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THE QUOTE
“It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle class security all bear the union label.” — Barack Obama
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PAY ‘EM!
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TOP OF THE HILLER
Congrats to Pencillista Nancy R. Hiller for earning state kudos on her fab tome, “A Home of Her Own.”
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The Hiller opus was named a finalist in the Best Books of Indiana: Nonfiction 2012 beauty contest this week.
Hey, I ain’t the only guy who can write around here.
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GEEK LOVE
A quick reminder: Bloomington’s Science Cafe fires up again Wednesday, September 12th.
IU experimental nuclear physicist Michael Snow will deliver the first presentation on Antimatter.
Physicist Michael Snow
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Brain scientist Alex Straiker, who’s organizing this latest incarnation with lab-mate Jim Wager-Miller, says the shebang will begin at 6:30pm at Rachael’s Cafe.
This fall’s science topics will also include “The First Americans,” “Climate Change and Bloomington,” and “Brain-Machine Interfaces: Eye Tracking.”
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FLYNT HUSTLES MITT
Hustler was among the worst porn I’ve ever seen in my life.
I say was because I haven’t seen the mag in years. Maybe even decades.
So I have no idea what unflattering poses its intentionally half-witted looking models are being put into these days. Suffice it to say I recall them reclining akimbo to such an extent that were I so trained, I could proffer them instant cervical exams from afar.
That is, were I moved open the mag’s pages.
I just never found the thing arousing. I consider my tastes in unclad women fairly, um, progressive. I mean I don’t need my pix of naked ladies to feature impossibly long-legged and wasp-waisted, vacant-staring, “hotties” with plastic half-cantaloupes on their chests.
That’s me. Apparently the vast majority of American male-dom (male-dumb?) digs that look. Hustler had it in spades.
Duh
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The mag’s circulation stands at around half a million these days, down from a high of 3 million per month in its pre-Interwebs hayday.
Larry Flynt, the visionary behind Hustler, long has been a scourge to the Right, specifically its self-appointed plaster saints like the late Jerry Falwell and the regrettably still-respiring Gov. Rick Perry. That alone earns my grudging respect for him even though I hold my nose while stating it.
And now Flynt has flopped a million bucks on the table, calling for anyone in this holy land to produce Mitt Romney’s tax records.
You know, those things Ann Romney, hands on hips, jaw set, has refused to allow us to see. She says she and her special guy have nothing to hide, therefore they’re hiding the returns.
We’ve Given ‘You People’ Enough!
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If someone does come through with the docs that’ll tie Romney in with an arch-criminal, global, underground, crushing tyrannical corporate syndicate looking to addict the world population to dangerous chemicals, financial “instruments,” and magic underwear, then a million bucks’-worth of the dough Flynt made portraying woman as DNA receptacles will have done some good.
Of course, it’ll be just as good if the elusive tax returns simply reveal the Romneys to be richer than the spooky god they worship.
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I CAN SEE FOR MILES AND MILES AND MILES….
Here, thanks to I Fucking Love Science (or, for the more skittish among us, Science Is Awesome) is a comparison of the mirror sizes of the Hubble Space Telescope and the proposed James Webb Space Telescope.
Is there an “edge” to the Universe? Maybe, the JWST will allow us to see it.
From NASA: James Webb vs. Hubble — How Do They Compare?
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From The Moscow Times we learn that Russkies are dying to sound like bossman Vladimir Putin.
Apparently, Putin is the most accomplished of Russian leaders when it comes to prevaricating in the language of his land.
Silver Tongues
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In that, he’s like our very own Bill Clinton.
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