From the Dagbloggers

Rosa Parks: No Way to Treat a Lady

By Ramona on Wed, 07/27/2011 - 9:50pm | Politics

People always say that I didn't give up my seat because I was tired, but that isn't true. I was not tired physically, or no more tired than I usually was at the end of a working day. I was not old, although some people have an image of me as being old then. I was forty-two. No, the only tired I was, was tired of giving in.

Rosa Parks, My Story.

In December, 1955, after a long day at work as a seamstress at a Montgomery, Alabama department store, Rosa Parks got on her bus and plunked down in a first-row seat of the section clearly defined as Blacks Only. "The back of the bus". The unwritten, unofficial public transportation rule in Montgomery said no white person should be standing in the aisle if a black person has a seat to give up to them. Four white men got on the bus but the white section was full. The four blacks in the first row of the black section were told to get up and give up their seats. Three of the four moved. Parks sat and waited. She was arrested and fingerprinted on the day which would mark the end of what might have been for her a quiet, uneventful life. It was the impetus for the Montgomery bus boycott, an effort that would last just over a year before the U. S Supreme Court struck down the laws on transportation segregation.

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Recycled Water and Car-Free

By Donal on Wed, 07/27/2011 - 3:33pm | Technology

The image above is a webcam of Watershed, the University of Maryland's entry in the 2011 Solar Decathlon. The Baltimore Sun reports:

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Advice to Democrats: Divide and Conquer

By Michael Wolraich on Wed, 07/27/2011 - 12:56pm | Politics

Putting aside anxieties over the economy and fury at Republicans, Democrats, the media, and whomever else makes us hopping mad, let's play a little game of political strategy.

While House Speaker John Boehner's formidable skin-tone and Michele Bachmann's spine-chilling folksiness has driven many a Democrat to gibber in fear, it's helpful to remember that Republican power in Washington is not exactly overwhelming.

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Jailing Activists and Feeding Pets

By Donal on Tue, 07/26/2011 - 10:09am | Social Justice

Climate activist Tim DeChristopher due for sentencing

An activist who disrupted a Bush administration auction for the oil and gas industry by bidding $1.8m (£1.1m) he did not have for the right to drill in remote areas of Utah is due to be sentenced on Tuesday.

As Bidder No 70, Tim DeChristopher put in bogus bids and won drilling rights to 14 parcels of land at the auction, seen at the time as a last scramble by the Bush administration to open up wilderness lands to oil and gas extraction.

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Two Vimeos

By Donal on Mon, 07/25/2011 - 1:18pm | Arts & Entertainment

Vimeo is so different than YouTube. I found these two on Neatorama. The first one is a tribute to an easy to guess person, and rather dark. The second is strictly for laughs.

Overtime from ouryatlan on Vimeo.

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Arts & Entertainment

Is Obama Losing The Debt Ceiling Debate On Purpose?

By Michael Maiello on Mon, 07/25/2011 - 1:18pm | Politics

This morning, Paul Krugman praised a New York Review Of Books article by Elizabeth Drew called "What Were They Thinking?" that I recommend you all read. It's depressing stuff but it at least offers an explanation as to why Obama never called the Republicans on their debt ceiling bluff and why he's made so darned many compromises that it's almost inconceivable that this whole debate ends as anything other than a Republican victory.

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FRIDAY FOLLIES: On the Palin Docudramody, the Cantor uninvite, and Will Rogers' finest moments

By Ramona on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 3:34pm | Politics, Humor & Satire

All alone, I'm so all alone... When the Sarah Palin docudromedy "The Undefeated" debuted last week, Conor Friedersdorf happened to be visiting his parents in All Red All the Time Orange County. He went to see the Sarah movie hoping to interview Sarah fans to find out what the hell they're thinking. Except he didn't find any. In fact, he didn't find anyone at all--hardly. He

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Meet the New Limits, Same as the Old Limits

By Donal on Fri, 07/22/2011 - 10:58am | Politics

I have commented before that Malthus didn't actually predict a Malthusian Catastrophe. In his An Essay on the Principle of Population, as it affects the Future Improvement of Society with remarks on the Speculations of Mr. Godwin, M. Condorcet, and Other Writers, he argued that rather than being freed to live in utopian conditions, the human population would continue to be resource-limited in bad times, self-limited in good times and that misery would result if these limits weren't effective enough. But even my high school biology textbook told me that Malthus had incorrectly predicted that we were doomed to run out of food.