Monday Reads: Resolved, to fight the Republican Reality Denial Machine
Posted: January 6, 2014 Filed under: just because | Tags: Climate change, global warming, unemployment benefits for the long term unemployed 117 Comments
Good Morning!
The temperatures will be dropping here in New Orleans much like the rest of the east coast. We’re actually going to get into temps that I’ve never experienced here. It may get into the lower 20s and close to the teens. Needless to say, my house was not built with this in mind. My furnace has really been working over time this month. Folks in Australia are experiencing record highs. It helps to think of the airport in Richmond, Australia which hit 110 F on Sunday.
The weather deniers all point to our winter as proof positive that there is no global warming. Well, Duh, folks! Look at Summer 2013 in Austrailia which just moved into summer 2014. The continent has had the hottest weather on record and they’ve experienced horrible wild fires. Their hottest days happen in January! Global warming is about extremes and how the warming shifts patterns around the globe and the poles.
In its annual climate statement report, the bureau highlighted the influence of carbon emissions upon the warming trend, stating: “The Australian region warming is very similar to that seen at the global scale and the past year emphasises that the warming trend continues.
“As summarised in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report, recent warming trends have been dominated by the influence of increasing greenhouse gases and the enhanced greenhouse effect.”
The bureau said sea surface temperatures were “unusually warm” in 2013, with preliminary data placing the year at 0.51C above the long-term average. Warming oceans pose a serious threat to the Great Barrier Reef, with coral bleaching contributing to the ecosystem losing half of its coral cover in the past 30 years.
Nationally, rainfall was 37mm below the long-term average in 2013, ranking it as the 52nd driest year on record.
In fact, it’s been so hot in Australia they had to put a new color on the map.
As scorching temperatures persist across Australia, the country’s Bureau of Meteorologyadded a new color to its weather forecasting map, extending the range to 54ºC, or 129ºF, from the previous cap of 50ºC, or 122ºF.
The new, deeper purple “dome of heat” swirls above South Australia, indicating temperatures above 50ºC in some areas.
This goes hand-in-hand with increasing republican denial of evolution. Bill Nye the Science guy is headed to Kentucky to debate scientific fact vs magical thinking. He’ll never convince a young earth creationist that he’s wrong, but will the publicity perhaps knock some sense into a few school boards?
Science popularizer and TV personality Bill Nye is headed to Kentucky to advocate for the theory of evolution in a debate against Ken Ham, a Christian proponent of creationism and founder of the Creation Museum. The debate is scheduled for Feb. 4 at the museum in Petersburg, KY., according to an announcement Ham posted on Facebook Thursday and a subsequent press release on the event.
While Ham has declined debate requests from “mocking, strident evolutionists,” the statement from Ham’s creationism group Answers in Genesis describes Nye as “a serious advocate for his beliefs, [whose] opinions carry weight in society.”
I’ve always had problems with evolution and atheism being classified as a belief at all, let alone a strident one. Just because you insist folks believe in untrue things makes you strident? I guess it’s because if you’re into pushing your agenda and proselytizing, you think that’s the goal of every one. How is nonbelief a belief? How is showing people data and facts gleaned through nearly 100 years of scientists using the scientific method and just stating the theories some kind of advocacy?
The Senate is set to take up the extension of long term unemployment benefits. How willing will Republicans be to actually have a discussion on new extensions even though they are low cost compared to the impact on the economy. This shows that Republicans continue to live in a world of ideology that does not respect the actual data that shows they are truly wrong.
At the same time, a number of Republicans – including leaders on the House Ways and Means Committee – continue to question the need to extend the unemployment insurance (UI) benefits at all.
“Despite a dozen extensions, academic research suggests the program has actually hurt, rather than helped, the job creation that the unemployed need most,” Michelle Dimarob, spokesperson for Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.), said Friday in a statement.
“It is time to focus on policies that will actually lead to real economic opportunities for families who are trying to get back on their feet and back into the workplace.”
The comments came as President Obama and congressional Democrats are amplifying their pressure on Boehner to extend the benefits to the long-term unemployed who have exhausted their state help.
An estimated 1.3 million unemployed workers lost those benefits on Dec. 28, after GOP leaders rejected the Democrats’ efforts to extend the help as part of a bipartisan budget deal.
