Topic for the March 26th Radio Show

Tomorrow is our second Tuesday morning show.  Please give us a listen and call tomorrow starting at 10:30 AM CDT.  To listen to the show live head over here and to listen to previous episodes head over here.   

Wobbles’ Topics –

Topic:  Muslims: Are they truly good neighbors or are they not so quietly fighting to transform America?

Headline:  U.S. Muslims: A new consumer niche

Opening Paragraphs:  New Brunswick, N.J.: In the ballroom of an upscale hotel a short train ride from New York, advertisers, food industry executives and market researchers mingled — the men in dark suits, the women in head scarves and Western dress. Chocolates made according to Islamic dietary laws were placed at each table.

The setting was the American Muslim Consumer Conference, which aimed to promote Muslims as a new market segment for U.S. companies. While corporations have long catered to Muslim communities in Europe, businesses have only tentatively started to follow suit in the U.S. — and they are doing so at a time of intensified anti-Muslim feeling that companies worry could hurt them, too. American Muslims seeking more acknowledgment in the marketplace argue that businesses have more to gain than lose by reaching out to the community.

"We are not saying, 'Support us,'" said Faisal Masood, a graduate of the University of Illinois, Chicago, and management consultant. "But we want them to understand what our values are."

Headline:  Muslims in Michigan to Rally Against First Amendment

Opening Paragraph:  Muslim Americans in Michigan, including a local newspaper editor, will be rallying Friday in Dearborn to protest the YouTube film, "Innocence of Muslims" and advocate for blasphemy laws. Here's an image of a poster advertising the rally.

Headline:  ‘ALLAHU AKBAR’: SHOCK VIDEO SHOWS MUSLIMS ALLEGEDLY ‘STONING’ CHRISTIAN PROTESTERS IN…MICHIGAN

Opening Paragraph:  The conservative preoccupation with presenting Sharia law as a threat to the United States’ culture as well as its national security has long been an unwarranted source of liberal derision. They may want to rethink their attitude after this story.

Recently, the city of Dearborn, Michigan, hosted the 2012 Arab International Festival. Naturally enough, the event drew demonstrators, specifically a group of Christian protesters who wanted to voice their discontent with what they saw as the predominately Muslim character of the event. Whatever you may think of this motive, the results of their behavior were unquestionably shocking.

Topic:  Separation of Church and State:  The world tells me I'm overreacting, I don't think so and here's why.

Headline:  Michigan: the Islamic capital of the US

Opening Paragraphs:  As of 2005, Michigan held the largest and still growing Muslim population in the United States and the second largest Arab population outside of the Middle East. Outside of Muslim-run countries, Paris — which still experiences nightly vehicle torchings and mayhem in its Islamic neighborhoods — has the largest. It is estimated that eight million Muslims now live in the US and their numbers are continuing to grow. Islam is now the second-largest religious body in the United States and is said to be its fastest growing religious movement.

Although hundreds of long-time residents of Hamtramck, MI protested the city allowing the five-times-per-day Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast over Hamtramck's loudspeakers, the city council voted unanimously in April 2004 to allow it. Prior to the city council making its decision, public input from any citizens (except Muslims) had not been allowed. This continues today. Hamtramck resident Bob Golen was outraged by the city council's actions and said: "So they had made up their mind before any public meeting and it's been five-nothing ever since. This is only the beginning. They're going to use Hamtramck as a precedent. This is coming to your town, to the town down the road, and to the [next] town down the road." Golen added that, after the city council voted to allow the calls to prayer, one of the city councilmen said that he was "proud to set a precedent in this country."

Headline:  College student says he was suspended for not stomping on name of Jesus

Opening Paragraphs:  A Florida college student says he was suspended from class for speaking up over a controversial classroom assignment.

                                             

Ryan Rotela, a student at Florida Atlantic University, says his course instructor told students to write the name Jesus on a piece of paper and then put the paper on the floor and stomp on it.

Rotela, a Mormon, said he was offended by the task and refused to participate.

Headline:  MEDIA JIHAD: AMERICAN JOURNALISTS EMBRACE ISLAM AND ASSAULT CHRISTIANITY

From the Story:  Journalists using their status to push an agenda is nothing new. But they do more than that today. The media have been depicting Islam as a modern David facing off against the Christian Goliath. David, predictably, gets good press no matter how often radical Islamists get arrested for terror plots or riot around the world over cartoons or a YouTube video.

Christians and conservatives, on the other hand, get the exact opposite treatment. They have become the stock villains for both news and entertainment media. Every critic of Christianity—especially those in the gay community—gets treated like a hero. The institutions themselves get derided as “dictatorial” or worse for not bowing to a liberal agenda. And the faithful are forever the butt of jokes and derision—all without uproar and threats of violence from the victims of the abuse.

The Center for Security Policy’s Gaffney warned that the coverage could get worse in reaction to pushback from Islamic groups. The recent documentary “Silent Conquest” cautioned that there is an “ominous pattern” of not being able to offend Islam. Muslim nations have been working with the United Nations to institute laws against “blasphemy.”

In September, President Obama argued for just that result. “The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam,” he told the United Nations. 

