Author: hearseeno

Here’s How To Help The Victims Of Hurricane Harvey

A plethora of organizations are appealing for donations to help them as they send volunteers and supplies to the hardest-hit areas.

These include the American Red Cross, The Salvation Army, Samaritan’s Purse, Save The Children, the Southern Baptist Disaster Relief and Heart to Heart International.

The local Texas Diaper Bank is also putting together disaster relief kits for families with young children. You can donate here.

The Rockport-Fulton Chamber of Commerce is also raising funds to assist in recovery efforts in the Rockport and Fulton communities. You can donate here.

Crowdfunding site GlobalGiving has launched a hurricane relief fund aimed at gathering funds for local nonprofits in the storm-stricken region.

Animal shelters and rescue groups are taking in numerous pets displaced by the storm ― whether the animals got lost in the chaos, got left behind, or simply need temporary housing while their owners stay in evacuation shelters. Those groups include the SPCA of Texas, Austin Pets Alive!, Dallas Animal Services and the San Antonio Humane Society.

A number of online fundraising sites have also been set up through GoFundMe, with donations benefiting everything from hurricane and disaster relief groups to animals and families in need. The full list of fundraisers can be viewed on GoFundMe’s Hurricane Harvey Relief page.

2. Donate Blood

Blood centers expect a supply shortage because of the closure of some blood banks along the coast and the likely demand stemming from injuries sustained in the storm. Centers have put out calls for extra donors to help deal with the aftermath.

You can find donation centers or blood drives for the South Texas Blood & Tissue Center here or for Texas organization Carter BloodCare here.

And even if you’re not in Texas, you can search online for blood drives local to you or book an appointment via the Red Cross website.

3. Provide Accommodation For Evacuees

Airbnb has launched a portal so that the people who have been displaced by the hurricane can find a place to stay. It’s also waiving fees for people affected by the disaster. More details are available on the Airbnb website here.

Here’s How To Help The Victims Of Hurricane Harvey

Arpaio Pardon Would Show Contempt for Constitution

Judge Bolton convicted Arpaio of criminal contempt. She found he had “willfully violated” the federal court’s order “by failing to do anything to ensure his subordinates’ compliance and by directing them to continue to detain persons for whom no criminal charges could be filed.” And she held that Arpaio had “announced to the world and to his subordinates that he was going to continue business as usual no matter who said otherwise.”

This is the crime that Trump is suggesting he might pardon: willful defiance of a federal judge’s lawful order to enforce the Constitution.

It’s one thing to pardon a criminal out of a sense of mercy or on the belief that he has paid his debt to society.

It’s trickier when the president pardons someone who violated the law in pursuit of governmental policy, the way George H.W. Bush pardoned the Iran-Contra participants, including Oliver North.

But it would be an altogether different matter if Trump pardoned Arpaio for willfully refusing to follow the Constitution and violating the rights of people inside the U.S.

…

From this analysis it follows directly that pardoning Arpaio would be a wrongful act under the Constitution. There would be no immediate constitutional crisis because, legally speaking, Trump has the power to issue the pardon.

But the pardon would trigger a different sort of crisis: a crisis in enforcement of the rule of law.

The Constitution isn’t perfect. It offers only one remedy for a president who abuses the pardon power to break the system itself. That remedy is impeachment.

James Madison noted at the Virginia ratifying convention that abuse of the pardon power could be grounds for impeachment. He was correct then – and it’s still true now.

Arpaio Pardon Would Show Contempt for Constitution

archiemcphee:

The Department of Extraordinary Upcycling loves these exquisite insect sculptures made of old circuit boards and other salvaged computer and electronic components by artist Julie Alice Chappell in Portsmouth, UK. 

They’re available to purchase via Chappell’s DewLeaf Etsy shop.

sosuperawesome

See our ‘sculpture’ tag

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Source: sosuperawesome

denugis:

I’ve just discovered that there is such a thing as a poisonous bird.

If the universe wants me to get out of the Sassy nature trivia kink rut, it has to stop presenting me with these factoids.

Welllllllll….

Did you know that one of the reasons that woodpeckers don’t suffer concussions when they bang their beaks into a tree is that they have an extra long tongue that wraps around their head?

No, seriously, it’s true.  

There’s actually a compression collar that works on the same principle to help prevent concussions in athletes.  The collar puts pressure on the jugular veins to increase intracranial pressure just enough to keep things from bouncing around in your skull as much.  They’ve had some early good results.  

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And then there’s the recently discovered fact that dung beetles use celestial objects to orient themselves, so they can roll their balls of dung in as short and straight a lines as possible to lessen the chances of some other dung beetle stealing it.  When the sun is out, they use the sun.  When the sun has gone to bed, they use the moon.  When it’s a dark moonless night, they use they Milky Way.

Opinion | Donald Trump’s Identity Politics

Between Jan. 22 and Jan. 28, 2016, as Trump consolidated his early support on the eve of the Republican caucuses and primaries, ANES conducted a special pre-election survey. To explore the role of white voters for whom racial identity was especially important, three political scientists — John Sides, Michael Tesler and Lynn Vavreck — analyze the ANES data in their forthcoming book, “Identity Crisis: The 2016 Presidential Campaign and the Battle for the Meaning of America.”The survey, they write,

asked four questions that captured dimensions of white identity: the importance of white identity, how much whites are being discriminated against, the likelihood that whites are losing jobs to nonwhites, and the importance of whites working together to change laws unfair to whites. We combined those questions into a scale capturing the strength of white identity and found that it was strongly related to Republicans’ support for Donald Trump.

Opinion | Donald Trump’s Identity Politics

allonsyforever:

BLM organizers and protesters like Imani chose to *put their lives on the line* to ensure that violence did not break out in Boston today. As she so eloquently said, she would not have received the same treatment at a white supremacist rally – because they are advocates for violence and chaos.

While it may seem counter-intuitive to some to help white supremacists and alt-right protesters get to safety, it was ultimately a measure to prevent violence from happening and I think this story clearly illustrates that. None of the thousands of counter-protesters were hurt and no major riots or violence broke out. That is partly in thanks to the Boston police, and partly in thanks to protesters and organizers, which shouldn’t be forgotten, especially since Donald Trump has already lied and said that “many anti-police agitators” were in Boston today. That is simply not true.

Let’s remember that BLM and other organizers were the ones trying to help to keep this event safe and nonviolent. There is no such thing as the “alt-left.” These protesters are out here doing the right thing.

Source: marvelsmostwanted