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Wednesday Reads: Hypocrisy and Parrots

Posted: April 2, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: just because, morning reads, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , |33 Comments

083e6fc7cdb94332b71b710f9c91bd92Good Morning

As Boston Boomer mentioned the other day, when the news is bad…it feels strange to say “good” morning.  At least five people are dead in the tsunami that hit Chile after the massive earthquake which struck just of the Chilean coast late yesterday evening.

Massive 8.2 earthquake off Chile coast sparks tsunami 

A major earthquake of magnitude 8.2 struck off the coast of Chile on Tuesday, leading to five deaths and triggering a tsunami that pounded the country’s northern coast with 2-meter-tall waves.

Officials said the dead included people who were crushed by collapsing walls or were killed by heart attacks.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was shallow at 12.5 miles below the seabed and struck about 100 km northwest of the mining port of Iquique near the Peruvian border.

Live: Tsunami strikes Chile after earthquake measuring 8.3 on the Richter scale causes huge wave

Five people have been confirmed dead after the quake, which struck 50 miles from the coast of Chile, sparked a 6.3ft wave

Meanwhile, here in the states…13 GM traffic deaths are tied to a 57-cent part

The fix for a faulty ignition switch linked to 13 traffic deaths would have cost just 57 cents, members of Congress said Tuesday as they demanded answers from General Motors’ new CEO on why the automaker took 10 years to recall cars with the defect.

At a hearing on Capitol Hill before a House subcommittee, GM’s Mary Barra acknowledged under often testy questioning that the company took too long to act. She promised changes at GM that would prevent such a lapse from happening again.

“If there’s a safety issue, we’re going to make the right change and accept that,” said Barra, who became CEO in January and almost immediately found herself thrust into one of the biggest product safety crises Detroit has ever seen.

But as relatives of the crash victims looked on intently, she admitted that she didn’t know why it took years for the dangerous defect to be announced. And she deflected many questions about what went wrong, saying an internal investigation is under way.

More at the link.

Oh, and for the hypocrisy bit…Hobby Lobby’s Hypocrisy: The Company’s Retirement Plan Invests in Contraception Manufacturers | Mother Jones

When Obamacare compelled businesses to include emergency contraception in employee health care plans, Hobby Lobby, a national chain of craft stores, fought the law all the way to the Supreme Court. The Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate, the company’s owners argued, forced them to violate their religious beliefs. But while it was suing the government, Hobby Lobby spent millions of dollars on an employee retirement plan that invested in the manufacturers of the same contraceptive products the firm’s owners cite in their lawsuit.

Documents filed with the Department of Labor and dated December 2012—three months after the company’s owners filed their lawsuit—show that the Hobby Lobby 401(k) employee retirement plan held more than $73 million in mutual funds with investments in companies that produce emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions. Hobby Lobby makes large matching contributions to this company-sponsored 401(k).

I don’t have to tell you how hard I laughed at that headline.

Several of the mutual funds in Hobby Lobby’s retirement plan have holdings in companies that manufacture the specific drugs and devices that the Green family, which owns Hobby Lobby, is fighting to keep out of Hobby Lobby’s health care policies: the emergency contraceptive pills Plan B and Ella, and copper and hormonal intrauterine devices.

These companies include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which makes Plan B and ParaGard, a copper IUD, and Actavis, which makes a generic version of Plan B and distributes Ella. Other holdings in the mutual funds selected by Hobby Lobby include Pfizer, the maker of Cytotec and Prostin E2, which are used to induce abortions; Bayer, which manufactures the hormonal IUDs Skyla and Mirena; AstraZeneca, which has an Indian subsidiary that manufactures Prostodin, Cerviprime, and Partocin, three drugs commonly used in abortions; and Forest Laboratories, which makes Cervidil, a drug used to induce abortions. Several funds in the Hobby Lobby retirement plan also invested in Aetna and Humana, two health insurance companies that cover surgical abortions, abortion drugs, and emergency contraception in many of the health care policies they sell.

More details at the link.

I found this infographic interesting, Here’s How The World’s Most Brilliant People Scheduled Their Days

daily-rituals

You can click on the link to see the bigger image here: daily-rituals.png (PNG Image, 3600 × 5400 pixels)

I really hate what wordpress has done with their new format editor…it sucks ass!!!!! So, sorry about that mess with the image up top. It is so damn frustrating! Click the PNG link and then click the image on that page when it loads, it should get larger for you so you can read the writing.

Finally, there is nothing like having a parrot that curses like a sailor…Parrot kicked out of garden centre for squawking rude words

A foul-mouthed parrot has been kicked out of a garden centre after customers complained she was turning the air blue with a string of rude words.

Ruby the African Grey was put on display at the Norcutts Garden Centre in Ashton, Greater Manchester – but came under fire for her non-stop swearing, which staff say is getting much worse.

They have had to remove Ruby from the shop floor for fears her profane language could offend more customers or be picked up by children.

All is not lost, however – as they are hoping to re-educate Ruby with a more polite vocabulary and return her to public display so she can find a loving home.

[…]

African Greys have been dubbed the Einsteins of the parrot world for their intelligence.

A 2012 study found the birds were capable of thinking at the same intellectual level as a young human child.