The debate will intensify next week, with Senate Democrats planning a vote on a three-month renewal.
Sponsored by Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Dean Heller (R-Nev.), the proposal would not offset the estimated $6.4 billion in costs, setting the stage for a potential showdown with Boehner and the Republicans if the bill is sent to the House.
Rhode Island and Nevada have the highest unemployment rates in the country, at 9 percent in November, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
We lose money when we do not provide these benefits.
Unemployment benefits are one of the more effective forms of stimulus because the money is badly needed and thus spent right away. The Congressional Budget Office says 200,000 jobs will be lost this year if the benefits are not restored, and this week the damage began.
Big states were obviously the hardest hit, naturally: nearly $65 million came out of the California economy in one week alone, according to the analysis. And of course, states represented by Republicans who oppose the extension each suffered some economic harm. Senator John Cornyn twice blocked a vote on an unemployment insurance extension before the holiday recess, and his home state of Texas lost $21.8 million this week.
Here is a MoJo article about the folks whose unemployment benefits have ended. This quote sums up much of the problem:“When you 
apply for a job at 50 people laugh at you. When you apply for a job at 65 people just look at you like you are crazy.” Read the stories of people behind these statistics.
When Congress reconvenes next week, lawmakers will have to decide whether to extend federal unemployment benefits for about 1.3 million Americans. These emergency benefits—which Congress let expire shortly after Christmas—are part of a 2008 program that allows workers who have been out of the job for more than six months to receive an emergency extension on their payments up to 47 weeks. If Congress fails to renew these benefits, only a quarter of jobless Americans will be receiving any benefits at all, according to the Huffington Post.
As these charts show, the United States is looking at the worst long-term unemployment crisis since soup kitchen lines peaked during the Great Depression. Americans who have been unemployed for more than six months are often hit with major financial and personal hardship. Around 10 percent must file for bankruptcy, more than half report putting off medical care, and many say they have, “lost self-respect while jobless.” But who are these Americans who have lost their benefits?
The Republicans have peculiar notions about evolution, the unemployed, global warming and poor people among other things. What do poor people do all day? Do they really sit around collecting government money while watching their big screen TVS?
Dave Ramsey probably wasn’t expecting this much pushback when he shared a piece by Tim Corley contrasting the habits of the rich with those of the poor. In her response on CNN, Rachel Held Evans noted that Ramsey and Corley mistake correlation for causality when they suggest (without actually proving) that these habits are the cause of a person’s financial situation. (Did it never occur to them that it might be the other way around?)
Ramsey fired back, calling the pushback “immature and ignorant.” This from a guy who just made 20 sweeping assertions about 47 million poor people in the U.S. — all based on a survey of 361 individuals.
That’s right. To come up with his 20 habits, Corley talked to just 233 wealthy people and 128 poor people. Ramsey can talk all he wants about Corley’s research passing the “common-sense smell test,” but it doesn’t pass the “research methodology 101” test.
Included in 2013 Republican insanity is the continuing increase in abortion restrictions. Most fly in the face of science and common sense. They are headed to SCOTUS which is probably the plan of the majority of them.
Twenty-two states enacted 70 measures which sought to tighten abortion laws in 2013, according to Guttmacher’s data. The 70 laws accounted for about half of all (141) the provisions nationwide related to reproductive matters. Only 2011 outpaced 2013 in terms of new abortion restrictions.
Some of the legislative battles over abortion last year played out before the national stage. Most visible was a fight in Texas in which state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) launched amarathon filibuster in June to block a bill designed to implement strict new restrictions. The measure later passed as Republicans launched a renewed effort. Still, Davis’s resistance catapulted her onto the national radar. She’s now a candidate for governor.
In June, the U.S. House passed a 20-week abortion ban that went nowhere in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The strangest things is all the information we actually have– a lot via the bible–which shows that contraception and abortifacients were pretty plentiful and widely accepted. We do have evidence of biblical birth control.