Headline:  Senate Democrats pass $1 trillion in new taxes

Opening Paragraphs:  WASHINGTON (AP) — An exhausted Senate gave pre-dawn approval Saturday to a Democratic $3.7 trillion budget for next year that embraces nearly $1 trillion in tax increases over the coming decade but shelters domestic programs targeted for cuts by House Republicans.

While their victory was by a razor-thin 50-49 vote, it allowed Democrats to tout their priorities. Yet it doesn’t resolve the deep differences the two parties have over deficits and the size of government. 

Headline:  FUMING EGYPTIAN PRESIDENT WARNS HE WILL DO ‘WHAT IS NECESSARY’ TO ‘PROTECT’ HIS COUNTRY ‘VERY, VERY SOON’

Opening Paragraphs:  (TheBlaze/AP) — Egypt’s president delivered a stern warning to his opponents on Sunday, saying he may be close to taking unspecified measures to “protect this nation” two days after his Muslim Brotherhood supporters and opposition protesters fought street battles in the worst bout of political violence in at least three months.

Nearly 200 people were injured in Friday’s violence, some seriously, outside the Brotherhood headquarters.

“If I have to do what is necessary to protect this nation I will, and I am afraid that I may be close to doing so,” a visibly angry Morsi said in an animated speech to the opening session of a conference on women’s rights.

“I will do so very, very soon. Sooner than those trying to shake the image of this nation think,” the Islamist leader who took office in June warned.

“Let us not be dragged into an area where I will take a harsh decision,” he added.

 

Topic:  Benghazi: Whether you belive it was a senseless tragedy or a cover up, apparently hackers want answers too!

Headline:  FIRST ALLEGED EXCERPTS FROM HACKED HILLARY CLINTON BENGHAZI MEMOS REVEALED — DO THEY EXPLAIN THE VIDEO STORY?

Opening Paragraph:  A hacker known only as “Guccifer” reportedly distributed confidential memos earlier this week between former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her former political adviser Sidney Blumenthal.  The documents were said to contain information shedding light on the September 11 Benghazi attack.

Nubs’ Topics –

Topic:  Social Mobility

Headline:  Social Mobility: Is The American Dream Slipping Away?

Summary:  Discussion of the ability of American’s to move up the social and economic ladder. 

Headline:  Jeb Bush Calls Gap Between Rich and Poor 'Un-American'

From the Story:  Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush Tuesday described the growing economic chasm between rich and poor as "un-American" and called it the biggest "structural" problem facing the nation on Tuesday.

[…]

Bush, the son and brother of former presidents, was also questioned about his view of Mitt Romney, who on Sunday expressed regret in a Fox News interview over his loss to President Barack Obama in the 2012 election.

"I wish Mitt Romney was president right now because I think we’d have someone who would be in the midst of trying to forge consensus," Bush said, describing him as a "good man" whose campaign, unfortunately, "wasn't the best."

"It just breaks my heart that he's not there. . . But he would have been a really fine president," he added.

Bush also offered high praise for another Republican often mentioned as well as a possible contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

"I love Chris Christie," Bush said, smiling broadly when he was asked what he thought about the recent snubbing of the New Jersey governor by the Conservative Political Action Conference.

"I love the guy," he added, suggesting that conservatives in the Republican Party may end up needing Christie more than he needs them.

"I think he's been an incredible leader and a role model for a lot of people about how to lead and how to govern," he said.
Related Blog Post:  Why People Hate CEOs or The Obscenity of the Difference in Pay Between Workers and Bosses

From the Post:  When I worked for Sprint, there was a CEO who made $53K a day. That is twice the average yearly wage of a call center worker (oh and at least three call centers were closed during his tenure as CEO). That is obscene.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for people getting rich but it seems excessively immoral and unethical for the leader of an organization to make more in a day or an hour than his/her employees make in a year.

How is this good for the economy? How is this even good or sustainable for the business? Why in the world should a company have so much invested in one single person? That one individual will not make or break the company alone. Yes his or her leadership can make the difference between success and failure but that doesn’t mean that he/she is worth that much more than everyone else. Also, how are the employees to feel when they see things like this? Where is their buy-in? Where is their share of the success or failure? They are treated like nameless and faceless numbers and people wonder why things like quality and service have gone down the tube over the years.

Workers need to be shown that they matter. They need to be given their share of the success that they help to create (and failures as well but that part seems to already be happening like crazy). There is nothing free about this. I would go so far as to say this goes directly against the free market and capitalism. This is corporatism. This is oligarchy. This is feudalism. And it needs to be stopped.

Headline:  Circle Of Accountability Widens In Steubenville Rape Case

From the Story:  After two football players were convicted in the Steubenville rape trial, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine says he will convene a grand jury in April to consider bringing charges against partygoers, school officials and parents who may share responsibility in the rape of a 16-year-old girl.

NEAL CONAN, HOST:  This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Guilty verdicts in the Steubenville rape trial appear to be just the start. Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine will ask a grand jury to consider charges against others who may share some responsibility for what happened at those now-notorious parties back in August.

Text messages, videos, testimony could cast a wide net: partygoers, parents, school officials and coaches - all in a town where just about everybody knows everybody else and where many people can't believe just how quickly the social fabric's come unraveled.

So how wide is wide enough? Where do you draw that line between moral and criminal responsibility?

