Ms. Seegar was successful in the transition to sound movies but retired in 1933 to raise a family. She had a great-grandson by the name of Michael. He was born in 1998 and he has Down syndrome.
Ms. Kent also was able to make the transition to talkies but retired in 1935 when her popularity waned.

“But restoring the American dream requires more than restoring a sound, productive economy, vitally important as that is. It requires a return to spiritual and moral values, values so deeply held by those who came here to build a new life. We need to restore those values in our daily life, in our neighborhoods and in our government’s dealings with the other nations of the world…. These are the values inspiring those brave workers in Poland. The values that have inspired other dissidents under Communist domination who’ve been willing to go into the gulag and suffer the torture of imprisonment because of their dissidence. They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost. They remind us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction.”

But the solution that they have been using right from the beginning is a chemical dispersant. There are twelve different types of dispersants approved by the EPA for breaking up oil in seawater. Two of those are rated as 100% effective on southern Louisiana crude oil. But BP chose to use a product called Corexit. Corexit is less than 65% effective on southern Louisiana crude oil. Corexit is also one of the most toxic of the 12 dispersants rated at up to 20 times more toxic than the more effective dispersants.

So why would BP choose to use a chemical that is more toxic and less effective? Do they know something that we don’t know? Is their some secret that BP is trying to keep from us that explains their seeming madness? Corexit is manufactured by a company called Nalco. And guess who is on the board of Nalco. Did you guess executives from BP? Give yourself a cigar! Do you think the reason that Corexit is being used is because the executives of BP are basically selling the product to themselves?

Bruce Gebhardt, president of the company that manufactures Dispersit, a much safer and more effective product, says he could make 60,000 gallons a day of Dispersit which would cover the needs of BP. But he says his product has failed to get much market share. “When we came out with a safer product, we thought people would jump on board,” he said. “That’s not the case. We were never able to move anyone of any size off the Corexit product.” Maybe you need to put some BP executives on your board, Bruce.

Source: NY Times article, Less Toxic Dispersants Lose Out in BP Oil Spill Cleanup

In this day in history: 1536: Henry VIII’s second wife, Anne Boleyn, beheaded for alleged adultery.

Every day, we entrust more and more of our private information to websites and online social networks like Facebook. So I take Internet privacy very seriously.

That’s why I’m so concerned with the changes Facebook recently made to its privacy policy and use of personal data on third party websites. These changes take away important control that users had over who has access to their information.^[1,2]

I and others have expressed our concern about these changes and Facebook is starting to feel the pressure. Now, as Facebook considers how to respond to the outcry from its customers,^[3] we all need to keep up the pressure.

That’s why I’m asking you to join me in urging Facebook to stop sharing your information without your permission, by setting your status today to read:
“Facebook should stop sharing my personal info with outside companies without my permission. If you agree, set this as your status today and join this group: http://bit.ly/d1ZB6h”

Facebook provides a valuable service, but online social networks need to allow users to retain control over their own personal information.

The information that Facebook is now sharing with third-parties and with the public is very different from the spirit of the site’s previous terms of service.^[4] Certain parts of your profile, including your hometown, interests and activities, and your profile picture, must be made public or deleted—even if you restricted whom they were shared with before. Certain third-party partners now have access to all of this information, including your list of friends and their information, as soon as you visit their websites—without asking your permission.

These changes undermine the protection of your personal information on the web.

Recently, I sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission asking them to examine the use and distribution of personal information by social networking sites like Facebook.^[5] Three other senators and I also sent a letter directly to Facebook, urging them to provide an opt-in mechanism that would seek your permission before sharing your information.^[6]

Facebook can take immediate action to remedy this situation—but before they will they need to hear from enough users who care.

Can you join me in advocating for privacy on the web?

If you’re on Facebook set your status to read:

“Facebook should stop sharing my personal info with outside companies without my permission. If you agree, set this as your status today and join this group: http://bit.ly/d1ZB6h”

Thank you for joining me in advocating for a safer, better Internet.

Sincerely,

Senator Charles Schumer

Sources:

1. “Facebook privacy changes would share user data with other sites,” The Washington Post, March 29, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=88264&id=20502-9916070-qXWcfRx&t=1

2. “The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook,” mattmckeon.com, May 11, 2010
http://mattmckeon.com/facebook-privacy/

3. “Facebook Calls All Hands Meeting on Privacy,” allfacebook.com, May 12, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=88265&id=20502-9916070-qXWcfRx&t=2

4. “New Facebook Privacy Complaint Filed with Trade Commission,” Electronic Privacy Information Center, May 5, 2010
http://epic.org/2010/05/new-facebook-privacy-complaint.html

5. Press Release, Office of Senator Charles E. Schumer, April 26, 2010,
http://schumer.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=324175

6. Press Release, Office of Senator Charles E. Schumer, April 27, 2010,
http://schumer.senate.gov/record.cfm?id=324221

The NY Daily News published a list of instructions to protect your security which I have included below. I think the first one is wrong (or perhaps it depends on how your account is configured). For me, to get to privacy settings I have to click Account>Privacy Settings in the upper right. Anyway, here is the list:

Tips to protect yourself on Facebook:

1.These links will help you manage your privacy.

- On the upper right-hand corner of your screen, click Privacy Settings/Profile Information. Make sure you adjust your privacy settings next to all 12 categories on the page.