Let’s start with the hot sex! The Song of Songs is a long, sexy, romantic poem that many are surprised to find in the Bible. It is an unusual text in that it makes no mention of God or law, just a young, unmarried couple chasing, and lusting, after one another and eventually, as I and others believe, consummating their relationship. Over the centuries, religious scholars have argued that the poem is a metaphor for divine love. Still, it is pretty hard to ignore the poem’s graphic descriptions of the longings of the flesh.
For example, in chapter 7 the young man says to young woman: “Thy stature is like to a palm-tree, and thy breasts to clusters of
grapes. … ‘I will climb up into the palm-tree, I will take hold of the branches thereof; and let thy breasts be as clusters of the vine, and the smell of thy countenance like apples; And the roof of thy mouth like the best wine, that glideth down smoothly for my beloved, moving gently the lips of those that are asleep.”
As Athalya Brenner points out in her book “The Intercourse of Knowledge: On Gendering Desire and Sexuality in the Hebrew Bible,” a number of the plants mentioned in the Song of Songs were used by women in the ancient Mediterranean world as contraception and abortifacients. These include pomegranates, wine, myrrh, spikenard and cinnamon. Brenner goes on to argue that since the book makes no mention of procreation as the purpose of sex, the many metaphors comparing sex to “gardens” and “orchards” may also be read as a reference to the forms of birth control that those gardens provided. Indeed, the man in the poem seduces the woman by offering her many of the plants that would have allowed them to have sex without the risk of pregnancy.
Another place in the Bible where contraception may have played a role is in the Book of Esther. This one’s about a beautiful woman named Esther who disguises her Jewish identity to become the queen of the Persian King Ahasuerus. When her cousin discovers an inside plot to kill all Jewish people, Esther intervenes through seduction and eventually saves the Jews.
In an article in the scholarly journal Conservative Judaism, Rabbi Joseph Prouser points out that the King’s potential wives were all required to anoint themselves with myrrh oil and aromatic herbs for one full year – which is a pretty long time for what some read as just a beauty treatment. Myrrh was a known contraceptive at the time, cited in the writings of Soranus of Ephesus, a Greek physician who was an expert on gynecology and midwifery. He explained that when used in a pessary, myrrh oil would work as an abortifacient, preventing the implantation of fertilized eggs. The aromatic herbs may have also had contraceptive properties.
Oh, well, it really isn’t about anything but controlling and limiting every one that isn’t a rich white male, isn’t it?
Here’s one quick news update: Liz Cheney has dropped her bid to be Wyoming’s Senator.
Liz Cheney, whose upstart bid to unseat Wyoming Sen. Mike Enzi sparked a round of warfare in the Republican Party and even within her own family, is dropping out of the Senate primary, sources told CNN late Sunday.
Cheney, the eldest daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, began telling associates of her decision over the weekend and could make an official announcement about the race as early as Monday.
Cheney’s surprising decision to jump into the race, an announcement made in a YouTube video last summer, roiled Republican politics in the Wyoming, a state Dick Cheney represented in Congress for five terms before moving up the Republican food chain in Washington.
Enzi was a low-key presence in Washington who was elected in 1996 and, with few blemishes, amassed a conservative voting record in the Senate. He expressed public annoyance at Cheney’s decision to mount a primary challenge. A number of his Senate colleagues quickly rallied to his side and pledged support for his re-election bid.
There was little public polling of the race, but two partisan polls released last year showed Enzi with a wide lead, an assessment mostly shared by GOP insiders watching the race.
There’s some interesting gossip involved that suggests it was more than bad poll numbers.
Two GOP sources said that a problematic recent incident involving a close member of Cheney’s family prompted her to reconsider the race, among other factors.
Maybe she decided screwing her sister and her sister’s family over wasn’t worth it. Who knows?
So, I thought it might be a good exercise to look at some New Year’s Resolutions of people that I admire very much. First, here’s the 1942 resolutions of Woody Guthrie.
You can see resolutions of Jonathan Swift, Susan Sontag, and Marilyn Monroe too. Here’s one of my favorites of Sontag from 1972.
Kindness, kindness, kindness.
I want to make a New Year’s prayer, not a resolution. I’m praying for courage.
