Good News Friday

Can’t believe it’s Friday already. What a week. Here’s some good news to close things out:

• Everything is now possible. This is the best explanation on the recent discovery that Einstein was wrong about that E=MC2 stuff. Basically this means that theoretically, time travel, space travel, etc. are within the realm of the possible and are not limited by the laws of physics. Huzzah. We’re saved!

• Via The Guardian, “Facebook “unfriends” coal and “likes” clean energy”: Greenpeace’s “Unfriend Facebook” campaign has yielded success, with Facebook agreeing to power its operations with renewables.

• New unemployment claims have sunk to a 3-year low.

• Time’s Person Of The Year: The Protester. Suck on that, Tea Party.

• The Death Penalty Information Center reports that the number of death sentences in the U.S. has dropped 75% in the past 15 years, while the number of executions has dropped 60%.

• An Iowa court has overruled Governor Terry Brandstad’s veto of a bipartisan bill that provided funding for 36 unemployment offices. Brandstad closed the unemployment offices, saying computer kiosks were just as good as staffed offices. But the court ruled the governor used an unconstitutional line-item veto to remove the funding and close the offices. (In an update, it appears the governor is appealing the court’s decision, and the unemployment offices will remain closed. Um, Iowa? Your governor is kind of a dick.)

• A gay soldier discharged under Don’t Ask Don’t Tell has been reinstated and will report for duty at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, Calif.

Jase Daniels, a Hebrew linguist for the Navy, was one of the plaintiffs in the 2010 case challenging Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.

• A new FCC rule ends ear-splitting TV ads, and thank God. Folks, this is a huge pet peeve of mine. Some TV ads have some really obnoxious sound effects; I’ve nearly had a heart attack on a few. Now, can we get rid of those ads that show women shoppers acting like idiots or going bathsit insane over “savings”? Oh, and what’s the deal with that awful AT&T ad with the wife in the greenhouse telling her milquetoast husband she should have married someone else? This sells a product? What the hell is wrong with you people?

• George Bush can start playing golf again! The war in Iraq is officially declared over.

• Right-wing hysterics over signatures by “Mickey Mouse” and “Hitler” notwithstanding, it appears the Scott Walker recall has reached the required amount of signatures needed to force a recall election next year. United Wisconsin plans to continue collecting signatures to make sure they have more than enough.

5 Comments

Filed under Good News

5 responses to “Good News Friday

  1. Randy

    Bradley Manning has his first hearing after 18 months of imprisonment and torture. Anything is possible.

  2. mudplanet

    Sure, you can travel faster that TSOL, as long as you’re composed of nothing but neutrinos.

  3. Amen, SB…all great events to celebrate! And check out my letter to the editor printed in yesterday’s Knoxville Metro Pulse, the weekly alternative newspaper:

    http://www.metropulse.com
    “Voter ID Law Unconstitutional”
    This paper does cover both sides of most issues, but their first article left out ALL the negatives in this Bill!

  4. themadkansan

    I’m not so worried about the TV volume as I am the NDAA and SOPA/Protect-IP passing…