In fact, I fear I am a jack-of-all-trades.

1.5M ratings
277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
kellyoxenfree thedailywhat
thedailywhat: “ Seaver Family Smackdown of the Day: Tracey Gold and Alan Thicke have taken to their respective Twitter accounts to respond to homophobic remarks recently made by their Growing Pains co-star, Kirk Cameron. In an interview with Piers...
thedailywhat

Seaver Family Smackdown of the Day: Tracey Gold and Alan Thicke have taken to their respective Twitter accounts to respond to homophobic remarks recently made by their Growing Pains co-star, Kirk Cameron.

In an interview with Piers Morgan on his CNN talk show last week, Cameron said he thought homosexuality was “unnatural,” “detrimental” and “ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization.”

Gold, who played Cameron’s sister Carol Seaver on the popular 80’s sitcom tweeted an unequivocal rejection of her TV sibling’s anti-gay sentiments. “I am a strong supporter of the #LGBT Community, and I believe in equal rights for all. #NOH8 #LOVE,” she wrote.

Alan Thicke, patriarch of the Seaver clan, posted a more indirect, but no less unambiguous rebuke of Cameron, saying “I’ll deal with Kirk’s comments as soon as I recover from Rush Limbaugh’s.”

Perhaps the best burn of all came from Sports Night actor Josh Charles, who himself was not a Growing Pains cast member: “I know Growing Pains was only a tv show, but I have to think both Alan Thicke & Joanna Kerns must feel they failed as parents tonight.”

We know what Thicke thinks, but as-yet no word from Mrs. Seaver.

For his part, Piers Morgan praised Cameron for his remarks, calling him “pretty brave” for expressing his “honest” beliefs.

[queerty / tmz.]

kellyoxenfree

I am just surprised they referenced Sports Night instead of The Good Wife for Josh Charles.

sports night
helcinda sexyglances

Birth Control 101 For Idiots

bemusedlybespectacled

This is hormonal birth control.

image

As you can see on the box, you take exactly one pill per day. To make sure it works, you need to take one pill every day at the same time, or it stops working. You take only one pill, and you keep taking them regardless of what you are doing that day.

Hormonal birth control can be used to treat a lot of different diseases, like anemia caused by excessive menstruation. It is a prescription medication that can cost around $15-50 a month. Because it is a prescription medication, it should be covered by insurance, as it treats legitimate health problems.

This is Viagra.

image

It, too, can treat legitimate health problems like altitude sickness and pulmonary hypertension, but it is usually prescribed for erectile dysfunction. Unlike the Pill, Viagra is taken every time you want to have sex. A lot of health insurance companies cover Viagra, so it costs about as much as your co-pay.

This is a condom.

image

It is not a prescription medication, and has no health benefits (besides the prevention of STIs and pregnancy). Like Viagra, you must use one before you have sex: indeed, before each sex act. They cost about a dollar per condom.

This is Sandra Fluke.

image

She testified before a small, Democrat-led hearing after she was cut out of the actual birth control/insurance discussion. Her testimony was about a friend of hers who, because her insurance did not cover birth control, lost an ovary due to an ovarian cyst.

This somehow translates into “I, myself, personally, am having so much sex I can’t afford birth control, and so I want the government to pay for it.”

This is wrong for multiple reasons.

  1. It was about a friend, not her. To say her testimony was about her personally is factually incorrect.
  2. Sex had nothing to do with the testimony - her friend lost an ovary because of medical condition that was left untreated. A medical condition that was completely treatable, but wasn’t, because her insurance wouldn’t cover it. To say that her testimony was about her being “a slut” or “a prostitute” is factually incorrect.
  3. Even if she was having loads of sex, she would still only have one pill a day, not one pill per sex act, so to say “I’m having so much sex I can’t afford birth control” is completely erroneous. The Pill is not Viagra or condoms. To say that she is such “a slut” that she constantly needs more pills is factually incorrect.
  4. The current political debate is not “should the government pay for birth control?” The debate is “should insurance companies, that people and their employers pay for, on their own, be required to cover birth control?” To say that Sandra Fluke wants the government to pay for her birth control is factually incorrect.
  5. Religious organizations do not want to have birth control covered by their insurance, even for employees not of their faith, even if their employees never actually use their insurance to cover birth control. By this logic, they should also not pay their employees, because they could use that money to pay for birth control out of pocket. To say that this issue is about religious freedom and not about women’s health is disingenuous, as Ms. Fluke’s testimony demonstrates.