This comes from Marilyn’s list made in 1955.
l — keep looking around me — only much more so —observing — but not only myself but others and everything — take things (it) for what they (it’s) are worth
y — must make strong effort to work on current problems and phobias that out of my past has arisen — making much much much more more more more more effort in my analisis. And be there always on time — no excuses for being ever late.
w — if possible — take at least one class at university — in literature –
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
Good morning! It’s springlike here, 54 degrees and rising. Snow is melting so fast that it’s foggy.
here too but that’s all going to change tonight.
It’s 20 here and will be colder tonight so Dak will probably see it later today or tomorrow. Hope you stay warm.
Did we have a pole shift yesterday? It’s 9 here, we had a low of 7 last night. Suppose to get down to 2 tonight. When we finish with this we’re sending it up to you BB. 🙂 it should change all of your melting snow into an iceberg.
It’s going to get cold again tonight, but for now it’s almost 60!
Enjoy it while it lasts!
Pole shift? I believe we must have.
It’s noon here and still 36 degrees. Really hard frost tonight. That’s going to take down the banana trees and possibly the ginger.
25 degrees at 12:40. Brrrrrrrr.
It’s coming this way, The temp keeps dropping and there’s no sun. We have wind too. All very much not New Orleans weather.
The weather people say it will but I doubt it will get much above freezing today. I expect temps in the teens again tonight. Colder than last.
What’s a Polar Vortex?: The Science Behind Arctic Outbreaks
http://www.wunderground.com/news/polar-vortex-plunge-science-behind-arctic-cold-outbreaks-20140106
I had to sit through a dinner where one of the other guests, someone who purports to be a Christian, let loose with her “theories” that anyone who does not believe in the bible were destined to spend eternity in hell.
This guest was allowed to spew on and on, combining politics with religion, while the rest of us sat rather mute in deference to the hosts. In an attempt to stay polite and tolerant we tried to change the subject but this person was on a “roll”, discussing homosexuality and family values in the same breath as Obamacare and the need for prayer in the public schools, Needless to say most of us were pretty uncomfortable as this moron kept inserting god and the bible into every topic that was introduced. We found ourselves being tolerant to the intolerant rantings of this person based on our affection toward the hosts which gave this person the forum to talk utter nonsense in a mixed group.
But this is what most people do when confronted with the zealots among us. We shut down when these “believers” take over when all we want is to yell “STFU and keep your opinions to yourself!”
There is no reasoning with those who claim the “high road”. They insist that “god is on their side”. They deny the most basic scientific facts and skeptics are condemned. Much of what this person declared has been heard openly in the well of congress as if the separation of church and state never existed.
Sad to say I was one of those who stood by idly, hoping this conversation would play itself out, and hating myself for my silence.
Suprisingly I found there were some at that dinner who felt the same way but insisted that this person “has a right to express their opinion”. Yes, but not to the point where we were being held hostage by the rantings of a closed minded person who had no idea of where the rest of us may stand in our beliefs.
This is the mindset that seems to be winding its way through the nation as laws are created to fit in with religious beliefs that are intolerant of others.
My tolerance for that kind of crap has disappeared. It’s not just differences of opinion. What they espouse is racism, sexism, and classism to such extremes as to cause human suffering of innocent people. You were very kind to have protected your hosts, but I can’t help but wonder why your hosts would have put you in that position. The hosts should have changed the subject or otherwise silenced their rude guest.
I agree with you, Janice – the host should have interrupted and changed the topic rather than let one person drone on and on making everyone else uncomfortable.
Pat, obviously the ranter not only had no idea where others stood with their beliefs, but didn’t give a damn. That kind of rudeness at a dinner table is inexcusable in someone else’s home.
I agree.
Me too. I no longer put up with stupidity and hate wrapped in religion. I would tell them off and I would leave in no time if they didn’t stop. The host should have put an end to it.
Every one has a right to an opinion but they do not have a right too pummel people with it. Their rights stop where your rights start.
I agree. Speaking up encourages others who’d previously thought they were they only ones thinking the overbearing bigot was nuts.
Often a wide smile and a pointed quote about love and forgiveness, plus leading the change in the dinner table topic, will do it.