[…]

RACHEL DISSELL:  One of the things that people have been really talking about here in Ohio and in Steubenville is that the youths involved in this case, they really didn't have any education in school on some of these issues in terms of consent and what really amounts to rape.

And it was really eye-opening for many of us covering the trial to hear teen after teen get on the witness stand and say that they really didn't understand that what happened was rape, and also not have very much of an understanding of the idea that if someone's that inebriated that they can't consent to some kind of sexual activity.

[...]

DISSELL:  But the casualness in which many of the teen boys were talking to each other, I mean no one's surprised, you know, at some of the conversations teen boys have, but the real casualness and kind of the nastiness in the way they spoke about the young women and asking each other to send pictures and describing pictures and describing acts. And I'm trying to be cautious because I'm on the radio. I can't really get into it.

[...]

CONAN: Let's - here's - we're going to read from some op-eds. This, Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times in January suggesting that Delhi and Steubenville may not all be that different. The case in Steubenville has become controversial partly because the brutishness of the young men - the brutishness the young men have been accused of, but also because of concerns the authorities protected the football team. Some people in both Delhi and Steubenville rushed to blame the victim, suggesting she was at fault for taking a bus or going to a party. They need to think, what if that were me?

Michael Kimmel says there were more than two perpetrators in Steubenville. There are 18,437. They did what they did because they felt entitled to, because they knew they could get away with it, because they knew that their coaches, their families, their friends, their teammates and the police department, indeed the entire town, would rally around them and protect them from the consequences of what they've done, because the Steubenville Two is really the Steubenville 18,437. I've subtracted the girl victim and her parents. Until the community rallies around the victim and not the perpetrators, the shame of gang rape is on them all. All.

[...]

LORIE: Hi. There's a whole aspect of this that I haven't really heard anybody speak about yet. Maybe they've touched on it. But it's the fact that, you know, as a society we're individuals and we are a corporate society. We all have something to do with the society we live in. None of us is, you know, an island. And what I keep thinking about in this is that I keep seeing this correlation between dehumanizing people. Our society today - and we can go back and figure out all kinds of reasons - but part of it is that our technology has developed faster than we know how to deal with it.

And I don't - I guess what I'm trying to say is that we have all kinds of things on television and video games and everywhere else to teach our kids that it's OK to kill and shoot and maim. And I have - I'm 60 years old and I have grandchildren who spend so many hours on video games. And the bloodier it is, they better they like it. This is the boys, of course. But we don't value humans as we used to and I'm talking about society as a whole. And I know that will bring up - there's a lot of people who do value humankind and life, but we disregard life so much. We take it for granted so much in so many ways. We've got kids doing what these boys did, and all the bystanders that either joined in or clapped or laughed or didn't tell somebody, didn't help, and then all the people afterwards that are now trying to point fingers and blame and everything else. And in all of that there's this whole dehumanization of this young girl who didn't know what was happening to her, and it's so horrible. And we've got kids killing kids in school, strangers walking into a room or a building and shooting strangers and on the street. And I think that the big issue is that we have this whole dehumanizing, this whole disvalue of life.

Headline:  Ohio School Shooter TJ Lane Laughs, Gives Finger at His Sentencing

Opening Paragraphs:  Ohio school shooter TJ Lane spewed vile and unprintable words today at the families of three students he killed, gave them the finger and then laughed and smiled as they described him as an animal and a monster.

Lane, 18, got another chuckle when the judge sentenced him to three life terms in prison with no chance for parole.

Lane was waiting for a bus to an alternative school when he killed three students during a Feb. 27, 2012 rampage at Chardon High School. Daniel Parmertor, 16, Demetrius Hewlin, 16, and Russell King Jr., 17, died in the attack. Three other students were injured.

Lane arrived at his sentencing hearing today wearing a blue button down shirt. After he sat down, he unbuttoned the shirt to reveal a white T-shirt with the word "killer" emblazoned across the front in black marker.

When Lane was given the opportunity to make a statement to the court, he gave a short, crude statement that ended with "f*** all of you" before sticking up his middle finger in the courtroom filled with the loved ones of the three students he gunned down.

Nubs’ Philosophical Topic of the Week:  What is really destroying society?

Summary:  Discussion of the three mindsets that I believe are destroying society –

1. Hyper individualists for putting greed as the top priority (Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, etc)
2. Collectivists for putting the collective over the individual
3. Entitlement mentality (The rich for thinking their owed because they are rich; the poor for thinking they are owed because they are poor [dependent on nanny state]; minorities for thinking they are owed because of past wrongs; etc.

The Mindless Masses, Following the Crowd, and the Politics of Facebook

On the latest edition of the My 2 Cents Radio Show, Robert and I discussed the phenomena of pages on Facebook that gain hundreds of “likes” within a matter of days of opening their doors and the tendency for pages that just regurgitate…I mean espouse one ideology or the other seem to be far more successful than ours.  For example, there is a conservative page run by a group of teenagers that has been open a handful of days and has over 600 “likes.”  Content wise the page is your typical conservatives-good-liberals-bad kind of thing; it was plugged by some of the more popular and well known conservative pages hence the instantaneous popularity.  While at the same time, our little Facebook page has been around for well over six months and we cannot break (or even reach for that matter) 200 “likes” to save our lives. 

