feylontina's posterous http://feylontina.posterous.com Most recent posts at feylontina's posterous posterous.com Thu, 07 Jun 2012 19:51:17 -0700 Wis. Recall Result Doesn't Dampen Protesters Resolve http://feylontina.posterous.com/wis-recall-result-doesnt-dampen-protesters-re http://feylontina.posterous.com/wis-recall-result-doesnt-dampen-protesters-re

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker resumed his normal schedule Wednesday, one day after surviving a recall election. While he and his Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, were back at work, anti-Walker protesters have not left the Capitol in Madison.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/06/07/154485158/wis-recall-result-doesnt-dampen-protesters-resolve?ft=1&f=1014

fox news

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Thu, 07 Jun 2012 13:51:16 -0700 Walker Moves Forward As The Right's Newest 'Hero' http://feylontina.posterous.com/walker-moves-forward-as-the-rights-newest-her http://feylontina.posterous.com/walker-moves-forward-as-the-rights-newest-her Wisconsin's GOP Gov. Scott Walker made history by pushing back an effort to recall him from office. Walker's salvation was already a vital cause for the conservative movement. Now, there's speculation about what the future holds for the 45-year-old governor.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/06/06/154443420/walker-moves-forward-as-the-rights-newest-hero?ft=1&f=1014

al sharpton

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Wed, 06 Jun 2012 07:51:16 -0700 What Will Happen If Greece Leaves The Eurozone? http://feylontina.posterous.com/what-will-happen-if-greece-leaves-the-eurozon http://feylontina.posterous.com/what-will-happen-if-greece-leaves-the-eurozon

Robert Siegel talks with Greek economist Gikas Hardouvelis in Athens about his skepticism over Greece leaving the Eurozone.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/06/05/154377265/what-will-happen-if-greece-leaves-the-eurozone?ft=1&f=1004

bill clinton

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Thu, 31 May 2012 17:51:09 -0700 Wal-Mart Pulls Out Of Group That Advocates 'Stand Your Ground' Laws http://feylontina.posterous.com/wal-mart-pulls-out-of-group-that-advocates-st http://feylontina.posterous.com/wal-mart-pulls-out-of-group-that-advocates-st The giant retailer has joined the list of major corporations withdrawing their support from the conservative political organization, which advocates a type of law that came under intense focus after the Trayvon Martin killing became a national story.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/05/31/154077536/wal-mart-pulls-out-of-group-that-advocates-stand-your-ground-laws?ft=1&f=1014

al sharpton

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Thu, 24 May 2012 10:51:04 -0700 VP Contenders: Pawlenty And Martinez http://feylontina.posterous.com/vp-contenders-pawlenty-and-martinez http://feylontina.posterous.com/vp-contenders-pawlenty-and-martinez

The Republican National Convention is still three months away, and the guessing continues about whom Mitt Romney, the presumptive nominee, might pick as his running mate. Former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty and current New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez both make some short lists.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/23/153475119/vp-contenders-pawlenty-and-martinez?ft=1&f=1014

hamid karzai

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Tue, 22 May 2012 16:51:13 -0700 Violence Against Women Act in limbo http://feylontina.posterous.com/violence-against-women-act-in-limbo http://feylontina.posterous.com/violence-against-women-act-in-limbo After a high-profile political battle this week over legislation to help victims of domestic abuse, its fate appears to be in limbo. And this policy-dispute-turned-election-year-brawl seems to be far from over.

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/ni3cGw9YoXM/index.html

newt gingrich

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Mon, 21 May 2012 10:51:12 -0700 Romney taps longtime adviser to lead running mate search http://feylontina.posterous.com/romney-taps-longtime-adviser-to-lead-running http://feylontina.posterous.com/romney-taps-longtime-adviser-to-lead-running

Source: http://feeds.foxnews.com/~r/foxnews/politics/~3/ctTkV81LOco/

george w bush

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Sat, 19 May 2012 04:51:12 -0700 Robert Caro's Fix for Political Junkies http://feylontina.posterous.com/robert-caros-fix-for-political-junkies http://feylontina.posterous.com/robert-caros-fix-for-political-junkies Claude Marx, RealClearBooksOften when one is about to read the umpteenth biography of a prominent figure there is the temptation to think of the phrase "everything that can be said has been, though not everyone has said it.'' That's definitely not the case with the fourth volume (out of a projected five) of Robert A. Caro's brilliant, if at times overwritten, biography of Lyndon Johnson.