I’m no longer a christian, but from childhood readings I too can quote Biblical scripture — “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” turn the other cheek,” “help the poor and heal the sick,” “judge not lest you be judged,” “you without sin cast the first stone,” “sooner will a camel pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man into heaven,” and even “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s” (when taxes come up.) There are enough sayings from Jesus Who Is A Liberal to trip ’em up nicely! 🙂
Although the other evening I did lay into an uninformed person who expressed deep misgivings about the “government getting into health care” and deciding what we got. Because, of course, it’s so much better when greedy Insurance Company CEOs decide what health care we get. I enlighted him with a long list of atrocities perpetuated on my patients and I for medical needs.
I agree Luna…..Even with it’s many shortcomings. ObamaCare has, at the very least, taken much of the “rules” control out of the hands of the Insurance companies. The elimination of the pre-existing conditions rules and the removal of lifetime limits with the opportunity for families to keep their young adults on the family health plan has made a big dent in the control big health insurance once had.
Isn’t Christian morality an oxymoron, really? At least for the RWNJs.
I am so so tired of hearing who is going to heaven and who isn’t among the Christians and Politicians. Just yesterday Huckabee started in on the little 13 year old girl who is brain dead, and compared her situation to abortions in this country. I am so tired of people praying for me to change my beliefs, and what I stand for.
I have been arguing the case of a police officer who allows his toddler to be photographed with guns. How sick is that. I think we need some laws put into place about this, it’s abuse and should be stopped.
I’m with you Fannie.
He also compared the hospital to the NAZIs. The poor child is dead and it is ghoulish to keep her alive because her parents just ascribe to magical thinking. That and it costs money and an ICU bed that should be going to some who needs it.
Pat…..I’ve had several experiences in the past few weeks because I see people at the holidays that I don’t see often. I have a family member tell me this past weekend that I should move to Utah (or in her words, “wherever it is they just got “IT””, meaning gay marriage, BTW the SCOTUS just suspended this morning). Her comment came because I was lamenting that my partner would not be able to take FEMLA leave to be with me for upcoming corneal transplant surgeries. My partners employer does not give FEMLA leave to same gender couples. Needless to say the “move to Utah” comment ticked me off and my response was a bit wicked, I said “Why Utah, why not Canada or maybe Switzerland? Hell, I can just renounce my U.S. Citizenship and fucking leave the United States forever” I could tell she was stunned by my angry reaction, then I asked “why should I have to move to another State or another country to find equality of treatment and equal access to civil contracts in U.S. Law? Just like you, I am a U.S. Citizen after all” ..She said something like “I didn’t mean to make you angry” and I said ” hell no, you just wanted to make sure I knew that if I moved away from everything and everyone I’ve ever known, after nearly 7 decades of life, I could get married too. Fuck that!!!!”. I probably won’t see or talk to her again. I’m just winning hearts & minds everywhere I go, or not. I’m too damned old to tolerate the intolerance and cruelty anymore.
The same cousin who told me that I should “move to Utah” told me many years ago that being gay was “god’s way of testing me”. I told her “Being gay is not god testing me, me being gay is a test of you”. You would think the woman knows better than to tug on my cape, wouldn’t you?
In Buddhism, people like that are considered good teachers because they teach you patience and compassion. I think I have a lot more of that to learn. I just want to slap some sense into them.
I know nothing about Buddhism, but I probably should learn because it would likely help me to moderate my tone and calm my spirit. During my youth I turned the other cheek and just grumbled inside, but at some point I began to understand that silence in the face of prejudice, any sort of prejudice, is a form of condoning the prejudice.
This quote of MLK concerning good people saying and doing nothing is my favorite.
“History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people”
I had the impression that we should consider them teachers or as bringers of adversity with which we should practice.
They certainly aren’t teaching with the intention to raise the level of compassion in the world.
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”
The name of whomever said that is on the tip of my tongue, but I bet someone here will know.
Edmund Burke
Ah, thank you! Knew it was not a contemporary source.
Brain’s fuzzier than usual lately due to med side effects from a med to treat adverse effects of another med which reduces my risk for a recurrence of something which is supposedly worse than all the adverse effects of all the other adjunctive treatments. Gah!
Meds really are a mixed blessing, aren’t they?
Yes. You don’t want to replace one problem with another!