Why is that?  It’s certainly not for a lack of trying (99.9999999999% of which has been done by Wobbles), yet people come to the page, “like” it, and then leave.  The exodus does tend to coincide with days that I do most of the posting on the page.  Robert has also received a lot of negative feedback from conservatives that seem to think working with a liberal is tantamount to treason or some such nonsense.  Robert has done an excellent job of networking with other pages to spread the word while I tend to just piss everyone off.  For example, I criticized a status update written by one of the larger conservative pages and hellfire reigned down upon our page.  Poor Robert then spent the rest of that day trying to appease the offended parties (though I never insulted anyone one personally, just called their ideas into question).  We lost a slew of fans on that day and still months later, eggshells are walked on. 

This is where the politics of Facebook comes in to play.  And by politics, I’m not talking government but office politics (for lack of a better term/comparison).  In order for a page to get noticed, they have to make nice with other, more popular, pages in hopes to get a plug.  This is something that poor Robert, bless his heart, has worked hard on and stressed over.  So often he has encouraged me to not go off on some people/pages in hopes to some day get a plug from them.  Well it never seems to happen because.  No matter how much Robert works at it, we still get ignored.  Now I haven’t put the same effort into trying to connect with the more liberal pages because 1) I suck at marketing and 2) those pages tend to get on my nerves almost as much as the conservative pages do and generally for the same reasons.  Far too often over the years on our page and my blog, I’ve been bombarded with mindless criticisms that require zero critical thinking at all, so no I’m not going to waste my time kissing up to those same kinds of people.  I will be nice to them because that is who I am but I will not try to impress them or sit around waiting for their table scraps because at the end of the day they really don’t get it.

Which brings me to the why.  Why hasn’t our page caught on?  Why don’t we have tons more folks following the page?  Because in order to truly get what we are doing here requires actual thought.  Most pages on Facebook, and the net in general, provide nothing more than affirmation of one set of beliefs or another.  These pages do nothing to encourage actual thought because they simply parrot with soundbite sized comments that say nothing more than we-are-good-and-they-are-bad.  Left wing pages do it, right wing pages do it, supposed news organizations do it…it’s like a virus that has spread throughout out our collective consciousness that eats away at peoples ability to think for themselves.  Why else do you think the majority of conservatives watch Fox News and leftists watch MSNBC?  Probably because doing so would make their heads explode if they had to consider anything that goes against their narrative of choice. 

Thinking for yourself is hard.  Going against the grain is something few seem to be able, or more likely willing, to do.  Things are so much easier following the herd so in a way I can understand why people do it (because it is easy and requires zero thought) but I have a seriously hard time taking anyone seriously that displays these tendencies.  That’s not to say that they aren’t good or nice people, because I’m sure that most of them are.  I also have little to no doubt in their sincerity of their beliefs; I just worry about how they arrived to said beliefs.  And don’t get me wrong…I sure as Hades don’t have all of the answers and I’m humble enough to know that I could be wrong on a verity of philosophical and religious topics, so understand that this is not me saying I’m better or smarter than anyone else because I know for a fact that I’m not.  What I am saying is that people need to take off the blinders and follow Robert Frost’s advice.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Topics for the March 19th Radio Show

This week marks the move of the live broadcast of the radio show to Tuesday mornings.  Going forward we will be broadcasting our weekly show at 10:30 AM Central.  To listen to the show live head over here and to listen to previous episodes head over here.   

Wobbles’ Selections/Topics –

Topic:  North Korea or What is the Maniac Midget Up to Now?

Headline:  How a crazy, nuke-obsessed Kim Jong-un might actually be good for America

Opening Paragraph:  There is no tangible evidence that North Korea's young Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un, is actually crazy. In fact, there's very little tangible evidence at all about North Korea's new First Secretary of the Workers' Party slash First Chairman of the National Defence Commission slash Supreme Commander of the Korean People's Army slash Chairman of the Central Military Commission slash Marshall of the Republic slash husband slash father.

Headline:  U.S. lawmaker questions North Korean leader's 'stability'

Opening Paragraphs:  (CNN) -- A top U.S. congressman expressed concern about the "stability" of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un after months of provocative statements and behavior from the nuclear-armed communist state.

"You have a 28-year-old leader who is trying to prove himself to the military, and the military is eager to have a saber-rattling for their own self-interest," said Rep. Mike Rogers, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. "And the combination of that is proving to be very, very deadly."

Topic:  Mayor Bloomberg (a.k.a. Doofus Doomberg)

Headline:  NYC Large-Sized Soda Ban Denied. Now What?

Opening Paragraph:  Soda: 1. Mayor Michael Bloomberg: 0. The New York City mayor's newest obesity-fighting proposal to limit the sales of sugary drinks to 16 ounces or less at restaurants, theaters, and food carts was dismissed by a state supreme court judge on Monday-just one day before the health code would have taken full effect. Considering Bloomberg's success in banning trans fats and smoking in public places, this decision came as a total surprise to most, including the businesses that had already edited their menus and ordered smaller serving cups. Perhaps the most shocked was Bloomberg himself, as well as his administration.  

Headline:  Feds Save Sodas From Bloomberg

Opening Paragraphs:  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made a goal of his third term in office to make his constituency as healthy as possible, in spite of themselves. He has gotten a law passed to force restaurants to place calorie counts on their menu items, and has attacked salt and sugar vigorously.

