The Good News

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

So... I've been told by those near to me that I have lately been a tad depressing to talk to. My favorite topic lately is how much people suck, how the world is going to hell in a handbasket, and how nothing we do matters. Cheery, right?

So... in the interest of focusing on something other than that shadow side of human existence...

The Good News:

Prison Transformed into Art Center
http://www.wusa9.com/news/local/story...

Mexico City turns garbage dump into community garden
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0905/p0...

Jumper with chute problems survives mile high fall
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,4...

on this day in 1997, Sinn Fein, the Irish Republican Army's political arm, formally renounced violence as it took its place in talks on Northern Ireland's future.

Garments Without Guilt (GWG) teaches that to be truly concerned about workers means showing an interest in the sustainability of their natural environment. So in addition to corporate social responsibility (CSR) projects to improve the water and general living conditions of the workers, Sri Lanka Apparel’s member manufacturers are joining with large retail giants such as Marks & Spencer and the GAP, to ease the factories' environmental impact.

and Barak Obama is running for president. His education platform, his reproductive rights platform, his civil rights platform... and pretty much every other issue he has addressed... make me proud and happy to live in this country.

[Ruth]

Good news indeed:
and Barak Obama is running for president. His education platform, his reproductive rights platform, his civil rights platform... and pretty much every other issue he has addressed... make me proud and happy to live in this country.

The bad news? He's in trouble. I want to go out and shoot myself.

[Jackie "the Librarian", Cool Star Trek Nerd]

I know, Ruth. I don't get it! How is McCain's platform more appealing? How?!?

Obama's tax cuts are better for middle and lower class folks, he's got a better plan for health care, and he's got just about the exact same plan for energy as McCain. And he won't drag us into a war with Iran!

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

time will tell, ladies. let us not despair... especially in the Good News thread!!! : )

[Jackie "the Librarian", Cool Star Trek Nerd]

Oh, right. Good news.

Uh, at least OUR election news is dominated by an ad featuring a puffin pooping on one of the candidates! No, only Canada would stoop that low.
Pooping puffin paralyzes Canada Conservative event

Hee!

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

dude, seriously, only the Canadians would use a Puffin. Here in the US it would have totally been a Bald Eagle.

[RandomAnthony]

Yes, a couple friends sent me the puffin article because I made the dire mistake of once admitting that I had a dream in which a puffin attacked me.

I tend to frame most scenarios as challenges, which comes off negatively...today while teaching I tried to push the idea that kids growing up in the culture of poverty have many strengths but I'm afraid I still sounded like I utilized a deficit model.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

lookie! KD is happy as a pig in shit!!! : )

[Not Bill]

New episode of Bizarre Foods tonight...Andrew Zimmern ate puffin. Mighty tasty it looked.

[Jackie "the Librarian", Cool Star Trek Nerd]

Hey, Not Bill, can't you read the sign?

[Not Bill]

Hey Jackie...looks like Andrew was doin' ya a favor. The sooner we eat the lot, the better.

[Servius Heiner]

Good news... good news... good news, I think that might be an oxymoron but I'll give it a stab...

I saw the northern lights last night, not the uber cool multi-colored ones, but the 30 shades of green ones. pretty cool.

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

Oh Nick, the Aurora Borealis is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. It was like seeing the face of God. That is definitely one of the benefits of living in the middle of bumblefuck alaska.

[Servius Heiner]

Yeah, I dig them. There worth the bone shivering cold.

[RandomAnthony]

That is definitely one of the benefits of living in the middle of bumblefuck alaska.

Something tells me Char's in a feisty mood...

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

is it my hair? : )

[RandomAnthony]

Your hair is always good, Charissa...

[Servius Heiner]

fiesty hair good news

Burn after reading comes out friday, thats good no?

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

OMG... I can hardly wait to see the new Coen Bros!!!! Yippiee!!!!

aw thanks RA... actually at the moment it is unbrushed, having rolled out of bed, driven my kid to the bus, and not bothered brushing it or getting dressed. it probably does look a little fiesty.

[RandomAnthony]

Like a witch's hair!

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

I'm not a witch, they dressed me up like this.

[RandomAnthony]

Nick, pull her hair and see if it's real. It might be a witch wig.

[Not Bill]

....I'll get the scales and the duck

[Jackie "the Librarian", Cool Star Trek Nerd]

When the Communists took over in Russia in 1917, the first leader, Vladimir Lenin, was bald. His successor, Joseph Stalin, was hairy.

Stalin's successor (we're skipping an interim leader, Georgy Malenkov, who never got to be chairman), Nikita Khrushchev, was bald. Next up: Leonid Brezhnev (hairy). Then, in rapid succession, came Yuri Andropov (bald), Konstantin Chernenko (hairy), Mikhail Gorbachev (bald), Boris Yeltsin (hairy), Vladimir Putin (very, very thin on top) — and last and maybe least, today's Dmitry Medvedev (hairy).

Listen to the SONG from the NPR report this morning on this startling pattern among Russian leaders.
Baldness Pattern: A New Cold War Analysis

[Charissa, That's Ms. Obnoxious Twat to You.]

that was highly amusing. also, it has a beat, you can dance to it! I give it a 9.5 Jackie.