Unfortunately many specialists are “partialists.” They can be so entrapped in their tunnel vision that they can’t see there’s might be more to health and quality of life than reducing your chance of disease X by a small percentage. There’s almost always a tradeoff.
Are you guys going to post a Wordles for 2013? It’s kind of interesting to browse through them and see what we were talking about in the past.
That’s a good idea. If I can figure out how to do it I’ll ask Dak or JJ.
Just did one … but it takes the last few weeks so it doesn’t really reflect 2013.
Thank you! I like studying them!
NPR breaking news. SCOTUS halts gay marriages in Utah pending appeal.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/01/06/260156223/supreme-court-halts-gay-marriages-in-utah?utm_medium=Email&utm_source=BreakingNews&utm_campaign=
Assholes!
I find Sotomayer’s moves on this very discouraging.
Civil rights for all!
Very, very discouraging
So maybe I won’t have to move to Utah “where they have IT” because they don’t? 🙂 I hope they are able to defend the prior ‘unconstitutional” decision, but I’m not holding my breath. This has been two steps forward, one step back, three steps forward, four steps back. Still, compared to where we were 20 years ago, we’ve made significant progress.
I was watching a documentary on Act Up on PBS on Independent Lens. It brought back some very tearful memories for me. They ended the story some where around the middle of the Clinton years with the success of the Cocktail. It really shows how far things have improved since the Reagan years even though there’s so much backlash. It’s still forward momentum there. The civil rights movements for minorities and women have gone totally backwards.
“How to Survive a Plague” The story of Act up and TAG.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/blog/survive-plague-qa-david-france
I keep waiting for some sort of resurgence or rebirth of both the civil rights and the women’s rights movements. Maybe the setbacks have come because too many people in the age groups that usually drive a movement take for granted the freedom and choices won for them by others. Maybe when they begin to feel intrusion into their personal space they will engage.
Tennessee man runs for governor in GOP primary for right to shower with his raccoon
The doofus accidentally got something right with that last sentence.
Now, who would suspect a cute little ol’ pet raccoon of attacking chickens?
My dad took to sitting up at nights with a shotgun next to the chicken house, after we lost one too many to the Masked Bandits, as he called them. I think he half-admired them for their sneaky cleverness in getting to the poultry before we did.
Gene Lyons on Slow Eddie. Calling this clown “Fast” is a misnomer.
Snowden Conspiracies Are The Left’s Benghazi
I read that Snowden quote and thought along the same lines. Snowden’s not competent of literary analysis, that’s for sure. Too mixed up with the thematic concepts; finds linkages where there are none and vice verse.
Do you suppose this is true?
http://ted.nugent.mediafetcher.com/news/top_stories/jet-ski_musician_turks.php
Musician Ted Nugent died while on a personal vacation in Turks and Caicos early this morning from injuries sustained in a Jet-Ski accident – January 6, 2014
I can’t find any stories on google about it. Do you think this is true: Time-Life building in NYC on fire?
http://www.breaking911.com/damatic-video-smoke-billowing-from-fire-outside-the-time-life-building-at-51-st-7-ave-in-manhattan-httpinstagram-compi1s4niyh2h/
Would Mitt Romney attend the funeral?
Apparently it’s an internet hoax that began in June 2013.
http://www.travelerstoday.com/articles/6611/20130613/ted-nugent-dead-rocker-becomes-victim-internet-death-hoax-died-die.htm
great minds 🙂
well, rats! I was afraid of that! I was ready to send him off to his next rebirth as a clay pigeon for say, 1000 or so eons.
Ha! That would be well deserved!
LOL!!!
Damn, apparently it was a hoax.
http://www.travelerstoday.com/articles/6611/20130613/ted-nugent-dead-rocker-becomes-victim-internet-death-hoax-died-die.htm
It seems that the Time-Life Building is really on fire. Not a hoax.
http://nypost.com/2014/01/06/fire-smoke-at-time-life-building/
wow
Hope it doesn’t spread upward. Wonder if boilers exploded or something of that sort?
I think that manholes exploded.
teehee
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/06/satanic-temple-unveils-7-foot-goat-headed-baphomet-statue-for-oklahoma-capitol/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29
I love that. You can use it as a chair for inspiration. 🙂
How global warming can make cold snaps even worse
http://qz.com/163636/how-global-warming-can-make-cold-snaps-even-worse/
The Financial Crisis: Why Have No High-Level Executives Been Prosecuted?