Topic:  Benghazi

Headline:  Sen. Graham claims Benghazi survivors 'told to be quiet' by administration

Opening Paragraph:  Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, in an extensive interview with Fox News, alleged that the injured survivors of the Benghazi terror attack have been "told to be quiet" and feel they can't come forward to tell their stories -- as he urged the House to subpoena the administration for details if necessary.

Headline:  Where Are the Benghazi Survivors?

Opening Paragraphs:  Benghazi is back in the news with the arrest of a suspect Thursday being held in Libya. This could spur Congress to renew efforts to shine light on the attack on the U.S. consulate on September 11, 2012.

Wounded survivors of the terrorist attack, however, are still under wraps. As reported by The Hill newspaper, Senators are applying pressure again. One option is to subpoena the survivors; another is to hold up confirmation for the new ambassador to Libya, Deborah Jones, who would replace murdered U.S. ambassador Christopher Stevens.

Wobbles’ Brought to You by Star Trek Story of the Week:  4D Printing Is The Future Of 3D Printing And It’s Already Here

Opening Paragraphs:  3D printing is over 20 years old, but it feels like we’re just finally starting to truly unlock the potential of the technology. The continued march of technology is relentless, however, and some inventors are already thinking about what comes next.

The next big thing may very well be 4D printing, a new technology from Skylar Tibbits, an architect, designer and computer scientist. The core concept behind this new technology is self assembly.

It may sound strange and far out, but it’s actually quite simple. 4D printing is being billed as a process where synthetic objects can change and adapt themselves to the environment.

Nubs’ Selections/Topics –

Headline:  Rand Paul wins CPAC presidential straw poll

Opening Paragraphs:  NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul is this year's winner of the Conservative Political Action Committee straw poll, an unscientific survey of conservative political activists attending the event.

Paul, whose father, Ron Paul, won the straw poll twice in recent years, secured 25 percent of the votes. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio came in second with 23 percent. The poll, which American Conservative Union President Al Cardenas described as "not scientific" but still "pretty cool," provides a brief snapshot of the thinking of a small group of conservative activists three years before the party's next primary elections.

Headline:  Show mercy, don't rush to condemn, new pope urges

From the Story:  VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis, speaking to an overflow crowd of more than 150,000 in St Peter's Square, urged the world on Sunday to be more forgiving and merciful and not so quick to condemn other people's failures.

"A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just," he told the cheering crowd from the window of the papal apartments overlooking the square.

[...]

Since his election on Wednesday as the first non-European pope in nearly 1,300 years, Francis has signaled a sharp change of style from his more aloof predecessor, Benedict, and laid out a clear moral path for the 1.2-billion-member Church, which is beset by scandals, intrigue and strife.

"Brothers and sisters, good morning," he said, using a familiar style that has already become his hallmark.

He wove his address from the window as well as his earlier homily around the Gospel story of the crowd that wanted to stone a woman who had committed adultery but was saved by Jesus.

Jesus told them "let he among you who is without sin, cast the first stone" and then told the woman "go and sin no more".

"I think even we are sometimes like these people, who on the one hand want to listen to Jesus, but on the other hand, sometimes we like to stone others and condemn others. The message of Jesus is this: mercy," he said at the morning Mass.

[...]

Before he entered the tiny church of Santa Anna for the morning Mass, Francis stopped to greet well-wishers who had lined up outside a nearby Vatican gate.

He chatted and laughed with many of them before pointing to his black plastic wrist watch and saying: "It's almost 10 o'clock. I have to go inside to say Mass. They are waiting for me."

Inside, he wore the purple vestments of the liturgical season of Lent, which ends in two weeks on Easter Sunday.

At the end of the Mass, he waited outside the church and greeted people as they left the building, like a parish priest, asking many of them: "Pray for me".

His last words before he left the window were: "Have a nice Sunday and have a nice lunch".

Nubs’ Neat Story of the Week:  Hundreds of Dinosaur Egg Fossils Found

Opening Paragraphs:  Researchers in northeastern Spain say they've uncovered hundreds of dinosaur egg fossils, including four kinds that had never been found before in the region. The eggs likely were left behind by sauropods millions of years ago.

Eggs, eggshell fragments and dozens of clutches were nestled in the stratigraphic layers of the Tremp geological formation at the site of Coll de Nargó in the Spanish province of Lleida, which was a marshy region during the Late Cretaceous Period, the researchers said.

Nubs’ Religious Philosophical Topic of the Week:  Divinity & Nature

Summary:  This topic is taken from a blog post I wrote in 2009 and fits in with a discussion that took place this week on our Facebook page.

Opening Paragraph:  I was watching Joseph Campbell and The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers Program 2: The Message of Myth yesterday and the role that nature plays in myth was brought up as part of the discussion. There was a basic distinction shown in how different myths and religions view nature. Nature is either seen as something that is corrupt and must be conquered by man (as in the Judea-Christian traditions) or it is seen as an expression of or part of the divine (as in the Hindu, Buddhist, Shinto, and Native American traditions). I had never noticed this distinction before, but now that it has been pointed out, it is very glaring. 

