Should baby formula ads be banned?

“Aggressive” tactics have led to shifts in breastfeeding rates — how can parents turn them around?

Salon.com

Should baby formula ads be banned?

The Guilty Men (2003) - LBJ conspiracy theory -Banned Men Who Killed Kennedy

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The Guilty Men (2003) - LBJ conspiracy theory -Banned Men Who Killed Kennedy

Midday open thread: Bill tweet-teases Dubya, U.S. ivory sales banned

• Today’s comic by Jen Sorensen is The dignity of work:
  
  
  
  


• These Daily Kos community posts were the most shared on Facebook Feb. 17:
  
  

  1 in 4 Americans don’t think Earth revolves around the Sun, by BruinKid
  

  A Common Thread Among Young-Earth Creationists, Gun Enthusiasts, Marriage Exclusivists, and the 1%, by GrafZeppelin127

  
  

  Winners of Prestigious Journalism Award Afraid to Travel to U.S. to Accept It, by David Harris Gershon

  
  

  
  

• The deadline to submit a proposal for a panel, training or Screening Series session for Netroots Nation 2014 is Wednesday (Feb. 19). The full guidelines and submission form are at www.netrootsnation.org/proposals. The conference is July 17-20 in Detroit.


• Big Dog gently needles Dubya: Late on Presidents Day, former President Bill Clinton teased his successor, George W. Bush, for not being on Twitter.

Happy #PresidentsDay – to #44 (@BarackObama), #43 (#HowAreYouNotOnTwitter?), #41 (@GeorgeHWBush), & #39. #PresidentialTweeters
— @billclinton

Among the thousands of retweeters was President Barack Obama.

• Disgraced former Congressman Mel Reynolds busted in Zimbabwe for pornography:

He brought several Zimbabwean models and other women to his hotel room where he took photographs and videos, the newspaper reported. [...]

Reynolds complained that he was not expecting such treatment when he had brought investors to the country, according to the newspaper. He said he had been to Zimbabwe 17 times and had called for U.S. sanctions to be dropped against President Robert Mugabe and his top associates.

This is the latest of several legal problems for Reynolds, an Illinois Democrat, who once was a Rhodes scholar. Reynolds resigned from his congressional seat in 1995 after he was convicted of 12 counts of statutory rape, obstruction of justice and solicitation of child pornography. While in prison he was also convicted of bank and campaign fraud. He was in jail until his sentence was commuted by President Bill Clinton in Jan. 2001.

• An untoppable obit for Bill Eves:

After his retirement he pursued some of his many hobbies including cooking, carpentry, gardening and sending daily joke emails to family and friends. Perhaps most important to Bill was educating people on the dangers of holding in your farts. Sadly, he was unable to attain his life-long goal of catching his beloved wife Judy “cutting the cheese” or “playing the bum trumpet”—which he likened to a mythical rarity like spotting Bigfoot or a unicorn. He also mastered the art of swearing while being splattered by grease cooking his famous wings. In fact, he wove tapestry of obscenities that still hangs over the Greater Kingston Area

• Can creationist junk bonds keep Ken Ham’s Noah’s Ark theme park afloat?


• Having been told FDR died Monday, people offer condolences on TV:

Jimmy Kimmel sent a crew to get reactions to the “news” that Franklin Delano Roosevelt died yesterday. Big surprise: plenty of people wanted to be on teevee despite having no idea what they were talking about.

• Obama administration will prohibit most ivory sales. The ban, which is part of a new National Strategy for Combating Wildlife Trafficking, is not as complete as at least one Congressman would like it to be, but it is a good deal stricter than before. The U.S. is the world’s second largest market for ivory:

This unprecedented action is in response to the escalating and highly organized wildlife trafficking crime that threatens the survival of the African elephant, rhinoceros and a host of other species around the world.

“We are seeing record high demand for wildlife products that is having a devastating impact, with species like elephants and rhinos facing the risk of significant decline or even extinction.” said [Secretary of Interior] Sally Jewell. “A commercial ban is a critical element in the President’s strategy to stop illegal wildlife trafficking and to shut down criminal markets that encourage poaching.”

