,'' Cindy Stewart, a receptionist at the Bellasera Hotel in Naples, about 20 miles north-northwest of Cape Romano, said in a telephone interview at 5:45 a.m. local time. ``It's not too bad yet.''

It's the second hit for Florida in two days after Fay yesterday swept across the Keys, a chain of islands off the peninsula's southern tip. The storm's forecast track will take it inland, across the state's sugar-cane fields and orange groves. Fay was moving north-northeast at 9 mph as it passed over Cape Romano, located about 55 miles south of Fort Myers.

Tags: to, the nicest, and, funniest, guy, ive, known, luv, u, jt

Drink Outside the Box??

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:45:06 GMT

clipped by: debbyski
clipper's remarks: What on Earth is gonna be next, BEER IN A BOX! Bring on prohibition I say!

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

ITALY’S Agriculture Ministry announced this month that some wines that receive the government’s quality assurance label may now be sold in boxes. That’s right, Italian wine is going green, and for some connoisseurs, the sky might as well be falling.

Wine in a box has been around for more than 30 years — though with varying quality.

But here’s another reason to sell wine in a box. America will soon become the largest wine market in the world.

Which leads to a final reason for boxed wine: it’s so much more economica