Topics for the Mar. 16th Radio Show

This week’s edition of the Wobbles and Nubs My 2 Cents Radio Show is all about our great state of Oklahoma.  Yup, we’re doing a show focusing on issues/stories occurring in and concerning the Sooner State.  Also in the second hour of the show will be joined by local comedian James Curtis (Facebook, Twitter, Favstar). 

This week we are forgoing the usual format of each host discussing stories that he has selected in favor of one list of stories, which were mostly found by Wobbles (I’ve been out of it this week and thus dropped the ball).  Also, this week's show will be the last to broadcast live on Saturday mornings.  Due to scheduling conflicts, the live broadcast of the show will move to Tuesdays beginning March 19th.  As always you can check out previous shows here or check out the live broadcast tomorrow morning (Saturday March 16th) at 10:30 AM Central time, right here.  

Local Topics –

Headline:  Edmond Family Remembers Soldier Killed in Afghanistan

Opening Paragraph:  Army soldier, Rex Schad, died Monday after an attack in Afghanistan.

Headline:  Made in Oklahoma: House Passes Firearms Freedom Act

Opening Paragraph:  Guns made in Oklahoma would be from federal laws if the Senate approves and Governor Mary Fallin signs the Firearm Freedom Act.

Headline:  Lawmaker wants Parents to have Choice if Teachers are Armed

Opening Paragraph:  An Oklahoma legislator has written two amendments to a controversial that will allow teachers to carry guns in schools.

Headline:  Police: Mom Failed to Report Son's Rape of Sister

Opening Paragraph:  OKLAHOMA CITY -- Police say an 11-year-old raped his 6-year-old sister. Now, the boy and his mom are in police custody. 

Headline:  Chickasha police issue warning about human trafficking

Opening Paragraph:  CHICKASHA, Okla. —Chickasha police are warning residents about an alleged magazine scam that could be connected to human trafficking, investigators said.

Headline:  Oklahoma bill would defund public television

Opening Paragraph:  OKLAHOMA CITY —An Oklahoma lawmaker has proposed a bill that will reduce and then defund public broadcasting.

Headline:  Oklahoma bill would require some food stamp recipients to work

Opening Paragraphs:  OKLAHOMA CITY —The Oklahoma House of Representatives passed an initiative to reform social programs Monday.

House bill 1909 would require "able-bodied" recipients ages 18 to 50, who are not disabled or raising a child, to perform at least 20 hours of work activities as a condition of receiving food stamps. Those work requirements come from the 1996 Welfare Reform Law, by President Bill Clinton.

Headline:  OKC pastor charged with murder of son-in-law wants bond

Opening Paragraph:  OKLAHOMA CITY —The attorney for an Oklahoma City pastor charged with the murder of his son-in-law is asking a judge to set bond for his client.

Headline:  Bill on drone surveillance put on hold

Opening Paragraph:  OKLAHOMA CITY – A bill that would have required law enforcement to get a warrant before using a drone for surveillance has been put on hold.

Headline:  Sallisaw woman arrested for attempting to sell children

Opening Paragraph:  SALLISAW, Okla. — A Sallisaw woman was taken to Sequoyah County jail for trying to sell her children to a woman in Fort Smith, Arkansas Wednesday.

Headline:  Oklahoma Senate Passes Monitoring For Nursing Homes 

Opening Paragraph:  OKLAHOMA CITY - The Oklahoma Senate has approved legislation that would allow residents of nursing homes to install electronic monitoring devices in their private rooms.

Headline:  Breakthrough Breast Cancer Treatment Pioneered In OKC

Opening Paragraphs:  OKLAHOMA CITY - There's a big breakthrough in the battle against breast cancer.

Doctors say new technology is making treatment safer, and the procedure is being pioneered right here in the metro. 

Headline:  Oklahoma Joins In Privacy Settlement With Google 

Opening Paragraph:  OKLAHOMA CITY - Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt joined attorneys general from 37 states and the District of Columbia in a $7 million settlement with Google, according to a news release from his office. 

Headline:  Hero Kingfisher Sophomore Pulls Driver Out Of Wrecked SUV 

Opening Paragraph:  KINGFISHER, Oklahoma - A high school Sophomore was called a hero for his quick thinking after he saw a driver lose control and flip off the road. 

Headline:  State House Passes Bill Increasing Lottery Money For Mental Health Services

Opening Paragraph:  OKLAHOMA CITY - The Oklahoma House has passed legislation to increase the amount of unclaimed state lottery prize money that's distributed to the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. 

Big Story of the Week –

Topic:  The selection of the new Pope
Related Stories:  

• Cardinals Pick Bergoglio, Who Will Be Pope Francis
• 5 things to know about the new pope
• Argentina's Cardinal Bergoglio Is The New Pope; He Will Be 'Francis'
• 'Huge heart': New pope preaches church's core values with compassion, say Argentinians
• What non-Catholics think of the new pope
• Pope Francis: Big Changes Coming – Dick Morris TV: Lunch Alert!

National Story –

Headline:  IS THE ‘COMMON CORE’ INITIATIVE DUMBING DOWN AMERICA’S STUDENTS?

Opening Paragraphs:  Last week TheBlaze covered in detail the controversial school curriculum system — one that had students actually design a socialist flag — out of Texas dubbed CSCOPE. Thursday, however, the focus turned to another disturbing initiative in America’s education system: Common Core Standards State Standards.

