Awesome!

Time for a new What in the world is this!

If you know the answer, send it to: patamon@yahoo.com before Midnext next Tuesday.

First to answer correctly gets 2 points, everyone else who gets it correct gets 1 point.

Only your FIRST answer will count.

Good Luck!

“And when the history is written, it’ll be said that we lived in a safer country, and a more hopeful world, because George Bush was President of these United States.”

Dick Cheney, May 2nd 2008.

Wow.

I mean… wow. How sad, it seems like it’s a Saturday Night Live skit, but it’s not.

Wow

 “Conventional wisdom has it that No Pants Day (which takes place this Friday, May 2) had its beginnings in Austin in the mid-1980s…”

(More here)

Hillary Clinton: ““Rich people, god bless us. We deserve all the opportunities to make sure sour country and our blessings continue to the next generation.”

Are you kidding me?

And she calls Obama “Elitist” for speaking the truth about how working Americans are bitter?

Give me a friggin break, how can ANYONE vote for this pandering “Elitist” Oh oh.. that’s right… she wants to cut the gas taxes this summer like her pal John McBush. Wouldn’t that be grand? Then you would save $30 this summer, at the expense of Highway Infrastructure.

It’s good to know we have such thought provoking Senators running for President offering such amazing solutions to our never-ending dependence on foreign oil.

(barf)

I’m curious to see how many people get this right, I thought I did, but alas I found at the end that I was wrong.

Take the test (it takes 1 minute) and reply to this thread as to how you answered, if anyone gets this correct who hasn’t done it before, I will be amazed. Oh and don’t give away the answer goofs!

Here is this weeks WITWIS.   Know what this is?   It’s part of a famous structure, if you know the answer, email me the name of the structure, answers such as “some white building” will not suffice.

As always, email your answer to: patamon@yahoo.com   

Answers left in the comment section will not count.

The first to answer correctly gets 2 points,  all other correct answers get 1 point, and your first answer counts, so make sure you’re confident in your answer.   You have until Midnight next tuesday to send me your answer.  Good Luck!

A bit of a clue:  This building gets a lot of attention once a year,  and we’re coming up on that time of year.

Brutal, yet effective.

It would appear the Republican Establishment just can deal with that dreaded “D” (Democracy) word.

By Restless

“The treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilization of any country.”  - Winston Churchill

The United States currently incarcerates 738 people per 100,000 of population.  Europe’s average is 200 (The United Kingdom is 145).  Only Russia comes close at 603 per 100,000.

The U.S. is the only Democracy that indefinitely disenfranchises non incarcerated felons, a practice prohibited by the international covenant of civil and political rights to which America is a signatory.

But who cares about these criminals and their namby-pamby “rights?” 
Answer: You do.

Studies show that 2/3rds of ex-convicts vote Democratic.  5.4 Million Were disenfranchised in 2000 and 2004.  Do the math – we should have had a different President all these long years.

Furthermore, allowing those who’ve served their time to vote would have prevented at least 7 key Republicans (John Warner, Connie Mack, Mel Martinez, etc.) from staying in, or getting elected to office.

The United States is also the first country to re-instate the practice of civil death or “Dead in Law” once popular in Europe about 500 years ago.  It is the idea that a person can never repay their debt to society; after they do their penitence (in a penitentiary) they must run a gauntlet of years of parole or probation.

Then, the death part begins: Invasive background checks insure employment or under employment, having a criminal record can keep you from getting an apartment, a government loan, even a driver’s license in some states.

The vaunted dip of unemployment in the 90’s?  Over 2 million prisoners and 600,000 more awaiting trial went uncounted for, and still remain excluded.  Meanwhile, 60% of black men have done time by the time they reach their mid 30’s.

True, the crime rate dipped in the 90’s, but was it the prosperous times, or was it the draconian sentences being meted out daily throughout the land?  As economic times worsen, the crime rate is rising, putting the lie to this cruel practice that harms families and relatives of the Ex-Convict, and society in general.

What’s up with this?  A Society turns on its own people.   Creationism taught in schools, Laissez-faire capitalism is king, a country moving backwards.

“We don’t want to build more prisons; we don’t want to lock people up.” - Sen. Sam Brownback, Conservative Republican, former Presidential Candidate, after spending a night in a cell at Angola prison in Louisiana.

Dateline California –

In a move to ease chronic overcrowding, California approved the largest single prison construction program in the nation’s history.  The plan will cost $8.3 billion and add 53,000 prison beds.

Based on current spending trends, California’s prison budget will over take spending on the states universities in 5 years.  But California has all but guaranteed that prisons will eat up an increasingly large share of the taxpayer’s money because of chronic failures in a system that the state is now planning to expand.

Awesome.

My Favorite quote from this piece…

Bill Maher…

“You know whose bitter in America? I am! Because shit-kickers voted twice for a retarded guy they wanted to have a beer with, and everybody else had to suffer the consequences!”

Pretty much sums up my “bitterness” over the past 8 years.