Thank you. I'm now glowing and hovering over your northern border like a glittering shiny little rainbow coloured unicorn. ( Btw, that "u" in coloured" disappears when I slip out of my lane and trespass into US territory ...to which I always say "sorry" ... cause I'm nice. )

But then again, what would we do without you? lol

For Those Who Are Interested George Bush Has Died
 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/pol...nes:newsletter

I couldn't find the light a candle thread.

so sad to hear..he was a great manhttp://www.tradearabia.com/source/2018/12/01/bush.jpg:candle:..we need a man like him now, as President

The SCOTUS just sided with a lower court ruling in a case by conservative states against Planned Parenthood!!

Kavanough and Roberts voted along with the liberal minority. Knock me over with a feather! :seeingstars:

I can’t copy the article on this iPad, so if someone else can find it and post it I would be grateful. (f)

** the story was put out by NBC news

I saw this on tv a minute ago. Ty SCOTUS


https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...h_all_dt_tw_ru

Boy oh boy, Nancy and Chuck kicked Trump ass. That was fun to watch. MSNBC were saying he's not faced this since he was elected.

When he said he had the House, she's like try it. Go ahead. LOLOL.

Piercing sound used to clear homeless from downtown Portland street corner ....
 

PORTLAND, Ore. — A piercing sound that was coming from a 7-Eleven corner of Southwest 4th and Southwest Taylor Street in downtown Portland violates a city code, according to a city official. Portland noise control officer confirmed a report that he went to the 7-Eleven on Wednesday after the city received multiple complaints. He said the tone screaming from the front of the convenience store registered at more than twice the legal limit. The sound has since been turned off.

The high-pitched sound appeared to be coming from a box mounted above the 7-Eleven sign. It's unclear how long the sound had been playing, but the idea was to clear out the homeless that congregate at the store entrance.One man who camps downtown said he couldn't stand the noise.
“Multiple nights, it played continuously, the entire night. It was on still during the day. Like it didn't stop,” said Jeff McKenzie. “It's horrible because I've got sensitive hearing.”

Local Boy Scouts Chapter now allowing girls into scouting program
 

PORTLAND, Ore. — The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) made a historic change Friday by officially welcoming girls into the organization.While the parent organization's name won't change, the scouting program for 11- to 17-year-olds will no longer be known as the Boy Scouts. Instead, boys and girls will now be able to join Scouts BSA.

The Cascade Pacific Council chapter of BSA held a kickoff celebration Friday night. "I grew up in the scouting program, and I always wanted to be a bigger part of it," said Claire Osterman, director of Family Scouting for the Cascade Pacific Council. "Today, I get to see these girls do the things that so many of us have wanted to do." Girls were admitted into the Cub Scouts last year.

The Girl Scouts of the United States of America filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against BSA in November. The organization argued that only it has "the right to use the Girls Scouts and Scouts trademark with leadership development services for girls."

GSA is wrong for this. Even if they have a case, they should not press it. There is nothing they could lose, infringement-wise, to BSA that won't be further imperiled by appearing to erect barriers to opportunities for the very constituency they serve.

I agree, but unfortunately trademark law doesn't work that way. If you have a trademark and you don't protect it against _every_ violation, you lose your rights to protect it from anybody at all; i.e., if Girl Scouts doesn't bring legal action against the Boy Scouts, any group anywhere could start calling themselves Girl Scouts and selling cookies, and there would be nothing the Girl Scouts could do about it.

That said, I expect they will work out something legally protecting both parties.

Also, I have a (girl) friend who always wanted to be a Boy Scout. All her brothers were Scouts, and her dad was a Scout Master. She didn't want to join Girl Scouts at all. (I assured her that her impression of Girl Scouts was quite wrong - we did not just sit around knitting and baking cookies. Grrr - irritating misconception.) She didn't care - she had just wanted to do what her brothers did.

I expect it will eventually be a good thing, overall. At least, I hope so.

Bitcoin
 

Trust noone here has $$ in Quadriga, a Canadian cryptocurrency exchange, as the CEO, Gerald Cotten, has died at age 30 of complications due to Crohn's disease. He had the only password that has locked out @ $145 million in assets.