The Common Core State Standards initiative is, according to its official website, a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), developed “in collaboration with teachers, school administrators, and experts, to provide a clear and consistent framework to prepare our children for college and the workforce.”

Topics for the Mar. 8th Radio Show

This week’s show is broadcasting early due to scheduling conflicts.  It can be heard live on Friday March 8^th at 10:00 AM Central right here and this week we are going to a full two hour long program.  As always you can check out our archives here and if you have any feedback, comments, questions, suggestions, or if you just want to tell us that we suck, we’d love to hear from you. 

Big Story of the Week –

Topic:  Death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

Related Stories: 

• Hugo Chavez, influential leader with mixed record, dies at 58
• Venezuelans Mourns Late President Hugo Chavez
• Hugo Chavez, passionate but polarizing Venezuelan president, dead at 58
• Venezuela's Chavez: An Outsized Personality, A Domineering Figure
• Chavez's hand-picked successor takes command in Venezuela; election to be called within 30 days
• ‘KINDNESS, BRAVERY….DEDICATION’: HERE’S HOW SOME NOT-SO-SURPRISING PEOPLE ARE MOURNING HUGO CHAVEZ’S DEATH
• Sean Penn on Hugo Chavez's Death: 'I Lost a Friend'
• RIP Commandante Hugo Chavez
• Analyst estimates Chávez’s family fortune at around $2 billion
• Ex-Pats: Chavez's Death Liberates Venezuelans
• The Ghost of Hugo Chávez: How his economically disastrous, politically effective ideology will haunt the country he ruined.

Feedback—

Topic:  Trillion-dollar coin

Issue:  During our second episode, Wobbles brought up the proposed trillion-dollar coin attributing the idea to President Obama.  Listener Donald wrote in to tell us that the idea for the coin wasn’t Obama’s idea and shared an article about the White House denying the call for the expensive piece of pocket change. 

Wobbles’ Selections –

Headline:  Chicago Passes Sex-Ed for Kindergartners

Opening Paragraph:  While most U.S. public schools start sex education in the fifth grade, sex education will be coming to Chicago kindergartners within two years as part of an overhaul of the Chicago public schools sexual health program.

  

Issue:  Use of Drones on American Citizens and Soil

Related Stories: 

• Martial Law: Tucson City Council Hands Authority Over to Military
• Targeted Killing in the U.S.A.
• Cruz Gets Holder To Admit That Killing Americans On U.S. Soil Is Unconstitutional
• Sen. Rand Paul's Epic Filibuster: 12 Hours, 52 Minutes

  

Headline:  Cranked-Up Earbuds Next On Mayor Bloomberg’s Health Hit List

Opening Paragraphs:  NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — After launching campaigns against the Big Gulp, “big” salt and “big” junk food, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is embarking on a new target.

He wants to stop New Yorkers from going deaf, so he’s put in motion an attack on ear buds, CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reported Wednesday.

Now hear this … there’s a new enemy of the nanny state: people who choose to listen to loud music on their favorite devices.

Bloomberg, who apparently has never met a health crusade he didn’t think worthy of embarking on, is launching a campaign to warn people about the risks of losing their hearing from blasting music on their headphones.

Issue:  Sequester and Budget

• Kerry: US releasing millions in aid to Egypt, but with promise of reform
• Email tells feds to make sequester as painful as promised

Wobbles’ Benghazi Story of the Week:  GOP Reps: We’re Barred From Talking to Benghazi Survivors

Opening Paragraphs:  Republican lawmakers are blasting the White House for not allowing access to the survivors of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya — many of whom are still recovering at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington.

“We want to talk to the survivors — they won’t do that,” Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah told Fox News on Wednesday. “And then the president has the gall to go on television and say ‘Oh, we’re providing all the access’? Baloney. Bull-crap. That is not happening.”

Nubs’ Selections –

Headline:  Argument against gay marriage in California hinges on accidental pregnancies

Opening Paragraphs:  In a brief filed with the Supreme Court last week, the Obama administration slammed the unusual legal argument now key in the movement against gay marriage: that gay couples cannot become accidentally pregnant and thus do not need access to marriage.

The argument has become the centerpiece of two major cases addressing gay marriage that the Supreme Court will consider at the end of March, Hollingsworth v. Perry, a challenge to California’s gay marriage ban, and United States v. Windsor, which seeks to overturn the federal Defense of Marriage Act.

"Only a man and a woman can beget a child together without advance planning, which means that opposite-sex couples have a unique tendency to produce unplanned and unintended offspring," wrote Paul Clement, a prominent attorney representing congressional Republicans in the DOMA case.

Clement added in his brief to the Supreme Court arguing to uphold that law that the government has a legitimate interest in solely recognizing marriages between men and women because it encourages them to form stable family units.

"Because same-sex relationships cannot naturally produce offspring, they do not implicate the State’s interest in responsible procreation and childrearing in the same way that opposite-sex relationships do," attorneys who are seeking to uphold Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage in California in 2008, argued in their brief. The opponents to gay marriage also argue it's possible the public perception of marriage would change if gay couples were allowed to wed, discouraging straight people from marrying.

Headline:  Answering The Call: The Lives Of 911 Dispatchers

Opening Paragraphs:  An elderly woman at a California retirement home died in February after a staff person refused to perform CPR, despite the pleas of a 911 dispatcher. The nurse says she was following company policy. This incident raised many questions about the role of dispatchers in medical emergencies.