• Arkansas open carry advocates feel sure a new law endorses their position, but law enforcement disagrees, which is clearly tyranny. Armando on Hillary Clinton and 2016; Obama attacked over expansion of executive power.
  

Daily Kos

Midday open thread: Bill tweet-teases Dubya, U.S. ivory sales banned

Sportswriter Who Let Readers Fill Out Hall Of Fame Ballot Is Banned

After it was revealed that he used his Baseball Hall of Fame voter ballot to pass along the suggestions of readers of the sports site Deadspin, Dan Le Batard has been stripped of his membership in the Baseball Writers Association of America. He is also banned from all future Hall of Fame votes.

Le Batard is a columnist for The Miami Herald who is also on ESPN radio and TV. He said Thursday that he worked with Deadspin to turn his ballot over to sports fans for many reasons, emphasizing a need for reform in Hall of Fame voting.

After initially announcing on Twitter that he could not attend a baseball game with a media credential for one year as part of the punishment, Le Batard corrected that, saying he “can be credentialed but can’t vote on awards and my card revoked for constitutional max of one year.”

In a statement released Thursday, BBWAA President La Velle E. Neal III wrote:

“The BBWAA Board of Directors has decided to remove Dan Le Batard’s membership for one year, for transferring his Hall of Fame ballot to an entity that has not earned voting status. The punishment is allowed under the organization’s constitution.

“In addition, Le Batard will not be allowed to vote on Hall of Fame candidates from this point on.

“The BBWAA regards Hall of Fame voting as the ultimate privilege, and any abuse of that privilege is unacceptable.”

After the Hall of Fame voting results were announced Wednesday, Deadspin published an account in which it said its readers’ choices were similar to the official picks, with Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Frank Thomas at the top of the list. Those three players were voted into the hall Wednesday, as The Two-Way reported.

Deadspin called Le Batard “the voter who joined us in making a farce and mockery of the increasingly solemn election process by turning his vote over to you, the readers.”

In the same post, the columnist said he could face a ban for his act, for which he received no compensation, according to Deadspin. He also said he had many reasons for risking it — and that he didn’t regret letting the readers choose for him.

“I happen to agree with most of the reader selections,” Le Batard wrote. “I was afraid you guys were going to have me voting for Jacque Jones and no one else.”

News

Sportswriter Who Let Readers Fill Out Hall Of Fame Ballot Is Banned

Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion BANNED TED TALK

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Rupert Sheldrake - The Science Delusion BANNED TED TALK

VIDEO: Katy Perry"s New Album Labeled a "Bio-Hazard"

Katy Perry’s new album has been labeled a “bio-hazard” down under! When Australia’s agriculture department announced they would be reviewing Katy’s album, Prism, they weren’t talking about the tunes! They wanted to check out the packaging that includes a packet of flower seeds in every copy! Here’s the issue- while Katy was urging fans to plant the seeds and spread the light, Australia doesn’t know where the seeds came from and if they are disease and pest free. Long story short, the Aussie copies won’t contain the seeds!

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VIDEO: Katy Perry"s New Album Labeled a "Bio-Hazard"

Work banned on furlough, but who"s enforcing?

There’s skepticism about whether workers would get in trouble for picking up a BlackBerry. | AP Photo

Federal employees on furlough know the drill by now: Answer emails, return phone messages or do any other government work during the shutdown and face upward of $ 5,000 in fines and two years in prison.

We’ll see about that.

Continue Reading

There is indeed a law — a very old, 19th-century one dating to the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant — that prohibits working without funds from Congress. It’s right there near the top of the Constitution, too.

But no one in recent memory has ever been criminally prosecuted for violating the 1870 Antideficiency Act. So with the shutdown entering its third week, it’s not surprising that there’s also a good deal of skepticism — and confusion — about whether anyone stuck at home without pay would really get in trouble for picking up a BlackBerry to clean out an overstuffed inbox.