Source: http://www.realclearbooks.com/articles/2012/05/18/robert_caros_fix_for_political_junkies_15.html

sarah palin

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Tue, 15 May 2012 22:51:10 -0700 Vermont Beer Makers Bring Back Old-Time Maple Sap Brews http://feylontina.posterous.com/vermont-beer-makers-bring-back-old-time-maple http://feylontina.posterous.com/vermont-beer-makers-bring-back-old-time-maple Boiling down the last of the season maple sap and brewing a strong dark beer to share in the summer was a common tradition on Vermont farms a couple of generations ago. The practice had all but died out but is being revived now, thanks to a handful of local brewers.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/05/15/152694105/vermont-beer-makers-bring-back-old-time-maple-sap-brews?ft=1&f=1003

hamid karzai

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Thu, 10 May 2012 10:51:11 -0700 Is a military trial of 9/11 suspects credible? http://feylontina.posterous.com/is-a-military-trial-of-911-suspects-credible http://feylontina.posterous.com/is-a-military-trial-of-911-suspects-credible Douglass Cassel: Why not try them before the same civilian courts that try homegrown terrorists like Timothy McVeigh?

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/XbKCA-6mQDM/index.html

newt gingrich

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Wed, 09 May 2012 22:51:11 -0700 Avenging Reality: Building The Awesome Universe In Fact And Fiction http://feylontina.posterous.com/avenging-reality-building-the-awesome-univers http://feylontina.posterous.com/avenging-reality-building-the-awesome-univers

Way back in 1992, the great saxophonist Branford Marsalis was trying to explain to an interviewer how jazz improvisation always works within constraints. "There's only freedom in structure, my man," he said. "There's no freedom in freedom." Now it might seem like a stretch to some of you, but I think Marsalis' point holds just as true for the great new Avengers movie as it does to Bebop.

Beyond the explosions, sky-cycle-riding aliens and enormous green anti-hero, The Avengers (and the movies which led up to it) achieved a kind of greatness exactly because of its constraints. Like all grand (science) fiction they forced themselves to live within a self-consistent universe of self-consistent rules. Why does that matter? Here is why, take away the superheroes and that's exactly how our universe works: self-consistently and with self-consistent rules.

 

The Avengers is the culmination of five separate films, beginning with Iron Man in 2008. At the end of that movie, Samuel L. Jackson, playing Nick Fury, the director of S.H.I.E.L.D., appears uninvited at Tony Stark's home and tells him: "I'm here to talk with you about the Avengers Initiative".

True comic fans worldwide swooned a swoon of collective joy. Audiences soon learned to wait through the credits to catch a glimpse of the next step on the road to a final adventure. There was the Incredible Hulk, then Iron Man 2, then Thor and finally Captain America: The First Avenger. Each film introduced essential new story elements and new characters to the Avengers cosmos.

But the creators of this Marvel cinematic universe went beyond characters and shared histories. It's the meta-physics (literally) shaping that universe that makes The Avengers so damn good and so enjoyable. It's a shared sense of rules dictating what can, and can not, happen.

While Gods and their magic play an essential role in the film, the writers were careful to link that magic to a science we have yet to understand. This is a point made explicitly in Thor via Arthur C. Clarke's 3rd Law: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Thus the mysterious "Tesseract" driving The Avengers plot is either a divine artifact of great power or a cube containing that most scientific of entities — Dark Energy. Likewise the portals between distant parts of this fictional universe are either the "Rainbow Bridges" of ancient myth or wormholes of modern general relativity. While excellent science advising is one reason these story elements are so engaging, it's the willingness of the series creators to stay within the lines they've drawn for themselves that is just as important. The reason why these lines matter is simple. We already live in a universe with rules.