Hopefully this makes things a little clearer.

stfuconservatives hissingbooth-blog

Top 10 Immigration Myths and Facts

welcomingrhodeisland

  1. MYTH - Immigrants don’t pay taxes
    All immigrants pay taxes, whether income, property, sales, or other. As far as income tax payments go, sources vary in their accounts, but a range of studies find that immigrants pay between $90 and $140 billion a year in federal, state, and local taxes. Even undocumented immigrants pay income taxes, as evidenced by the Social Security Administration’s “suspense file” (taxes that cannot be matched to workers’ names and social security numbers), which grew $20 billion between 1990 and 1998.
    National Academy of Sciences, Cato Institute, Urban Institute, Social Security Administration

  2. MYTH - Immigrants come here to take welfare
    Immigrants come to work and reunite with family members. Immigrant labor force participation is consistently higher than native-born, and immigrant workers make up a larger share of the U.S. labor force (12.4%) than they do the U.S. population (11.5%). Moreover, the ratio between immigrant use of public benefits and the amount of taxes they pay is consistently favorable to the U.S., unless the “study” was undertaken by an anti-immigrant group. In one estimate, immigrants earn about $240 billion a year, pay about $90 billion a year in taxes, and use about $5 billion in public benefits. In another cut of the data, immigrant tax payments total $20 to $30 billion more than the amount of government services they use.
    American Immigration Lawyers Association, Urban Institute

  3. MYTH - Immigrants send all their money back to their home countries
    In addition to the consumer spending of immigrant households, immigrants and their businesses contribute $162 billion in tax revenue to U.S. federal, state, and local governments. While it is true that immigrants remit billions of dollars a year to their home countries, this is one of the most targeted and effective forms of direct foreign investment.
    Cato Institute, Inter-American Development Bank

  4. MYTH - Immigrants take jobs and opportunity away from Americans
    The largest wave of immigration to the U.S. since the early 1900s coincided with our lowest national unemployment rate and fastest economic growth. Immigrant entrepreneurs create jobs for U.S. and foreign workers, and foreign-born students allow many U.S. graduate programs to keep their doors open. While there has been no comprehensive study done of immigrant-owned businesses, we have countless examples: in Silicon Valley, companies begun by Chinese and Indian immigrants generated more than $19.5 billion in sales and nearly 73,000 jobs in 2000.
    Brookings Institution

  5. MYTH - Immigrants are a drain on the U.S. economy
    During the 1990s, half of all new workers were foreign-born, filling gaps left by native-born workers in both the high- and low-skill ends of the spectrum. Immigrants fill jobs in key sectors, start their own businesses, and contribute to a thriving economy. The net benefit of immigration to the U.S. is nearly $10 billion annually. As Alan Greenspan points out, 70% of immigrants arrive in prime working age. That means we haven’t spent a penny on their education, yet they are transplanted into our workforce and will contribute $500 billion toward our social security system over the next 20 years.
    National Academy of Sciences, Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University, Federal Reserve

  6. MYTH  - Immigrants don’t want to learn English or become Americans
    Within ten years of arrival, more than 75% of immigrants speak English well; moreover, demand for English classes at the adult level far exceeds supply. Greater than 33% of immigrants are naturalized citizens; given increased immigration in the 1990s, this figure will rise as more legal permanent residents become eligible for naturalization in the coming years.              U.S. Census Bureau, U.S. Department of Homeland Security (Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services)

  7. MYTH - Today’s immigrants are different than those of 100 years ago
    The percentage of the U.S. population that is foreign-born now stands at 11.5%; in the early 20th century it was approximately 15%. Similar to accusations about today’s immigrants, those of 100 years ago initially often settled in mono-ethnic neighborhoods, spoke their native languages, and built up newspapers and businesses that catered to their fellow émigrés. They also experienced the same types of discrimination that today’s immigrants face, and integrated within American culture at a similar rate. If we view history objectively, we remember that every new wave of immigrants has been met with suspicion and doubt and yet, ultimately, every past wave of immigrants has been vindicated and saluted.
    U.S. Census Bureau

  8. MYTH - Most immigrants cross the border illegally
    Around 75% have legal permanent (immigrant) visas; of the 25% that are undocumented, 40% overstayed temporary (nonimmigrant) visas.
    INS Statistical Yearbook

