Mercury, Everett and Rocos helped divert attention from the royal and she was even able to order drinks at the bar without being recognized.
Their night out came after an afternoon where the four apparently drank champagne in front of reruns of “The Golden Girls.”
Rocos’ wrote: “Diana was in full mischief mode. Freddie said, ‘Go on, let the girl have some fun.’”
”that time a successful NFL QB told a bunch of adolescent boys to shut the fuck up and respect a successful woman
(and complain about the refs but everybody does that)
Sai has “a neurological disorder that causes episodic muteness and muscle spasms” — basically, he sometimes becomes mute and gets bad tremors. His doctor has advised him to sip juice continuously, and this helps control his condition. TSA rules allow him to bring any amount of juice through a checkpoint. Unfortunately, the TSA doesn’t read its own rules. Instead, Sai is detained at checkpoints for endless, illegal questioning and searches of his personal papers, confidential business documents, etc. When he loses the ability to speak, he uses pen and paper to communicate, but the TSA takes the pen and paper away as soon as he writes down the name of landmark legal precedents limiting their power to sue him.
He’s videoed one of these encounters, with the TSA and its private contractors at SFO, and he’s filed grievances with various agencies over that incident and another at Boston Logan. The TSA is illegally refusing to follow its own administrative procedures, so he’s getting ready to sue them (he needs an ADA and/or FOIA-specialized lawyer qualified for the bar in MA and/or CA and/or federally — any takers?). He’s also trying to force them to disclose their secret procedures for dealing with people with disabilities.
The edited, subtitled video of his run-in at SFO is fantastically infuriating. The TSA and its private contractors are vindictive, lawless, brutal. But Sai is an inspiring example of calm under fire, a guy who knows his rights back and forwards, and doesn’t let the fact that his physical condition is deteriorating — you can see his tremors — make him lose his cool
I’m lucky, in that most of the TSA people I encounter are relatively pleasant and professional … clearly, not all of them are, though, and that’s a big problem.
Jim Crow for kids: Schools prepare children for life behind bars
March 26, 2013Gone are the days of children dreading a trip to the principal’s office or spending their lunch time in detention. Instead, children are now facing the possibility of being dragged out of their classrooms in handcuffs for conduct violations, such as a schoolyard brawl or being accused of stealing a student’s lunch money.
Increasingly, children of color and children with learning disabilities are being prepped for a life in the American injustice system as police officers have become as common of a figure at schools as the nurse. After the Newtown massacre in December, police presence in schools across the country jumped leaving the authorities to deal with school children just as they deal with criminals, in an arrangement commonly referred to as the “school-to-prison pipeline.”
Recent cases of criminalization include a 12-year-old junior high student who was handcuffed and arrested for doodling on her desk in New York City; a 13-year-old Florida boy arrested and charged with disrupting a school function after passing gas; and a 6-year-old child handcuffed and arrested for throwing a tantrum in Georgia.
More guns, officers aggravate injustice
In his recent gun control proposal, President Obama slipped in a call to staff schools with police officers, further exacerbating the school-to-prison pipeline that unequally marginalizes black and Latino children. According to a study by the Civil Rights Data Collection—one that covered 85 percent of the nation’s students and 72,000 schools—black students are three and a half times more likely to be arrested than their white peers. The study also showed that 70 percent of students arrested were either black or Latino. Running in sync with the National Rifle Association’s call to put armed guards in every school, Obama’s plan will only intensify the school-to-prison pipeline, endangering children of color across the country.
Students with disabilities are also the victims of these harsh policies. Officers already receive very little training on how to handle suspects with mental disabilities, but even less so when it comes to children. Even though 8.6 percent of children in public schools have been found to have some sort of disability, they make up 32 percent of the youth in detention centers.
In a prison system that author Michelle Alexander has called “The New Jim Crow,” mass incarceration has led to one in six Latino men living behind bars, people of color making up 60 percent of the prisoner population and more black people in prison than there were slaves before the Civil War began. These same principles used to lock up people of color for petty “crimes” have found a way into classrooms, preparing these children for the racist injustice system they are statistically likely to encounter later in life by forcing them into the prison system early.
Not only have more security guards and police officers resulted in more bogus misdemeanor arrests, but they drain the already scarce funding for schools. School districts have spent upwards of $51 million on school security, while other much more vital aspects of education go underfunded, especially in poor urban neighborhoods of color.
A child is not a criminal
School-to-prison pipelines have been under fire recently with the expansion of the police state into elementary and middle schools, especially in places notorious for racial discrimination. In October, Meridian, Mississippi was sued for operating a pipeline where students were denied basic constitutional rights once they were arrested and taken to juvenile court. About 86 percent of the students in the Lauderdale Country School District are black, and every single one of the students referred to the court for violations were students of color. Not only were these students arrested, but they were denied legal representation, detained without probable cause, and weren’t advised of their Miranda rights.
Texas isn’t far behind when it comes to criminalizing students for minor infractions, such as disrupting class. According to The Guardian, the state tallied more than 300,000 Class C misdemeanor arrests in 2010 because of zero-tolerance policies and increased police forces on school grounds.