Once we entered the age of science, magical thinking on a grand cultural scale disappeared. That's what makes politically sponsored prayer vigils to end something like a drought seem like such anachronisms. As a whole, we've come to accept that the universe has rules and our lives play out within their dictates.

When science fiction (or any fiction for that matter) remains true to the contours of its own rules it echoes the reality we inhabit. Star Trek was so successful because it kept both its political and technological universe coherent and consistent.

Bad science fiction (like the original Battlestar Galactica) can't make up its mind about the limits of its own technology, or the socio-political landscape it inhabits. In one episode ships can travel faster than light, in the next they can't, in the one after that they are making hyperspace jumps. The rules change so much that it becomes apparent that there are no rules and it stops being interesting.

And that is where The Avengers shines. Ever since the onslaught of CGI, we denizens of the summertime blockbuster have seen lots of superhero flics. From the flaccid Fantastic Four to the dismal Green Lantern, most of these efforts have been very forgettable. But the Avengers reminds us of something important even as we happily forget ourselves in watching the Hulk batter poor Loki like a ragdoll.

Only by acknowledging how science and technological boundaries limit our stories do we gain the freedom to transcend them and, in the process, invent new narratives of wonderfully heroic proportions.


You can keep up with more of what Adam Frank is thinking on Facebook and Twitter. His latest book is About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2012/05/07/152221369/avenging-reality-building-the-awesome-universe-in-fact-and-fiction?ft=1&f=1057

al gore

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Wed, 09 May 2012 10:51:11 -0700 Roots of Lugar's Defeat Began Back Home http://feylontina.posterous.com/roots-of-lugars-defeat-began-back-home http://feylontina.posterous.com/roots-of-lugars-defeat-began-back-home

May 9, 2012

Roots of Lugar's Defeat Began Back Home

Sean Sullivan, National Journal

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2012/05/09/roots_of_lugar039s_defeat_began_back_home_279435.html

nancy pelosi

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Mon, 07 May 2012 10:51:00 -0700 2012 opponents both moderates http://feylontina.posterous.com/2012-opponents-both-moderates http://feylontina.posterous.com/2012-opponents-both-moderates

Editor's note: Julian Zelizer is a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University. He is the author of "Jimmy Carter" (Times Books) and of the new book "Governing America" (Princeton University Press).

Princeton, New Jersey (CNN) -- This presidential election tells us something unexpected about American politics. For all the talk about polarization and discord in Washington, it appears that both parties will have pragmatic problem-solvers at the top of their tickets.

Democrats have accepted four more years with a pragmatist. President Barack Obama has consistently been willing to anger members of his own party by reaching out to Republicans and often embracing their issues, such as deficit reduction. Rather than a fighting for an ideological agenda, he has instead focused on one problem at a time and accepted the constraints that he faces.

Republicans are settling on former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has spent much of his career avoiding ideological purity. By all accounts, one of his virtues as a leader has been his eagerness to delve into difficult problems and his willingness to experiment when trying to find solutions.

Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_allpolitics/~3/8hPbZEj3tJ4/index.html

al gore

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Sun, 06 May 2012 04:51:08 -0700 Weekly Standard: Obama Asks Students For An 'Amen' http://feylontina.posterous.com/weekly-standard-obama-asks-students-for-an-am http://feylontina.posterous.com/weekly-standard-obama-asks-students-for-an-am

Daniel Halper is the Weekly Standard's online editor.

At an event at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, on April 24, President Barack Obama tried to rouse the crowd by asking for an "amen."

"The fact is that since most of you were born, tuition and fees at America's colleges have more than doubled," Obama said, "And that forces students like you to take out a lot more loans, there are fewer grants, you rack up more debt. Can I get an 'amen'?"

The students responded: "Amen!"

Obama continued: "The average student who borrows to pay for college now graduates with about $25,000 in student loan debt — that's the average, some are more. Can I get an 'amen' for that?"

"Amen," the students responded.