  9. MYTH - Weak U.S. border enforcement has lead to high undocumented immigration
    From 1986 to 1998, the Border Patrol’s budget increased sixfold and the number of agents stationed on our southwest border doubled to 8,500. The Border Patrol also toughened its enforcement strategy, heavily fortifying typical urban entry points and pushing migrants into dangerous desert areas, in hopes of deterring crossings. Instead, the undocumented immigrant population doubled in that timeframe, to 8 million— despite the legalization of nearly 3 million immigrants after the enactment of the Immigration Reform and Control Act in 1986. Insufficient legal avenues for immigrants to enter the U.S., compared with the number of jobs available to them, have created this current conundrum.
    Cato Institute

  10. MYTH - The war on terrorism can be won through immigration restrictions
    No security expert since September 11th, 2001 has said that restrictive immigration measures would have prevented the terrorist attacks—instead, they key is good use of good intelligence. Most of the 9/11 hijackers were here on legal visas. Since 9/11, the myriad of measures targeting immigrants in the name of national security have netted no terrorism prosecutions. In fact, several of these measures could have the opposite effect and actually make us less safe, as targeted communities of immigrants are afraid to come forward with information.
    Newspaper articles, various security experts, and think tanks
helcinda hellomcee
ascendent: “ r1such4n: “ jwisser: “ For some inexplicable reason, I would now like a long-running animated live-action whatever series about a teenaged Calvin and Hobbes, set in a world in which magic is real and Calvin wields it. Hobbes becoming a...
r1such4n

jwisser:

For some inexplicable reason, I would now like a long-running animated live-action whatever series about a teenaged Calvin and Hobbes, set in a world in which magic is real and Calvin wields it. Hobbes becoming a ‘real’ tiger when Calvin was alone was only the first demonstration of his powers, albeit a typical one—most mages have some kind of sentient familiar generated by their subconscious that accompanies them well into adulthood, if not throughout their lives.

Calvin was taken from his parents and raised by a secret society of wizards not long after the end of the comic; his frequent abduction nightmares as a child were actually his subconscious’s way of dealing with their tendency to check up on his development from time to time and then block his memories of the event afterwards. His parents’ memories of him (and Hobbes) were similarly blocked when he was taken.

Calvin eventually escaped from the faction of wizards he was raised by, as he wanted no part in their ongoing war with another group. He now lives with Hobbes in the city, a streetwise teen whose combination of unfettered imagination and magic serves him very well in avoiding attention—whether from the mundane authorities or the magical factions who often try to forcefully “recruit” the unaligned. Hobbes gained a more realistic tiger-ish appearance as Calvin’s imagination matured.

As the show opens, Susie Derkins has moved to the city where Calvin now lives to attend college. Unlike his parents, Susie still remembers Calvin very clearly—and thought she’s not inclined to admit it to anyone else, still misses her first crush dearly. When they meet, Calvin is forced to keep the truth about himself hidden from her to prevent her from becoming involved in his world.

Other concepts:

  • In one early episode, Calvin is forced—despite extreme reluctance and embarrassment—to once again don the identity of Stupendous Man in order to save Susie without giving away his secrets.
  • Rosalyn was actually the daughter of the head of one of the magical factions who used to check up on him on her father’s behalf; she can be reintroduced as a morally grey character who sometimes hunts and sometimes aides Calvin.
  • Once a sufficient number of episodes have passed to ensure Calvin is an adult in the minds of viewers, Rosalyn can potentially use “feminine wiles” to get something she wants from Calvin in the standard an experienced challenger appears/primary interest becomes jealous/hero makes wrong choice/hero regrets wrong choice because experienced challenger was just using him all along/hero apologises to love interest for being a moron scenario.
  • Susie Derkins had a stuffed animal called Mr. Bun that she spoke to as a child. Insert “Is she a witch too?” story arc here.
  • The standard class issues of Susie the college girl (plus the unexpected issue of her college girlfriend) and Calvin the streetwise kid should be good for at least an episode or two once their love/hate romance is rekindled.
  • Standard gritty city magic plots work well here; many concepts useful in a show like Angel will also work well for Calvin and Hobbes, although magical Nazi demons are probably not appropriate.
  • The magical factions should provide more than enough for Calvin to keep up with all on their own. Although he never says it aloud, Calvin has appointed himself as a sort of balancing force; he works to keep any one faction from gaining too much power in the city while staying at least one step ahead of all of them.

…uh.

What I meant was.

This drawing is cool.

Jonas Wisser, you are my hero.

ascendent

jesus christ can this just exist already