- Then click Back to Privacy/Contact Information. Make sure you adjust your privacy settings next to all nine categories on the page.

2. To ensure your friends don’t see your name when they view Facebook ads.

- On the upper right hand corner of your screen, click Account/ Account Settings/Facebook Ads.

- Select “No one” besides the section that reads “Allow ads on platform pages to show my information to & Show my social actions in Facebook Ads to.”

3. To make sure you are not enrolled in a program that gives Web sites like Yelp, Pandora and Microsoft Docs access to your information.

- On the upper right hand corner of your screen, click Account/Privacy Settings/Applications and Web sites

- Click Edit Setting beside Instant Personalization Pilot Program.

- Then uncheck the box at the bottom of the screen.

4. Maybe, though, you’ve had enough and want to deactivate your account. You go to this link:

- https://ssl.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

- Click Submit. Enter your password and fill out the text box. Press Okay. And do not log into Facebook for two weeks, or your account will be reactivated.

At Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi students were protesting the war and against the racism that students had to endure from motorists who passed through the center of the campus. National Guardsmen were sent to the campus when reports of rioting were called in to the police. The Guardsmen were issued weapons but no ammunition. However, 75 city and state policemen armed with carbines, sub machine guns, shotguns, service revolvers and some personal weapons, were also called to the campus.

At some point the police opened fire into the the campus dormitory firing at least 460 shots over a period of at least 30 seconds. One student, Phillip Lafayette Gibbs, 21, a junior pre-law major and father of an 18-month-old son, was killed. Also, James Earl Green, 17, a high school senior who had stopped to watch what was happening and was standing behind the line of police officers was also killed. Twelve other Jackson State students were wounded but no ambulances were called until the police removed their shell casings and then left the scene.

Although police claimed they had been fired upon, no evidence was found to support this allegation. None of the police who fired into the crowd were ever arrested or charged with a crime.

Tin soldiers and Nixon’s comin’.
We’re finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drummin’.
Four dead in Ohio.
— Neil Young

Today is the 40th anniversary of the killings at Kent State. National guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent paralysis. No one was ever prosecuted for the shootings.

The victims were:

* Jeffrey Glenn Miller; 20, shot through the mouth – killed instantly
* Allison B. Krause; 19, fatal left chest wound – died later that day
* William Knox Schroeder; 19, fatal chest wound – died almost an hour later in hospital while waiting for surgery
* Sandra Lee Scheuer; 20, fatal neck wound – died a few minutes later from loss of blood

Jeffrey Miller was from my home town of Plainview, NY. A memorial was erected at Beth’s high school in his memory. The picture above shows Mary Ann Vecchio, a fourteen-year-old runaway, kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller after he was shot dead by the Ohio National Guard.

You can read all about the murders here.
And even more information is available here.

It all started with a nut Iranian cleric by the name of Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi who said that the reason there are earthquakes is because women dress too sexy. Yes, we all laughed because no one in the west is silly enough to believe something like that except that… 1) Pat Robertson, the founder of the Christian Coalition, warned Orlando, Florida, that it was courting natural disaster by allowing gay pride flags to be flown along its streets. “A condition like this will bring about … earthquakes, tornadoes, and possibly a meteor,” Robertson said. He also blamed the Haiti earthquake on voodoo. 2) Jerry Falwell blamed Hurricane Katrina on immorality and anti-Christian groups. So let’s keep that in mind as we continue.

Anyway, after the Iranian cleric’s statement, a group of American women (or maybe it was men) decided that American women should all dress in a sexy fashion one day to see if they could stir up some earthquakes or “boobquakes” as they were called*. Boobquake day was this past Monday and the result was that American women are not very good at getting the Earth excited enough to do any quaking.

As I was reading through some post-boobquake articles, I ran across an article written nine years ago in response to Pat Robertson’s attempt to correlate gay people and natural disasters. I would like to sum up some of the points in that article written by Janis Walworth, co-founder of the Center for Gender Sanity.

She takes a look at tornadoes as the natural disaster of choice. According to Robertson, states where gays are given more support and recognition should have more tornadoes. But the opposite seems to be true. The numbers show a negative correlation between the number of gay groups and the number of tornadoes. Based on this observation, a state like Alabama could avoid two tornadoes per year by doubling the number of gay groups within the state.

Next she looks at religious affiliation and here she finds a very high correlation. Jewish and Catholic populations seem to have a nearly zero correlation with tornadoes but the number of Protestants has a very high correlation with the number of tornadoes that a state will endure. This is especially true for states with a high Baptist population. Texas could cut its number of tornadoes in half by sending a few hundred thousand Baptists to Alaska (where there are no tornadoes). Interestingly, an examination of the numbers of gay religious groups reveals no significant relationship with tornadoes. So if Texas could convince those few hundred Baptists to become gay, that would also reduce the number of tornadoes.

So the statistical evidence would say that God likes gay people. It’s Baptists that he doesn’t like. Of course, correlation doesn’t prove causation so it is possible that Baptists just like tornadoes so they move to states that have lots of them but in any case, if leaders of the Protestant church are going to claim that tornadoes are caused by people that offend God, then they might want to check the data to make sure they know who exactly is offending God.

*Boobquake was actually invented by Jennifer McCreight, a science student and blogger from Indiana who, apparently, has a good sense of humor.

Update: Here’s Jennifer’s article from The Guardian on the results of Boobquake Day.