This sort of political religious revivalism has been a theme as the president and his supporters tour the country. Last week, Obama's wife, First Lady Michelle Obama, also used religious language to talk up the president. "I am so in," Michelle Obama said in Nashville, Tennessee. "I am going to be working so hard. We have an amazing story to tell. This president has brought us out of the dark and into the light."


Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/05/04/152014881/weekly-standard-obama-asks-students-for-an-amen?ft=1&f=1057

hamid karzai

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Sat, 28 Apr 2012 16:51:06 -0700 'What Good' Does Congress Do? Don't Ask http://feylontina.posterous.com/what-good-does-congress-do-dont-ask http://feylontina.posterous.com/what-good-does-congress-do-dont-ask

Host Scott Simon speaks with reporter Robert Draper, the author of the new book Do Not Ask What Good We Do. In the book, Draper follows the 112th Congress and the 2010 Republican takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/04/28/151584369/what-good-does-congress-do-dont-ask?ft=1&f=1003

harry reid

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Tue, 24 Apr 2012 04:51:06 -0700 Charity Status Of Conservative Group Challenged http://feylontina.posterous.com/charity-status-of-conservative-group-challeng http://feylontina.posterous.com/charity-status-of-conservative-group-challeng

The conservative group that has seen some corporate donors flee because of its involvement in pushing for voter ID and stand-your-ground gun laws, has new troubles. Common Cause has filed a complaint with the IRS that the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC, violated the limits of its charity tax status.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/04/23/151189585/charity-status-of-conservative-group-challenged?ft=1&f=1014

bill clinton

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Sun, 22 Apr 2012 04:51:16 -0700 The Great California Exodus http://feylontina.posterous.com/the-great-california-exodus http://feylontina.posterous.com/the-great-california-exodus

April 21, 2012

The Great California Exodus

Allysia Finley, Wall Street Journal

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/2012/04/21/the_great_california_exodus_278156.html

john mccain

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Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:51:11 -0700 The Right-Wing Bully Machine http://feylontina.posterous.com/the-right-wing-bully-machine http://feylontina.posterous.com/the-right-wing-bully-machine Eugene Robinson, Washington PostWASHINGTON -- Not all overheated political rhetoric is alike. Delusional right-wing crazy talk -- the kind of ranting we've heard recently from washed-up rock star Ted Nugent and tea party-backed Rep. Allen West -- is a special kind of poison that cannot be safely ignored.Let me be clear: I'm saying that the extreme language we hear from the far right is qualitatively different from the extreme language we hear from the far left -- and far more damaging to the ties that bind us as a nation. Tut-tutting that both sides should tone it down is meaningless. For all intents and purposes,...

Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2012/04/20/the_right-wing_bully_machine_113910.html

john mccain

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Thu, 19 Apr 2012 16:51:06 -0700 Getting Drunk On Stars http://feylontina.posterous.com/getting-drunk-on-stars http://feylontina.posterous.com/getting-drunk-on-stars For Vi Hart, a self-professed math geek, patterns, shapes and numbers are like wine; they make her giddy, speed up her already speedy conversational style, and lead her into drawing dizzying illustrations.

Source: http://www.npr.org/blogs/krulwich/2012/04/17/150761211/getting-drunk-on-stars?ft=1&f=1057

hillary clinton

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Tue, 17 Apr 2012 10:51:12 -0700 Who Has Upper-Hand In Battle For Women Voters? http://feylontina.posterous.com/who-has-upper-hand-in-battle-for-women-voters http://feylontina.posterous.com/who-has-upper-hand-in-battle-for-women-voters

Democrats accused Republicans of waging a "war against women" when reproductive issues took center stage in the GOP primaries. Now a recent gaffe from a Democratic operative is giving Republicans fresh ammunition. Host Michel Martin speaks with former speechwriter and columnist Mary Kate Cary, and Pulitzer-prize winning columnist Connie Schultz.

Source: http://www.npr.org/2012/04/13/150567663/who-has-upper-hand-in-battle-for-women-voters?ft=1&f=1014

bill oreilly

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