BPA
 

BPA found in cash register and ATM receipts

This chemical is found in all cash registers receipts as well as ATM receipts across the world. Apparently, people working in retail are most at risk. BPA from thermal paper receipts passes through the skin. I saw this on Canadian news on CTV Vancouver News, where they showed an in-house group of people touchimg these receipts, and later on in the day they checked their urine, and apparently most had 42% more BPA than normal. The problem is that this chemical may be linked to hormonal imbalance, obesity, and cancer. Toronto (Ontario) is thinking of banning such usage.
It's already banned in most countries for baby bottles. "In 2008, Canada became the first nation to take action by banning the import and sale of polycarbonate baby bottles containing BPA."

https://www.cbc.ca/news/bpa-found-in...eipts-1.907162

So, handle all cash receipts with great care, and then throw away asap!!! (And, then, of course, all this dangerous junk lands in landfills and kills everything... I think the end is coming (smh)....)

My mom used to say that money is dirty (germs). Of course, we all know that it is the "love" of money which is "dirty"... but now, we can add to that "cash receipts"!!! It's not the germs that will kill you, it is BPA ...

By the way, there are only 5 companies that make BPA in the United States: "Bayer, Dow, Hexion Specialty Chemicals, SABIC Innovative Plastics (formerly GE Plastics), and Sunoco. Together, they bring in more than $6 billion a year from the compound."

https://www.fastcompany.com/1139298/...hind-bisphenol

No LGBTQ clergy or same sex marriages in the Methodist Church

And to think, I was so admiring of the Methodist Church when they came up with reconciling congregations.

www.umnews.org/en/news/gc2019-daily-feb-26

I'm UMC. Born and bred. So done. Great allies in the UMC, but still done. I haven't been going, but still it feels bad. If I go back to church, it'll be UCC. I wonder how Loqui is feeling. Hy works for them.

BTW, they might be able to rule the penalties for performing same sex marriages etc unconstitutional, but still . . . done. Kinda mind-blowing not to be UMC anymore. I don't know. I so feel for LGBTQ folks and allies who are leaving their beloved churches that they attend every week. Fucking heartbreaking.

Your bishop in North Georgia pissed me off. She supports inclusion, but she released this statement about staying in the church and talked about having meals with and learning from African bishops during the conference. They are largely responsible for this decision. Fuck that. I wanted to say there are LGBTQ folk in Africa, some of whom live in countries that criminalize gay sex. So think about them, straight lady. And fuck your PC bullshit. Those African bishops have blood on their hands.

Justin Trudeau (here in Canada)
 

My, My, APPARENTLY, Trudeau may have pressured the Justice Department to go "soft" in a bribery enquiry on one of the world's largest engineering Company here in Canada - SNC-Lavalin, based in the Province of Quebec.

"The firm and two of its subsidiaries face fraud and corruption charges in connection with about C$48m ($36m; £28m) in bribes it is alleged to have offered to Libyan officials between 2001-11."

Two ministers in Trudeau's cabinet have quit!!!

Jane Philpott has stated, "It is a fundamental doctrine of the rule of law that our Attorney General should not be subjected to political pressure or interference regarding the exercise of her prosecutorial discretion in criminal cases." She was a top minister in Trudeau's cabinet (Treasury Board Minister).

This is a big (like HUGE!!!) scandal here in Canada...
And, there are rumours here that it may bring down the entire Trudeau administration.

The first Minister who quit was our Attorney General, Jody Wilson-Raybould !!!

One of Trudeau's closest friends, has also quit: "Gerald Butts, who quit as Trudeau’s principal secretary last month over the SNC-Lavalin affair, will testify to the House of Commons justice committee on Wednesday."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...justin-trudeau

Considering what happens in the States, where such things happen almost every day with no consequences to their jobs (lol), you may find it incredible that such powerful people in the cabinet of a duly elected leader find it untenable to remain in positions of power when faced with pressure from the leader to do anything illegal.

Can I tell you how much I wish we had your Canadian scandals instead of our our own super-sized American scandals?