Headline:  TSA Will Permit Knives, Golf Clubs on U.S. Planes

Opening Paragraphs:  The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will let people carry small pocketknives onto passenger planes for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, along with golf clubs, hockey sticks and plastic Wiffle Ball-style bats.

The agency will permit knives with retractable blades shorter than 6 centimeters (2.36 inches) and narrower than 1/2 inch, TSA Administrator John Pistole said today at an aviation security conference in Brooklyn. The change, to conform with international rules, takes effect April 25.

Passengers will also be allowed to board flights with some other items that are currently prohibited, including sticks used to play lacrosse, billiards and hockey, ski poles and as many as two golf clubs, Pistole said.

Headline:  Why Americans are not going to church

Issue:  Bill O’Reilly’s Tip of the Day deals with the need to take time for spirituality. 

Nubs’ Neat Story of the Week:  First Documented Case of Child Cured of HIV

Opening Paragraphs:  Mar. 3, 2013 — Researchers today described the first documented case of a child being cured of HIV. The landmark findings were announced at the 2013 Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in Atlanta, GA.

Dr. Deborah Persaud, of Johns Hopkins University and an amfAR grantee, detailed the case of a two-year-old child in Mississippi diagnosed with HIV at birth and immediately put on antiretroviral therapy. At 18 months, the child ceased taking antiretrovirals and was lost to follow-up. When brought back into care at 23 months, despite being off treatment for five months, the child was found to have an undetectable viral load. A battery of subsequent highly sensitive tests confirmed the absence of HIV.

Nubs’ Politically Philosophical Topic of the Week:  Conservative authoritarians and libertarian sheep

Summary:  Recently conservative author and polemic extraordinaire Ann Coulter got herself into some hot water for basically calling libertarians female genitalia.  While discussing this issue on his radio show, Glenn Beck brought up the sheep-like mentality of many libertarians (especially Ron Paul supports).        

Topics for the Mar. 2nd Radio Show

Here are our topics for this week’s Wobbles and Nubs My 2 Cents Radio Hour.  If you’ve missed any of our previous shows, please check out the achieves here and we hope that you will join us every Saturday morning at 10:30 AM Central for two regular guys discussing the day’s news. 

Wobbles’ Selections –

Headline:  Inhofe Sees 'Cover-Up' in Benghazi

Opening Paragraph:  The ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday accused the Obama administration of covering up the true nature of last year’s fatal attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, amplifying yet another political proxy battle between the White House and Republicans.

Headline:  CNN Explains: Sequestration

Opening Paragraph:  Here we go: A new round of confrontation between the White House and Congress over the federal budget is in the offing, this time in a new attempt to avert the looming "sequestration" process.

Headline:  Hollywood ratifies Obama alliance

Opening Paragraph:  Last night's Academy Awards made political history, surprising the claimed one billion viewers with an appearance by a gowned Michelle Obama via satellite from the White House to present the Best Picture Oscar®.   While anyone who pays attention knows that Hollywood has become source of funds, propaganda, and social ties for the progressive movement, the institutional body language was startling. It was a symbolic form of vassalage, signifying the switch of the entertainment industry from a mission of speaking truth to power (see Reagan and Bush presidencies) to one of support. We no longer tap shoulders with swords, we swoop in on the top award of the most prestigious event of the entire entertainment industry, and award it from the presidential palace.

Headline:  44 Gun Companies Stop Sales to Law Enforcement in Anti-2nd Amendment States!

Opening Paragraphs:  If you are about to purchase a new gun, I suggest you make your purchase from those companies that are putting it all on the line to take a stand for our 2nd Amendment.

Nubs’ Selections –

Headline:  Bloomberg's ban prohibits 2-liter soda with your pizza and some nightclub mixers

Opening Paragraphs:  Take a big gulp, New York: Hizzoner is about to give you a pop.

Nanny Bloomberg unleashes his ban on large sodas on March 12 — and there are some nasty surprises lurking for hardworking families.

Headline:  Joy Of Burying Cars In Snow Video Gets Lowell Plow Driver Fired

Opening Paragraph:  LOWELL (CBS) – A snow plow driver in Lowell was fired Friday for posting a video of himself burying parked cars and bragging about it during the blizzard earlier this month.

Headline:  Op-Ed: It's Time To Raise The Minimum Wage

Opening Paragraph:  In his State of the Union address, President Obama proposed a plan to boost federal minimum wage from 7.25 an hour, to 9 dollars. Columnist Robert Reich, Secretary of Labor under President Bill Clinton, argues that plan is "a no-brainer."

Topic:  Conservative authoritarians and libertarian sheep 

Summary:  Late last week conservative author and polemic extraordinaire Ann Coulter got herself into some hot water for basically calling libertarians female genitalia.  While discussing this issue on his radio show, Glenn Beck brought up the sheep-like mentality of many libertarians (especially Ron Paul supports).         

Topic:  Plutocracy & Mockingjay 

Summary:  In last week’s show, Wobbles’ brought up the issue of the political class in this country.  We weren’t able to delve into the topic in much detail, but it did remind me of a couple of things I’d written in the past: one about the American plutocracy and the other about the allegory in the book Mockingjay.