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This week I read that Jane Fonda is being honored by the USC School for Dramatic Arts. "The Robert Redford Award for Engaged Artists honors an individual who has used his or her fame to significantly bolster public awareness of important social issues," Madeline Puzo, dean of the USC School of Dramatic Arts, said in a statement Monday morning. "It is our hope that this award will inspire students to be socially engaged in their lives and through their art." I happened across that information online. It made me think back on the many ways in which Fonda has been...

Ellen DeGeneres was a completely slavish toady to President Obama as he appeared on her show to sell Obamacare -- not to young people, but to mothers. The president made his pitch to "especially all the moms out there who may have young people – 26, 27, do not have health insurance, but they think they’re invincible and nothing’s ever going to happen to ‘em – what we’ve said is you never know what life is going to throw at ya." For example, a president who lies about keeping your plan and keeping your doctor. You didn't see that coming!...

Investment & Finance Thread 2014 New Year(Mar. 17 - nexttime edition)This is the thread where folks swap ideas on savings and investment --here's a list of popular investing links that freepers have posted here.  Open invitation continues always for input on ideas for the thread, this being a joint effort works well.   Keywords: financial, WallStreet, stockmarket.  We still hope to include here a ----so let me know if anyone wants on or off this ping.  Be advised that it gets posted only when I'm not feeling lazy and remember that we now know from studies that sloth is completely genetic...

It was supposed to be the most burning crisis in America: the 30 million, 40 million, or even 50 million of us, (depending on which politician was screaming the loudest), who didn't have health insurance and were clamoring to get it in order to avoid everything from bankruptcy to death. So the Obama administration and the Democrats in Congress, gave us the Affordable Care Act. And they did it with such urgency that they didn't care that not a single Republican in Congress voted for it, and they didn't care that it took legislative chicanery to pass it despite the...

If you listen to the President, and other supporters of Obamacare, you might get the impression that the reason why tens of millions of Americans go without health insurance is because these people have pre-existing conditions, and health insurers are too mean to cover them. The truth is quite different. Less than a million Americans lack health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. And it turns out that a good number of Americans are uninsured not because they are sick, but because they are convicted criminals.

It's a step forward in the necessary integration of abortion into other forms of OB-GYN care: Feministing reports that the nation's first-ever birthing center/abortion clinic has opened in Buffalo, N.Y. The clinic, run by Dr. Katharine Morrison, offers a traditional slate of gynecological services, including abortion up to 22 weeks, under the name Buffalo WomenServices. But they also have a freestanding birthing center called the Birthing Center of Buffalo, where women who want a nonhospital birthing experience can go while having the benefit of being attended by a certified nurse midwife and an OB-GYN who has admitting privileges at the...

Obamacare is about to undergo another delay as the Obama administration is looking at pushing back the cancellation of existing, non-compliant plans an extra year, well past this fall’s mid-term elections, according to news reports. The Hill said in a report late Tuesday that the move would avoid an awkward situation for Democrats running for House and Senate seats because cancellation notices on some of those plans that had been extended by one year would go out near the Nov. 4 election.

(Reuters) — Piers Morgan, one of the biggest names in British media and a CNN television host, has been questioned by London police in connection with allegations of phone-hacking at the Daily Mirror tabloid he used to edit. Morgan, a former judge on "America's Got Talent" show who replaced Larry King on CNN in 2011, said in a statement on Thursday he had been interviewed by officers after voluntarily attending a police station in December. The 48-year-old, who has always denied any involvement in phone hacking, was quizzed as part of wider investigations into illegal practices by journalists at Rupert...

The couple and their five children are fond of unusual animals and urban agriculture. So the couple found an emu farm near Martinsville and brought home a chick about a year ago and named it Zazu. “It’s grown up with our family,” Mike Powell said. It started out sleeping in the couple’s bed. “Not the prettiest creature in the world, but we love it,” Mike Powell said. Today, it’s about 5 feet tall, and looks like a shaggy umbrella on long legs with large, reptilian feet. At the end of a long neck is a head with an expression that...