Michael Jackson
 

After the release of the documentary Leaving Neverland - an HBO release, some radio stations have stopped airing Michael Jackson songs, notably in Quebec (3), and in the Netherlands. I have seen excerpts of the documentary on TV but have not watched the entire documentary, which alleges sexual abuse (child molestation) between Jackson and two boys who are now grown men.

Oprah Winfrey had anchored an interview after HBO aired the documentary, "in which she interviewed the two men — Wade Robson and James Safechuck — and director Dan Reed." I saw excerpts of this interview on TV.

"Winfrey, who revealed on her talk show decades ago that she was sexually abused when she was young, said Reed’s documentary did an excellent job of illustrating what she had always tried to explain — child sexual abuse is also about seduction."

https://www.washingtonpost.com/arts-...=.cd547810ed02

omg!

Yikes, which brings up the interesting dilemma, does one listen to Jackson's songs (i.e. Thriller, which we all know), or do we boycott?

This reminds me of a woman who once told me she could no longer listen to and enjoy anything by Benjamin Britten because she found out he was gay. (NOT to equate being gay with child molestation here . . .) just making the point that we can't throw out all art that we later learn was made by an artist who did something wrong. Of course, individuals may no longer be able to bring themselves to enjoy it - but I don't think we can get rid of it. I believe I've heard that Michelangelo had a thing for boys. Should we knock down the Sistine Chapel?

Pedophilia
 

I'm glad you see the difference between child molestation and being gay, but I'm not sure that what Rembrandt did (art) and what Jackson did (pop) are the same thing. While I love art that expresses love (not lust), I (like many others) liked Jackson's music, but it's not the same thing. And if the Sistine Chapel fell into ruin, I wouldn't care. Actually, I might breathe a sigh of relief, considering all the damage that the Catholic Church has perpetrated on women throughout thousands of years. Art is something which moves the heart, and pop music is something which moves the loins. Such art never causes any damage, and never incites stupidity.

Btw, bringing up Britten is the classic straw-man fallacious argument, which seeks to confuse the issue by bringing up an idea that has nothing to do with child molestation and pedophilia. Clever but not intelligent.

One of the victims in that documentary said that Jackson said: "This is the way we show love."

I think that one of the consequences of the dark cancer that is spreading worldwide is that the boundaries between right and wrong are being eroded by people who are evil, to the extent that many people no longer understand the difference.

The inheritors of Jackson's fortune are putting up a big backlash, because every time someone does the right thing and decides not to click on one of Jackson's songs (say on Spotify), they risk losing millions.

Bad
(Michael Jackson)
Your butt is mine
Gonna tell you right
Just show your face
In broad daylight
I'm telling you
On how I feel
Gonna hurt your mind
Don't shoot to kill
Come on
Come on
Lay it on me
All right
I'm giving you
On count of three
To show your stuff
Or let it be
I'm telling you
Just watch your mouth
I know your game
What you're about
Well they say the sky's the limit
And to me that's really true
But my friend you have seen nothin'
Just wait 'til I get through
Because I'm bad, I'm bad come on
You know I'm bad, I'm bad come on, you know
You know I'm bad, I'm bad come on, you know
And the whole world has to
Answer right now
Just to tell you once again
Who's bad
The word is out
You're doin' wrong
Gonna lock you up
Before too long
Your lyin' eyes
Gonna tell you right
So listen up
Don't make a fight
Your talk is cheap
You're not a man
You're throwin' stones
To hide your hands
But they say the sky's the limit
And to me that's really true
And my friends you have seen nothin'
Just wait 'til I get through
Because I'm bad, I'm bad come on
You know I'm bad, I'm bad come on, you know
You know I'm bad, I'm bad come on, you know
And the whole world has to
Answer right now
Just to tell you once again
Who's bad
We can change the world tomorrow
This could be a better place
If you don't like what I'm sayin'
Then won't you slap my face
Because I'm bad, I'm bad come on
You know I'm bad, I'm bad come on, you know
You know I'm bad, I'm bad come on, you know
And the whole world has to
Answer right now
Just to tell you once again
Who's bad
Because I'm bad, I'm bad come on
You know I'm bad, I'm bad come on, you know
You know I'm bad, I'm bad come on, you know
And the whole world has to
Answer right now
Just to tell you once again
Who's bad
Who's bad?

I won't miss this song being played.