Democracy For the Heart of America

Policymakers in Canada must hope that the elephant next door has nothing more than a case of the sniffles. Unfortunately, the diagnosis looks more serious.
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I'm proud to be a part of a movement that's helping more than 2.5 million people to create real, positive change in the fight against extreme poverty and preventable disease.
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As we know, President Obama and his team do not appear to be very effective negotiators when it comes to dealing with the Republicans in Congress. Last December, the Republicans forced the President to renew the Bush tax cuts for the rich. More recently, they got him to make $38 billion in cuts to the 2011 budget even though all his economists know that the economy actually needs more stimulus, which more means spending.

Since the President is having so much trouble dealing with the Republicans the rest of us should lend him a hand. One way we can do this is by etching out what the endgame looks like in the battle over raising the debt ceiling.

As it stands now, we are being told that the Republicans are insisting that there will be no increase in the debt ceiling without large cuts to the budget. Since the Republicans won't go along with any major cuts to the military budget, this means big cuts to the rest of the budget.

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What really infuriates me is that many of the decision-makers in education never taught. Some make claims that they've been in many classrooms -- in the back and taking notes.
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Whether he's playing in front of 20,000 screaming NBA fans or in a tiny gym hosting an L.A. summer league, Kevin Durant brings his A game.

Need some evidence? Check out this unbelievable footage of Durant throwing down a ridiculous solo, off-the-backboard-alley-oop dunk during a recent summer league exhibition in the historic pro-am Drew League. Not bad for the offseason.

The Drew League may not hold games at Madison Square Garden, but with other NBA players including Paul Pierce and Baron Davis, its not exactly soft competition. Not too mention, with an almost inevitable lockout rapidly approaching, this might be the best basketball highlight we see for a while.

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This post originally appeared on The Good Men Project

Vicki Larson and I have been having a fairly heated conversation about what ugly has to do, or not do, with a man being marrying material. Her Huffington Post column got huge attention for claiming that women should choose ugly husbands, lest they be subject to the Weiner/Tiger/Arnold syndrome--appealing and powerful men who crash and burn.

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A strong earthquake struck the Antofagasta region of Chile, near the Bolivia border, this afternoon.

The USGS reports the quake had a magnitude of 6.3 and it took place at 12:35 p.m. local time. Moderate intensity was felt in Alto Hospicio and Iquique.

The quake's epicenter was recorded as 55 miles northeast of Calama and 178 miles northeast of Antofagasta. There are no immediate reports of damage or injuries.

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Paraphrasing the last line of the Declaration of Independence, Shriver said all of us need to "pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor" that the cuts to art education cannot be tolerated.
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Judging by the fact that you're reading Autoblog right now, you most likely love cars. Yet spending all your time ogling the latest in auto news doesn't make you a mechanic, and we're guessing there are a significant number of you (and a few of us on here on staff) who don't change their own brake pads, among other things.

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By Michelle Nichols

U.S. donations to charity rose to $291 billion last year, a study found on Monday, but it was still more than 6 percent below a 2007 record as the nation struggles to recover from its worst recession in decades.

Americans gave nearly 4 percent more in 2010 compared to 2009, the Giving USA Foundation and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University said, perking up after the recession sparked the biggest giving slump in four decades.

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"It's funny to be playing a mom," Elizabeth Reaser says with a laugh. "I mean, I'm not a mom in real life. I don't even have a dog."

But Reaser is playing a mom - again - in The Art of Getting By, which opened June 17. The bittersweet coming-of-age comedy casts her as mother to Emma Roberts, whose relationship with a classmate played by Freddie Highmore is the focus of the film. Reaser plays a woman who, having becoming a parent at a young age, has drifted through several brief marriages and, in her mid-30s, is back on the dating scene in Manhattan.

"Really, I feel much more connected to that age - the daughter - than to this one," says Reaser, 35, in a telephone interview. Still, it's not the first time: As she notes, she plays matriarch to the vampire clan that includes Robert Pattinson in the Twilight film series. But her own relationship with her mother as a teen was a stormy one.

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Source: [b]Washington Post[/b]

Source: [b]MSNBC[/b]

These days, potential heroines are not those filling the screens. Rather, I find myself drawn to the obituary section to learn about women who quietly crossed barriers or found balance long before doing either was expected.
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It's as if a huge state-of-the-art factory has been built to produce one small bells-and-whistles toy that awes children of some ages for a few minutes before they lose interest.
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Gay rights supporters rallied on Saturday in Kentucky after two gay men with disabilities were allegedly forced to leave a city-owned pool, according to multiple reports.

Local station WKYT reports:

In a report released by the city [of Hazard], a lifeguard at the Pavilion alleges the men were repeatedly hugging and kissing. Facility officials say this is inappropriate for both heterosexual and homosexual couples.
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According to a letter published in the Sydney Journal of Medicine, an 45-year-old Australian man in treatment for alcoholism was found to be dangerously drunk after ingesting six 375-milliliter bottles of hand sanitizer from his hospital bathroom. (That's as much liquid as three wine bottles!) His blood alcohol level was 0.271 percent, half way to the often-lethal 0.5 percent. The primary ingredient in most hand sanitizers is isopropyl alcohol, which is not generally considered safe for human consumption. It can still get you drunk—but not without making you sick. And the non-alcoholic additives of hand sanitizers (like fragrances) can be even more dangerous.

Doctors called this case the worst any of them had seen, but it's hardly the first time someone has tried to get drunk off hand sanitizer. Doctors have been reporting alarming incidents for years, often in hospitals. And YouTube is full of videos of teens daring each other to take shots of Germ-X. These cases have led physicians to call for safer hand sanitizer dispenser designs—especially the installation of non-removable canisters in public restrooms, which would make it harder for alcohol-starved to gulp it straight from the bottle.

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Source: [b]Detroit News[/b]

Source: [b]Mediaite[/b]

Source: [b]ASSOCIATED PRESS[/b]