(PHOTOS: House GOP meets on shutdown, debt deal)

After all, the line for who’s “essential” and who’s not keeps getting blurrier. Some agencies are only now going dark, while the Central Intelligence Agency and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently recalled some of their employees from the shutdown. The national parks are opening in places where states can foot the bill. And the Pentagon’s OK with its military academies playing football games.

Even the shutdown police themselves — agency inspectors general who rely on the honor system method where perpetrators report themselves — are furloughed right now, too.

“It seems to me unlikely that A: Anyone is going to spend a lot of time hunting for it, and B: It’s unlikely they’ll get any more than a notice in their personnel file,” said a former government official involved in planning for the shutdowns in 1995 and 1996.

Of course, no one is being flagrant by working without pay when they shouldn’t. Queries to several agencies for insight into how they‘re dealing with enforcement went unanswered out of concern that just engaging with a POLITICO reporter could be deemed a violation since it might not be critical to government operations.

(PHOTOS: 25 great shutdown quotes)

Part of it is the Darrell Issa factor: The fear of giving the flamethrowing chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee another reason to investigate the Obama administration. The California Republican already has a government shutdown hearing scheduled Wednesday about the National Park Service’s decision to close the World War II Memorial when veterans groups were arriving for visits.

Another reason workers are taking the shutdown seriously is that while experts can’t recall a recent criminal prosecution for breaking the law, there have still been plenty of wrist slaps and the occasional firing. According to Government Accountability Office records, agencies between fiscal years 2005 and 2012 reported 164 violations, with more than half of those coming from the Defense Department.

Typical problems centered on spending out of the wrong pot of money or a mistake with government procurement. In one 2005 report, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration investigated itself and found 80 illegal license and lease agreements dating back to 1923. NOAA made changes to its real estate practices but didn’t bring the violations to the Justice Department because the employees who signed the contracts didn’t make the error in a “willful or knowing” manner.

(PHOTOS: 18 times the government has shut down)

Jim Dyer, a former White House legislative aide during the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations and later the GOP staff director for the House Appropriations Committee, said he’d often flag violations to the Office of Management and Budget.

“It’s not the type of thing that anyone suffers a fine or imprisonment on,” Dyer said. “It deserves to be respected and fixed.”

Experts on the law say that federal employees breaking the rules during the shutdown wouldn’t be on the radar of investigators until weeks or months after the shutdown ends anyway.

“Anti-deficiency problems are generally not policed in what we call real time,” said Daniel Gordon, the former Obama White House administrator for federal procurement policy and before that, a senior GAO attorney.

(QUIZ: How well do you know John Boehner?)

Enforcing rules during the shutdown — if and when investigators even get there — will also be a bit different than Antideficiency Act cases from recent years. The amount of time that a furloughed employee might spend on work is likely to be minimal. And even if workers were trying to be productive, they’re unlikely to find the normal range of responsive colleagues.

Checking on what crosses the line remains a challenge too. Government investigators have the capacity to monitor which employees are using their work devices. But it can get trickier with personal cell phones that also can handle work emails.

And the shutdown also means the law’s enforcers are short-handed. At the GAO, which collects information from agencies on Antideficiency Act violations, only two senior officials are on the clock. They are both experts on the law but not the worker bees who run down the details for how agencies are handling the issue.

The Justice Department, which declined comment, is also under the strain of not being able to answer questions or respond to queries about past prosecutions because it’s not considered an essential function of the agency.

POLITICO – TOP Stories

Work banned on furlough, but who"s enforcing?

VIDEO: Selena Gomez Forced To Cancel Shows In Russia

Selena Gomez is the latest performer to be persona-non-grata in Russia. Gomez had been scheduled to perform in St. Petersburg and in Moscow, but she’s been forced to cancel her concerts after the country denied her visa. The Moscow Times reports that Russian authorities have decided to make entry into the country more difficult for performers who support gay rights. Selena is not the only pop artist that’s been banned. Lady Gaga slammed the Russian government for its criminal stance on gay citizens, and Madonna is being sued for her support of the LGBT community there.

