(no subject)

Our gas prices for regular unleaded will probably be over $4.00 a gallon this morning.

I think on the news last night they were saying that a truck stop in either Austin, Mn or Albert Lea, Mn was up to $4.09. That is only about 25-50 miles away. That is a 20 cent increase in just two days.

We are currently $3.99 after a 10 cent one day increase due to the Mississippi flooding down South. Yeah, Right.

Oh, and I would like to give a shout out to the speculators on Wall Street who are tied, in my opinion, for getting the blame for gas prices along side the greedy Oil Companies.

The Oil Companies...
They get our hard earned money through tax subsidies and the rest of our hard earned money at the pump.

When are We going to stand up to our "elected" officals and tell them they belong to the Us and not Big Business?????

(no subject)

The Open Mouth and Insert Foot Award goes to......

Hockey Agent Blasts Sean Avery For Supporting Gay Marriage
posted by: Shannon M.

In what may possibly be the fastest career-limiting move ever seen in the NHL, hockey agent Todd Reynolds responded to Sean Avery's video supporting gay marriage by deciding to blast him on Twitter.

"Very sad to read Sean Avery's misguided support of same-gender 'marriage'. Legal or not, it will always be wrong," wrote Reynolds on his UptownHockey Twitter account yesterday.

Not content to leave it there, he chose to attempt to defend his remarks, apparently in response to the firestorm of negative response he received:

"To clarify. This is not hatred or bigotry towards gays. It is not intolerance in any way shape or form. I believe we are all equal...."

"But I believe in the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. This is my personal viewpoint. I Do not hate anyone."

Now, of course, I agree that everyone's entitled to their personal opinion, bigoted and misinformed though it may be. However, I always find it baffling that people don't think to pause before expressing said personal opinions via social media, particularly through their professional accounts.

Reynolds is Vice-President of Uptown Sports Management, and represents high-profile hockey players like Mike Fisher and Chris Neil. The business of sports agency has exactly nothing to do with the legality or acceptability of gay marriage. By expressing his bound-to-be-controversial opinion via his professional account, he has given his (high profile, multimillion-dollar) clients a reason to be uncomfortable with not only his opinions (should they differ), but also his professionalism as an agent.

In a subsequent interview, Reynolds even as much as dared his client Mike Fisher, the well-liked center for the Nashville Predators, to disagree with him publicly. Fisher, the handsome star player who is well known for having a heart of solid gold, would likely be extremely uncomfortable entering a public war of words with his own agent. Fisher is also married to Nashville darling Carrie Underwood who, being in the music industry, is unlikely to want the taint of anti-gay sentiment anywhere near her.

Reynolds should probably learn to keep his tweets to himself. It's better for business.

Perhaps the most surprising thing of this whole brouhaha? Is the fact that Sean Avery, well known for his own past objectionable comments, is now the one on the high road. Strange times, indeed.

Technically............

Oops! Florida Accidentally Bans Sex
posted by: Robin Marty

We thought that the state of Florida might have a little too much sex on their minds after proposing nearly 20 different abortion bans as well as chastising a legislator for saying "uterus" on the chamber floor.

So I guess we shouldn't be shocked that they sort of accidentally banned sex all together, right?

Southern Fried Science gives the legal wording of the bill, which apparently was meant to ban bestiality (Seriously? You had to ban it to get people to stop?), but, since people are technically animals, essentially bans the act of sexual intercourse all together.

Detractors say that he's being too literal, because courts would recognize the intent of the law wasn't to ban sex all together, and would "almost certainly read the statute's use of the term 'animals' as 'non-human animals'."

If you have to rely on courts "almost certainly" interpreting your law properly, you're doing it wrong.

(no subject)

I am so glad I went to school back in the dark ages when they taught REAL science.......

Texas Biology Class Would Teach Life As "Result of Intelligent Causes"
posted by: Robin Marty

Ready for biology class to teach your kids that evolution is a failed, disproven theory, so God must have done it? Well, if you're in Texas, you're one step closer, as a proposed online biology textbook explicitly teaches Intelligent Design.

Via Mother Jones:


The textbook's "Origin of Life" chapter details lab experiments that have failed to create life from inorganic materials, concluding that there is a huge gap between "life" and "non-life" ... But from there it makes the considerable leap that biological explanations for the origin of life are discredited. "[T]he legitimate scientific hypothesis," it argues, is that "life on Earth is the result of intelligent causes."

The notes to teachers accompanying the chapter leave little doubt that pushing a belief in God is the ultimate goal:

[A]t the end of the instructional unit on the Origin of Life students should go home with the understanding that a new paradigm of explaining life's origins is emerging from the failed attempts of naturalistic scenarios. This new way of thinking is predicated on the hypothesis that intelligent input is necessary for life's origins.
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