Federal Judge Jed Rakoff, Southern District of New York, has an op-ed in the New York Review of Books. He notes that the five-year statute of limitations is set to expire for crimes that led to the collapse of the US economy in 2008.
Specifically, the good judge wants to know why no high-level Wall Street executives have been prosecuted for crashing the economy and ruining the lives of untold millions of ordinary American citizens. Frankly, it’s a very good question and a swell op-ed.
And in the future they will be much, much sneakier and harder to catch as they make their “mistakes” which invariably hit the small investors, and effect the economy of ordinary Americans.
TBogg and i used to get into CAPSLOCK fights at FDL, but I will give him his due for this one:
Dick Dynasty VII: The Quittening
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/06/dick-dynasty-vii-the-quittening/
it’s about the Cheney thing
Mr Bogg can be a real ass but I also find him usually hilarious. I’ll forgive a lot for funny.
Here’s what happens when you try to pierce conservatives’ Obamacare misinformation bubble: http://nym.ag/1a1maVp
Did you check Josh Marshall’s twitter feed after his article on the ACA. It brought out the crazee in droves. Massively ignorant ideologues.
Nope. It drives me nuts to see these folks. They just lie and lie and lie and lie.
Almost worse is most of the respondents were just living in the bubble. I don’t think they knew they were lying.
Workers at a Goodyear tyre factory in France have taken their bosses captive http://jrnl.to/JZcgfS
wow … return to the 70s in France
It’s getting to be time for that sort of action.
Good for them!!
Please, can we have some of that over here? NOW!
Court reviews Texas abortion restrictions
http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/court-review-texas-abortion-restrictions
Note the 5th Circuit panel is 3 anti-choice female judges. Two from the original and one who’s had a ethics problem because of racist remarks. I’d be amazed if the state lost here. This is going to the Supreme Court.
I really hate reading about these kinds of things …
Dad “Messing With” Gun Accidentally Kills two month old Daughter:
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/national-international/Lancaster-Infant-Death-238897651.html?_osource=SocialFlowTwt_NYBrand
“purposely pulled the trigger” does not equal “accidental” hit. You purposely pull a gun’s trigger, your certain result is a hit, of whatever is in the line of fire.
Unlike that attorney, I find these accidents believably irresponsible only because there are so many of them. What I find unbelievable is why our country lets so many happen.
More in depth information on this sad situation in Texas:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jan/06/texas-pregnant-brain-dead-woman-life-support
I suppose I should dig through the exact wording. My first read is that the hospital could not withdraw/withhold treatment simply because the patient is pregnant, if the patient had her desires for such indicated in her advanced directives. As such, it would take an overriding law to invalidate the patient’s wish, based, no doubt, on the theory that the paternalistic state, i.e. Father, knows best.
It’s enough to wish extensive invasive procedures on the bodies of those state legislators.
I really don’t think this is working out the way it was originally intended but I could be wrong.
Ralph, over here in banjoland we are expecting -20 to -30 degree windchills…my brain not working to well around that.
We had 18 for a low this morning at an executive airport which is not far from my place and 20 mph north winds. Definitely below 0 wind chills. Brrrrrrr.
Jeez, the US doesn’t need better gun background checks. Oh no, of course we don’t.
Armed Minnesota man burns down his own house, then blames Obama
This would be amazing, if it worked out like they hypothesize.
Epilepsy drug turns out to help adults acquire perfect pitch and learn language like kids
Valproate is Depakote. It’s used for seizure control and to treat bipolar conditions. Major side effects are weight gain, dyslipidemia, metabolic syndrome and related sequelae.
None of my pts on depakote suddenly sang better or picked up languages quickly. I’ll go take a look at that article, but it’s probably a case of headline writer exaggeration.
Impression from a quick read of the source article:
First, the subjects were tested on recognizing pitch, not on actually singing in perfect pitch themselves.
Small sample size, 9 on valproate and 8 control/placebo.
No pre-testing, aka baseline testing, of pitch recognition.