Have a good day, and take it easy this first Wednesday of April…share your thoughts and such in the comments below.

33 Comments on “Wednesday Reads: Hypocrisy and Parrots”

  1. ANonOMouse says:
    April 2, 2014 at 9:01 am

    I enjoyed your post JJ. I particularly love the piece on Hobby Lobby. So now we know they invest in the medical products they refuse to give their employees access to. So, who’s surprised?

    • bostonboomer says:
      April 2, 2014 at 11:21 am

      The Hobby Lobby hypocrisy is crazy. Last night Mike Malloy spent a big part of his show talking about it. Of course the SCOTUS justices probably won’t even hear about it unless the government side brings it up in court. I sure hope they do.

      Great post, JJ! Thanks.

      • RalphB says:
        April 2, 2014 at 7:09 pm

        BB, Here’s a piece of critical information that people are missing on Jonathan Pollard.

        Under federal guidelines, Pollard will automatically be released on Nov. 21, 2015, unless the U.S. Parole Commission objects.

        Puts the whole thing in a completely different light.

  2. leefeller says:
    April 2, 2014 at 9:01 am

    Say good morning…with the intonation directed towards the future, but make sure not to look a politics when doing it.

  3. leefeller says:
    April 2, 2014 at 9:05 am

    “at”. Would be nice if they had a way to edit ones comments, for I type at 150 words per minute and have saddlebacks in me eyes.

  4. NW Luna says:
    April 2, 2014 at 11:48 am

    So investing in contraception is OK but covering it as health care isn’t? (facepalm)

  5. dakinikat says:
    April 2, 2014 at 1:49 pm

    I spent some time on Facebook yesterday with a link from one of our readers about this guy: my mouth still drops to the floor when I read about him. Republican candidate in Florida who is running as a christian and gun nut type … and he role plays as a slutty vampire with a rape face … no kidding … so now the beltway boys have picked up on it today.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2014/04/02/this-republican-candidate-wants-everyone-to-stop-talking-about-his-vampire-costume-good-luck-with-that/

    Meet Jake Rush.
    He’s running against Florida Rep. Ted Yoho, a first-term tea party conservative, in the upcoming 3rd district Republican primary. He’s a former sheriff deputy and a current attorney, and often talks about how he is a conservative “straight-shooter.” However, he also enjoys supernatural live action role playing games. (Who doesn’t?) He is a member of the Mind’s Eye Society and played a leadership role in the “Covenant of the Poisoned Absinthe” based in Gainesville, Florida. The blog that originally revealed Rush’s LARPer background described Mind’s Eye Society as “a nationwide community of gothic-punk role-players who come together to take on personas of vampires and other supernatural beings (known as Kindred), dealing with night-to-night struggles ‘against their own bestial natures, hunters, and each other.'” These events can involve dressing up in werewolf and vampire costumes.

  6. dakinikat says:
    April 2, 2014 at 3:01 pm

  7. RalphB says:
    April 2, 2014 at 3:06 pm

    Candidate For Texas Governor Invokes Man Who Believes Women And Minorities Are Inferior

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/01/greg-abbott-charles-murray_n_5071689.html

    Greg Abbott steps on another rake. WHAP!

  8. RalphB says:
    April 2, 2014 at 4:32 pm

    LOL!!

    Jon Stewart Wonders If CNN Looked Up ‘Their Own A**holes’ Yet For Malaysia Plane

  9. RalphB says:
    April 2, 2014 at 4:41 pm

    Republicans Aren’t Happy Obama Called Their Budget A ‘Stinkburger’

    President Barack Obama conjured up a couple of new words during a Wednesday speech in Ann Arbor, Mich., labeling the House GOP budget a “stinkburger” and a “meanwich.” …

    Poor ratfuckers, how will they ever survive LOL

  10. JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
    April 2, 2014 at 7:05 pm

    Oh, and right now on TCM be sure to watch the original The Lady Killers! Celebrating Alec Guinness 100th birthday.

  11. JJ Lopez Minkoff says:
    April 2, 2014 at 7:06 pm

    Damn not again, McCaul: 4 Dead in Fort Hood Shooting – ABC News

    14 shot and injured…

  12. RalphB says:
    April 2, 2014 at 10:58 pm

    Medicare Plan B payment information for doctors will be made public

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration announced on Wednesday that it will for the first time reveal how much Medicare pays individual doctors for medical services and procedures, including MRIs and CT scans.

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) will release on April 9 massive amounts of data on more than 880,000 individual doctors and other health professionals in all 50 states who participate in Medicare’s Part B fee-for-service program, which covers physician fees and out-patient services.

    The information, which includes doctors’ names and addresses and summaries of their services, had been barred from public release by court injunction for more than 30 years until last May when a federal judge in Miami lifted the ban in response to a motion by Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal.
    …
    The data to be released, which officials described as nearing 10 million lines of information, will show the number and type of health services each professional delivered through Medicare Part B in 2012 and how much the program paid for them.

    All told, HHS officials said the data covers 6,000 different types of services and procedures that cost Medicare a total of $77 billion. Medicare is projected to spend about $635 billion in 2014. Medicare covers inpatient hospital stays and prescription drugs in addition to physician services.

    The AMA is about to have a cow.

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