Author: Source

I’m a man in my 30s who enjoys porn. In contrast, most women I know seem to have no interest in porn.

Accordingly, I’m intrigued by how porn tends to be compelling to men but unappealing to women. Maybe it’s because, for men, so much of sex is about the physical details. Whereas for women, so much of sex is not about the physical details.

But porn does excite women — and it doesn’t matter what kind of porn. Studies show that straight men are turned on by straight porn, gay people by gay porn, and straight women by both straight porn and gay porn…

Van Jones reflects on his time in – and out of – the White House.

By Van Jones / YES! Magazine –RSN / April 3, 2012

The 2008 campaign was a campfire around which millions gathered. But after the election, it was nobody’s job or role to tend that campfire. The White House was focused on the minutiae of passing legislation, not on the magic of leading a movement. Obama For America did the best that it could, but the mass gatherings, the idealism, the expanded notions of American identity, the growing sense of a new national community, all of that disappeared.

It goes without saying that clear thinking and imaginative problem solving are easier in hindsight, away from the battlefield. I was in the White House for six months of 2009, and I was outside of it afterward. I had some of the above insights at the time, but many did not come to me in the middle of the drama and action. Most are the product of deeper reflection, which I was able to do only from a distance.

Allison Kilkenny / The Nation / April 3, 2012

Once the last major Occupy camps had been razed by police forces, pundits began to crow that the movement was finished. Of course, once it became clear that thesis was not grounded in reality, the professional ponderers went on to wonder aloud (and in print) if occupations would still be a major part of the group’s agenda. In other words: could Occupy still be Occupy without ongoing occupations?

An Occupy Wall Street action in San Francisco of between 100 and 300 activists achieved what New York Magazine calls “one of the first real occupations of 2012” when they took over a building belonging to the city Archdiocese. (photo via @OCongress)

Police in riot gear stormed the two-story building Monday afternoon after breaking through a barricade the activists had built and arrested nearly eighty Occupiers.

San Diego CPUC Meeting

Al Bahr Shriners Memorial Auditorium

April 5th

2:00 pm and 6:00 pm

5440 Kearny Mesa Road

San Diego, CA 92111

By Diane Conklin / Ramona Sentinel / Originally published March 24, 2012

What will it take for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to deny San Diego Gas & Electric’s request that you and I pay for their fires? I have thought a lot about this question and have come to this conclusion: It will take the people of San Diego County, thousands of them, to email, call, write, and participate in the process.

And one of the most important and most accessible ways to participate is to join with neighbors and friends and “Come on down” to the April 5th public hearing and tell the commission yourself what you think of this plan.

Study Released Revealing Startling Data on Lower Life Expectancy Even in Upper Income Communities

On Thursday, April 5, 2012, over 200 union janitors, religious leaders and community members will be gathering at Good Samaritan Episcopal Church, where members of San Diego’s religious community will be washing the feet of our hardworking janitors to draw attention to the impact of inequality of health for both working class and middle class families.

The janitors’ union, SEIU United Service Workers West (USWW), as part of their statewide campaign for a new contract expiring in 2012, released a study that demonstrates that with a better health care system people in middle-class families could live four years longer, and people would live five years longer.

California could be third State in nation to adopt such a resolution

By Public Citizen / East Co. Magazine / Originally published on March 25, 2012

California is well in stride to be the third state to call for a constitutional amendment to overturn the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision, which allows corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money in an attempt to influence elections. The California Assembly passed a resolution – by a 48-22 vote – calling for an amendment, sending the measure to the California Senate.

By Donna Cassata / Huffington Post / March 30, 2012

WASHINGTON — Facing a conservative backlash, House Republicans are working to change a new law that allows the indefinite detention without trial of terrorist suspects, even U.S. citizens seized within the nation’s borders.

Republicans and Democratic lawmakers said this week that the GOP majority on the House Armed Services Committee was weighing several proposals to revise the provision on indefinite detention that was part of the far-reaching defense bill that Congress passed in December and President Barack Obama signed into law.

By Kevin Gosztola / The Dissenter – OpEdNews / March 30, 2012 

At the start of the first hearing on a lawsuit challenging the Homeland Battlefield Act, a federal judge appeared to be “extremely skeptical” that those pursuing the challenge had grounds to sue the US government. However, by the end of the hearing, the judge acknowledged plaintiffs had made some strong arguments on why there was reason to be concerned about the Act, which passed as part of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) on New Year’s Eve last year.

by Shaun Burnie / Friends of the Earth / March 27, 2012 

Friends of the Earth released today a new analysis by one of the nation’s leading independent nuclear engineers, Arnie Gunderson. The report has revealed serious unresolved safety problems at Southern California Edison’s San Onofre nuclear reactors which could lead to significant radiation releases if the plant is allowed to restart.

As many as 500 San Diegans rallied in Balboa Park seeking justice for murdered Florida teen Trayvon Martine, shot just one month ago. Protesters then marched to downtown San Diego and held another rally at the Court house.  “No justice! No peace!” was one of the loudest chants as the crowd moved through the streets.  After the rally at the courthouse steps, candles were lit to continue the vigil.

Monday’s event was the second protest in San Diego in memory of Trayvon.  One woman at the San Diego rally said, “This is our Emmet Till”. Till was a young African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman.  Till’s murder is noted as a pivotal event motivating the African-American Civil Rights Movement.

Protests, rallies, and marches were held across the country as the shooting with racial overtones reverberated coast to coast, including Los Angeles.

Editor:  Michael T. Pines is a San Diego foreclosure activist – that is, he helps homeowners resist foreclosure by banks of their homes.  He has advised over 70 homeowners who have been evicted to move back into their homes because the foreclosure and evictions were illegal, in part due to “robo-signing” by bank employees, which DA Bonnie Dumanis doesn’t like.  And this is why Pines sits in jail today.

By Caroline Zellander

Michael T. Pines is a warrior for homeowners, but today he sits in the George Bailey Detention Facility. Michael’s crime? Being relentless in fighting trumped up felony charges of “Stalking and a death threat”. Michael is being prosecuted by Bonnie Dumanis’ office …

By OB Joe

Hey, kids, hiya doin’? It’s time to ‘wake and bake’ – it’s Sunday and a mainly gray one at that. So, shake off that hang-over from last night. If you haven’t done your exercise for the day, it might be too late, as it’s supposed to rain later today and some tomorrow.

Had some news clippings laying around on my kitchen floor, so I decided to share them with you, plus some ‘internal’ newsy stuff. The editors are usually off on their own projects on Sundays, so I’m alone in the editing room. Shhhh!

OB Rag Survives Cyber Attack ! Yup, it’s true. Somebody doesn’t like us. Not too soon after midnight, somebody did a DOS specifically on us, crowding our OB Rag cyberspace and the server shut us down.