Group that got valproate first, then musical training, then testing, did somewhat better than placebo group but not amazingly better.
Group that got the placebo first, then musical training, then valporate, then testing, did not do better.
Headline badly overstates the possible conclusions one could draw from study results. Which doesn’t mean it’s not interesting as an area for future research.
Oh yeah most definitely Luna @ 5:49: I can say for certain that Depakote does not make one suddenly sing like a canary. I call bullshit on that. Not to mention the liver damage the drug can cause too.
Oh yeah, liver failure risk too. I barely got started on Depakote’s adverse effects in my earlier comment. Mostly I saw somnolence and weight gain. Plus you have to keep checking patients’ blood levels to make sure it stays in the therapeutic range. I don’t practice now in an area where I have much if any reason to prescribe it, but it sure isn’t my first-line choice. Or 2nd-line either.
The more I think about it, that study was an off-the-wall idea in search of evidence.
“absorb new info effortlessly” hahahahaha!
The Senate has confirmed Janet Yellen in a 56 to 26 vote as chair of the Federal Reserve –1st woman to head the central bank in its history.
Good, it’s about time!
Good to read this!
yay
Excellent.
Senator Inhofe rejects the global warming “thing” because it’s cold outside. http://thkpr.gs/KtKokJ
That fellow can’t see a forest for the trees.
True that!!! 🙂
I completely agree with this:
Washington Times Columnist: The GOP Should Campaign on Creationism
Read more at http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/42944_Washington_Times_Columnist-_The_GOP_Should_Campaign_on_Creationism#GgWwgJv1EcUL1UZv.99
Just went up to the back parlor and its 62 there with the furnace set at 75 and it hasn’t shut off for about 24 hours now. Front parlor (per my old barometer/thermometer) reads 64. Going to be horrid here tonight. Thankfully, the back of the house is toasty but then I am running the dryer and just put something in the oven and the wall heater is on in the bathroom. This old house was not made for these kinda temps without having the fireplaces operational with their old gas heaters.
Really glad I got extra insulation when this house was built. It’s worth every cent and then some.
It’s hard to insulate this house because it’s made of barge board. I’d have to actually reduce the walls to do this. I’ve got the ceiling/attic and below the house insulated but there’s no way to insulate the sides without actually creating fake walls to do so.
Intriguing article from a paleo-anthropoligist:
This is getting really interesting. It’s amazing what the mapping our genome did for this study.
Looks like that idea that prehistoric peoples didn’t have dental decay — after all, no Cokes and candy bars — wasn’t quite so accurate.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24332237
Interesting!!!
It never made any sense in the first place.
Remember this asshole?
ATLANTA — A former aerospace executive who slapped a crying toddler on an airplane and used a racial slur against the child, who is black, received an eight-month prison sentence on Monday for an incident his attorney blamed on his alcoholism.
Joe Rickey Hundley, who apologized in court to the child’s mother, was accused of striking the 19-month-old boy in the face on board a Delta Air Lines flight from Minneapolis to Atlanta last February.
Hundley pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge in October. Prosecutors had sought a six-month prison sentence, but the federal judge opted for a stiffer punishment.
Yes, I do remember him. Glad he got some jail time.
Betchya he’ll be dodging face slaps in prison.
GOP Rep Bill Young, Mr Family Values, was a hypocritical douche nozzle.
http://www.politicususa.com/2014/01/06/family-values-republican-congressman-hid-out-of-wedlock-child-family.html
I read that last night. SO sad
Currently 28 at my place and I’ll bet it’s in the teens in the morning. Dewpoint is 8 so that’s kind of our theoretical possible low. wow I hate cold weather.
We’ve been below freezing for a few nights here. Tomorrow we’re back to mid 40s and rain for the foreseeable future. Bleah. However that means it is snowing up in the mountain passes, and the local ski areas will finally get enough snow to open. I’ve gotten out in the mountains on trips where I’d ordinarily have to use snowshoes, but so far this season just carried them on my pack — it has been fairly dry. So it’s good that we’re finally starting to get more snowpack. Our water supply in summer comes from snowpack melt.
But I’d rather go visit the snow than have it come to visit me. 🙂
Visiting cold and snow is a lot better than it being in your town, I agree!