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VIDEO: Selena Gomez Forced To Cancel Shows In Russia

Cleavage, Piercings, Tattoos & Sagging Pants Banned By Texas Schools

Cleavage, Piercings, Tattoos & Sagging Pants Banned By Texas Schools

Over the last 40 years, school dress codes have reflected the moral decay of our nation.  When I attended high school back in the late 1960s, we had to adhere to a fairly strict dress code.  No shorts or t-shirts were allowed, girls dresses could not be any higher than 2 inches above the knee and no facial hair for guys.  Basically we were expected to dress in the manner fitting of many work environments.  It was done to prevent appearances from becoming a distraction to others.

If you’ve driven by a public high school in the past 10 years you may be shocked and appalled by the appearance of students.  Boys walking around in tattered t-shirts and baggy pants that barely hang on their butts revealing 4-8 inches of their underwear.  Hair in many colors and styles along with pierced eyelids, noses, lips, tongues and I dare not mention where else.  Girls walk around dressed like hookers waiting for a guy to rape them.  In some locations, gang colors, bandanas, hats and shirts are proudly worn.  Other shirts have profanity and display lewd and perverse images.

In general, too many of our young people dress in a manner that reflects their lack of respect for themselves and others.  They have little modesty, decency or moral standards.

At least one school district is taking steps to reverse this trend and try to instill some self-respect into their young people and prevent their physical appearance from detracting from the educational process.

Keller Independent School District in Keller, Texas has a new dress code that they will be enforcing this fall semester.  The suburb of 40,000 people just north of Fort Worth is dead set on making a difference in their children.  The new dress code starts out saying:

“The Keller ISD dress code is established to teach grooming and hygiene, prevent disruption, and minimize safety hazards.”

Then it addresses hair, clothing, general appearance and accessories.

On shirts and tops, the dress code forbids the wearing of half-length, tank top, strapless, cut-off, halter, bare-midriff, see through or sheer, tops that showed cleavage, too low cut or had plunging necklines.  All undergarments must be completely covered.  Shirts may not display swear words or sexually explicit material, no gang related colors or symbols, or anything that may be offensive to others.  No clothing that could be classified as pajamas will be allowed.

On pants, they must be worn at the natural waistline and if necessary a belt must be worn to keep them at the natural waistline.  No form fitting pants like leggings, tights, yoga pants are allowed. Lengths of hemlines, pants and slits in skirts were limited.

On appearance and accessories, no tattoos – temporary or permanent, no piercings other than earrings.  No teeth grills, ear gauges or any jewelry with sharps points or edges.  No hats, visors, bandanas or head scarves.  No sunglasses or extreme styles of contact lenses.

Any student wanting to wear religious articles of clothing must obtain the approval of school administrators.

Dr. Randy Reid, Superintendent of the school district commented about the new dress code:

“The goal obviously is to have well dressed modestly – well dressed students in our schools.  We want to focus on education.”

At least one junior high school student seems to think the new dress code is appropriate saying:

“So many of the clothes were really inappropriate.  Shorts way too short – form fitting clothing – it was like you were naked but your legs were a different color.”

One high school senior also commented about the new dress code saying:

“We don’t really get to choose what we wear now.  We would rather just have uniforms.

I know a number of people may not agree with the steps the school district is taking, but I think it’s a great idea especially with high school students.  A high school administrator once told me that one of the main purposes of high school isn’t only to educate teenagers, but to help prepare them for the real working world they will be facing after they graduate.  Most businesses have a dress code and would not allow employees to dress the way many of today’s high schoolers dress.

I’m curious to see just how the enforcement of the new dress code will pan out.  Will there be challenges and if so, from who and for what reasons?  Who will prevail, the school district or the challenger?

Godfather Politics

Cleavage, Piercings, Tattoos & Sagging Pants Banned By Texas Schools

5 US Foods Banned by the Rest of the World | Brainwash Update

5 US Foods Banned by the Rest of the World | Brainwash Update

Banned Birkenhead Court Protest Video Censored by the UK Government under Internet Censorship.flv

BANNED Jesse Ventura"s Conspiracy Theory - Fema Camps (1 of 3)

BANNED Jesse Ventura"s Conspiracy Theory - Fema Camps (1 of 3)