But this extension of the New Jim Crow has been found to have been the worst and the largest in Florida. According to the Orlando Sentinel, 12,000 students were arrested 13,870 times in public schools last year. Black students made up 46 percent of the referrals, even though they make up only 21 percent of the Florida youth.
According to the Center for Behavioral Health Services and Criminal Justice Research, these arrests make for long-lasting psychological damage to the student. Incarcerated youth are more likely to exhibit symptoms of oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and anxiety issues. Detained students are also more likely to lose ground academically from juvenile detention. According to a study done on inner-city Chicago high school students, those arrested in the first two years of high school were six to eight times more likely to drop out than those who hadn’t been arrested.
Instead of focusing on education, school-to-prison pipeline policies are preparing America’s youth for a life in the injustice system. Scare tactics, zero tolerance policies, and police forces are quickly threatening the future of millions of young students. But this criminalization won’t end for them when they graduate high school because, as Alexander states, “mass incarceration in the United States has, in fact, emerged as a stunningly comprehensive and well-disguised system of racialized social control that functions in a manner strikingly similar to Jim Crow.”
- Graciela
The Boston Occupier
Larger graphic here
Orbital debris seems to be on a course moving a bit faster than ISS. I’ll try to take more pictures if it swings by.
BAD Space Station commander! Bad! Bad! (snicker)
“I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions. But laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors. “
Thomas Jefferson
Florence-based photographer Mark Abouzeid faithfully recreated Renaissance portraits as photographs in his 2012 photo series “The New New World.”
Flyssa Sword
Long Islamic sword from Algeria with Flyssa characteristic, yet very similar to the yataghan sword which was also used in North Africa under the Ottomans. The sword has a strong steel blade, thick spine and back edge, bothe sides inlaid with brass designs.
The end of the blade features a ‘yelman’ type chamfered back edge and broadening edge towards the tip. The hilt grips of wood or bone, rivetted with steel, solid steel around the hilt, very sturdy fighting.
Source: © 2013 Ashoka Arts
Here’s a build that just exudes nerd cred. It’s an SNES controller modified into a pair of headphones, straight from the workshop of [lyberty5].
The build began by stealing a controller from a PAL SNES and carefully dremeling the buttons and d-pad loose from their plastic frame. The PCB was cut in half, and the remaining plastic was carefully crafted into round speaker enclosures with the help of some epoxy. hot glue, and possibly a few pieces of styrene.
The result is a perfectly formed pair of SNES headphones, with a build quality right up there with the best case mods we’ve seen. Unfortunately, while the buttons are still attached to the PCB, they don’t do anything. We’re thinking a small Bluetooth adapter – or even repurposing a set of Bluetooth headphones with volume and play controls – would be a wonderful use for the 20-year-old, candy-like buttons.
Still, an awesome build, and [lyberty5] really shows off his craft by constructing these wonderful headphones. You can see the time-lapse of the build after the break.
firehoseoh shit!
In what sounds for all the world like an April Fool's joke until you learn that it was announced at WonderCon yesterday, Dark Horse will release a comic adaptation of George Lucas' first script for Star Wars. Titled "The Star Wars" and starring Annikin Starkiller, General Luke Skywalker and a 6-foot-tall lizard-man Han Solo, it's wildly different from what finally ended up on screen.
firehosethis fucking guy
In an interview with Hot 97’s Angie Martinez, Chris Brown said that Frank Ocean used “sympathy” to win Grammy awards, proving once again that Brown is a even bigger asshole than everyone previously thought. Brown said that he is (obviously) not a fan of the crooner’s music and that he “doesn’t have to go” the sympathy route to make money before sarcastically directing a “have fun!” at Ocean.
Brown also told Martinez that he’s not sure he’ll ever see eye to eye with Drake, who he fought with at a club last year. When asked what Rihanna, who allegedly hooked up with Drake and is currently dating Brown, thought of the issue, Brown responded that he doesn’t really talk about Drake when they’re together, saying instead he “just lay[s] the pipe” and that he doesn’t “pillow talk.” What a gentleman.
Incidentally ...
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In January 2013, Jack McAuliffe — hailed by Bloomberg Businessweek as the “father of American craft brew” — made and sold the first batch of New Albion Ale in 30 years. McAuliffe pioneered the industry in 1976 by founding the New Albion Brewing Company, but filed for bankruptcy in 1982. However, with the help of Boston Beer founder Jim Koch, McAuliffe has produced the first new batch of New Albion Ale since the brewery shuttered. Boston Beer has shipped about 6,000 barrels of the ale thus far, but as Bloomberg Businessweek reports that McAuliffe has no plan to return to the brewing industry. Instead, he’s transferring ownership of the New Albion Brewing Company to his daughter Renee DeLuca who runs The Brewer’s Daughter.
image via 20 West Wine & Spirits
Odin Parker, a well-dressed German Shepherd dog, uses a spoon and his ‘hands’ to eat peanut butter out of a jar. You may remember when we wrote about dogs eating a meal and cookies with their hands.
video via Odin Parker
firehoseeasily the best product in the april fools batch
The Play-Doh 3D Printer and accompanying iPlay-Doh 3D App allow users to design 3D objects on an iPad and print them using up to three different colors of Play-Doh. The printer is primarily crank powered, and is available for purchase at ThinkGeek.
images via ThinkGeek
