PSLeib

My Life is Coaching Competitive Swimming... though I ponder the silliness of politics, religion, greed and other things preventing people from all parts of the world not getting along...

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God Is No Father (by Number0neSon)

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when you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity … you do not slam it shut behind you…you reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.

Transcript of Michelle Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention | Politics/Election 2012 | Detroit Free Press | freep.com

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Fault Lines - The abortion war (by AlJazeeraEnglish)

Planned Parenthood provides many needed services and screenings for women, particularly those who are poor or without insurance. Abortion accounts for only 3% of what they do and it is NOT paid for with govt. funds. They also provide much needed education that many seem to have missed in life. There is too much misinformation about PP and it is not right...the religious right are sending us back hundreds of years!

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I just took the 2012 election quiz and found that I side the most with Green presidential candidate Jill Stein. Who do you side with?

<<<Never heard of her, but ok....

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Critical thinking is a skill that develops over time. Independent thinking does not occur overnight. Critical thinkers are open to having their cherished beliefs challenged, and must learn how to “defend” their views based on evidence or logic, rather than simply “pounding their chest” and merely proclaiming that their views are “valid.” One characteristic of the critical, independent thinker is being able to recognize fantasy versus reality; to recognize the difference between personal beliefs which are nothing more than personal beliefs, versus views that are grounded in evidence, or which have no evidence.

Charles Negy, Professor, Says Students Showed 'Religious Arrogance And Bigotry' In A Letter Later Posted On Reddit

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Research shows that smiling, even when you don't feel like it, can potentially help to reverse a chain reaction of bad feelings. Negative emotions do need to be expressed and not repressed, but champions can manage when and how those emotions manifest themselves so that they leave a positive legacy for their friends, colleagues, family members, and their countries. To me, that is what being a true Olympian really means.

Bonnie St. John: How Do Olympics Matter in Our Everyday Lives?

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Liberals tend to believe that all it takes to win a political argument is to coolly distribute facts and statistics, like a caterer with a tray of champagne glasses at a wedding. Facts are necessary, of course, but they’re watered-down Budweiser compared to stories like Beisner’s. People ignore numbers, but they don’t ignore “I wish my mother had aborted me.” As long as anti-choicers are spinning (sometimes obviously false) narratives about last-minute epiphanies and divine deliverance, we need people like Beisner to tell their own stories—even the deep, dark, painful ones—about the necessity of abortion for women’s equality.

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Begendings (by zefrank1)

"Sex without love is just a very complicated form of masturbation."

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The difference between ineffective and effective practice means the difference between mediocrity and mastery. If you’re not practicing deliberately — whether it’s a foreign language, a musical instrument or any other new skill — you might as well not practice at all.

Annie Murphy Paul: The Myth of ‘Practice Makes Perfect’ | TIME Ideas | TIME.com

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So if children are able to live with mistakes and even failing, why does it drive us crazy? So many parents have said to me, “I can’t stand to see my child unhappy.” If you can’t stand to see your child unhappy, you are in the wrong business. The small challenges that start in infancy (the first whimper that doesn’t bring you running) present the opportunity for “successful failures,” that is, failures your child can live with and grow from. To rush in too quickly, to shield them, to deprive them of those challenges is to deprive them of the tools they will need to handle the inevitable, difficult, challenging and sometimes devastating demands of life.

Raising Successful Children - NYTimes.com

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So know this: From the unspoken perspective of all the petrified, closeted 15-year-olds out there (I used to be one myself, after all), it makes absolutely no difference, none whatsoever, what your motives are in rallying behind Chick-fil-A. All they see is your raw hate.

Chick-fil-A controversy: Why Dan Cathy’s statements are dangerous. - Slate Magazine

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the rhetorical turns of phrase we find in Cathy’s Armageddon script tend to mean very different things. For instance, for liberals, “prideful” would be read in this context as “scientifically literate,” “arrogant attitude” is perhaps best translated as “open-minded,” and “audacity” means simply, “the courage to think for oneself.”

Chick-fil-A controversy: Why Dan Cathy’s statements are dangerous. - Slate Magazine

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"They did a study, and it turns out that the one thing that poor people lack the most… is money. I know, it's counterintuitive, but bear with me.

It’s a program called Bolsa Familia, or Family Grant, and what they do is give monthly small payments to families directly into their bank account. 

It’s not a lot of money – about $13 per month per child – but that’s enough to lift a family out of poverty. And they only get it if the kids stay in school and get regular medical checkups. Now they've got kids going to college who before would have been slumdogs. Or Tea Party sympathizers. 

Mexico and some other 40 other countries have similar programs.

Doesn't this disprove the old conservative notion that handouts never work? Of course handouts work. Money doesn't solve every problem, but it does solve the problems of not having money. I was just watching the "Real Housewives of Beverly Hills" the other night and the daughter of one of the housewives graduated from college and everyone’s giving her envelopes with checks, which are handouts."

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"First, on many issues, Romney has articulated no views at all, except contradictory ones. He has criticized Obama for withdrawing prematurely from Afghanistan, but has also said he’d abide by the same 2014 deadline (which NATO set at Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s request). He has blamed Obama for causing “the Arab winter” (as he calls it), but hasn’t explained how he would have handled the uprisings differently or controlled their outcomes any better. (Would he have bolstered Hosni Mubarak’s regime in Egypt? Funneled more aid to the rebels? In either case, how, and to what end?)

Second, there are many crucial issues on which the two disagree profoundly. Romney has denounced Russia as America’s “number-one geopolitical foe” and assailed the New STARTarms-reduction treaty as a danger to national security. U.S.-Russian relations aren’t without their tensions, but the realms of cooperation opened up by Obama’s “reset” policy—on trade, counterterrorism, nuclear nonproliferation, Iranian sanctions, among others—are well worth preserving. Romney has said he would declare China to be a “currency manipulator,” which could well unleash a trade war that we cannot afford. He has called for spending 4 percent of GNP on the military, as distinguished from Obama’s 3 percent, without saying how he would spend it or where he would get the extra $1 trillion over the next six years."

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Randy Rainbow Works at Chick-fil-A (by Tday4U)

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Chick-Fil-A Approval Rating Plummets After Anti-Gay Controversy (by TheYoungTurks)

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It's Not About Chicken (by JacksonAPearce)