Shooters armed with assault rifles and some knowledge of electrical utilities have prompted new worries on the vulnerability of California's vast power grid. A 2013 attack on an electric substation near San Jose that nearly knocked out Silicon Valley's power supply was initially downplayed as vandalism by Pacific Gas & Electric Co., the facility's owner. Gunfire from semiautomatic weapons did extensive damage to 17 transformers that sent grid operators scrambling to avoid a blackout. But this week, a former top power regulator offered a far more ominous interpretation: The attack was terrorism, he said, and if circumstances had been just...

If you’re moved to click one or both of the following to read the complaint (they’re both the same text) and send an e-mail via that page by clicking where indicated on the red text, I give you my thanks in advance.Mona Gambetta Refuses to Replace Inadvertently Discarded PaymentComplaint 1Rich Dad Poor Dad Owes Me Payment for Copyediting Book Complaint 2

High levels of natural gas are escaping from the aging pipes beneath the streets of the nation’s capital, creating potentially harmful concentrations in some locations, a new study has found. Natural gas leaks pose explosion risks, health concerns, and contribute to climate change. The paper, which appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology, also provides information that could help companies justify additional financial incentives for fixing leaks quickly. Robert Jackson and colleagues note that natural gas leakage is a serious problem on multiple levels, including impacts on the economy and climate. Property damage is estimated at $133 million...

Rosetta, the first spacecraft built to orbit a comet and land a probe on these icy nomads, is now waking up after more than two years of slumber, and videos filmed as part of an international competition will help greet the spacecraft after it awakens. Comets are some of the most primitive building blocks of the solar system, with many dating to soon after its formation. Comets also likely helped seed Earth with water and other ingredients of life. By analyzing the composition of the comet, the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft will help scientists learn more about the role...

HOUSTON—A Mexican national facing execution in Texas this week has drawn support from Mexican officials, a former Texas governor and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, who appealed to Gov. Rick Perry and state courts for a reprieve — so far, unsuccessfully. Edgar Tamayo, 46, a Mexican citizen, is scheduled to be put to death Wednesday for fatally shooting Houston Police Officer Guy Gaddis in 1994. Gaddis, 24, had been flagged down near a nightclub by a man who accused Tamayo of robbing him. The officer arrested Tamayo, handcuffed him and put him in the back of his patrol car....

Interstellar flight certainly ranks among the most daunting challenges ever postulated by human civilization. The distances to even the closest stars are so stupendous that constructing even a scale model of interstellar distance is impractical. For instance, if on such a model the separation of the Earth and sun is 1 inch (2.5 centimeters), the nearest star to our solar system (Proxima Centauri) would be 4.3 miles (6.9 kilometers) away! The fastest object ever built by the human species is the Voyager 1 space probe, moving at a speed of 18 miles per second. If it were heading toward Proxima...

Newly released videos obtained by CBS News suggest that the 16-year-old girl who was run over by a fire truck and killed after surviving a crash on ill-fated Asiana Airlines Flight 214 might have been visible to rescue workers, contradicting earlier reports that she was covered with fire-extinguishing foam. Ye Meng Yuan died at San Francisco International Airport in July. One video, shot from a camera attached to an emergency worker's helmet, captures footage of a firefighter shouting warnings about Ye to a driver of a rescue vehicle. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Stop, stop, stop! There's a body. ... There's a...

BATAVIA — A judge as required by a higher court officially reduced the sentence for Jacquetta Simmons Monday in Genesee County Court. “It was obvious the sentence I imposed I thought appropriate,” Judge Robert C. Noonan said. “I have no discretion to modify the sentence.” Noonan then sentenced Simmons to one year in Genesee County Jail, with credit for time already served. Simmons served about four weeks before she was released after a judge granted her a stay pending appeal. With good behavior, she could be released after about seven months. Simmons was convicted Aug. 24, 2012, of second-degree assault...

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Sarah Campbell would like churches everywhere to supplement the cross with a new symbol of hope — solar panels. That, she said, is exactly what the 750 members of the Mayflower United Church of Christ did last week when they flipped the switch on one of the largest solar arrays in Minneapolis as a brazen and public strike against climate change.

Click on pic or here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VwWRpIinxs