Wednesday Reads: “Multicultural Affinity”
Posted: January 30, 2018 Filed under: Civil Rights, Human Rights, morning reads, open thread, Political and Editorial Cartoons, racism, SOTU, the GOP, Trump, U.S. Politics, Wednesday Hump Day Cartoons | Tags: "Ethnic Affinity", African-American, Asian-American, Congressional Black Caucus, discriminatory advertising, exclude by race, Facebook, Facebook advertisers, Facebook advertising, Fair Housing Act, Fair Housing Act of 1968, Hispanic, multicultural affinity, ProPublica, target marketing, The Civil Rights Act of 1964 34 Comments
Well, hello…
Anyone know exactly what “multicultural affinity” means?
In advertising terms it is:
used to descibe the quality of people who are interested in and likely to respond well to multicultural content. referring to their affinity to the cultures they are interested in. based on affinity, not ethnicity.
According to my Facebook categories, I have African-American multicultural affinities.
They also say I’m “very liberal” …I wonder what gives them that idea?
The reason I came about this discovery was an article about Facebook ads targeting your political affiliation:
How to Change Facebook Ads Privacy Settings Targeting Your Politics – Thrillist
Unless you’ve managed to avoid your Facebook feed for the last year and half, no doubt you’ve learned a whole lot more about your friends’ and family’s political views than you ever cared to. And even if you’ve personally made a conscious effort to stay neutral or discreet about your leanings in the midst of the madness, the reality is that Facebook has a pretty good idea of your political preferences anyway.
That’s because included amongst the hordes of data Zuckerberg and Co. are constantly collecting about you in order to better serve up ads is an inference about how liberal, moderate, or conservative you might be. Here’s how to find out what you’ve been categorized as, and how to change it.
What I find interesting…is that on that political front, facebook does not have any sample ads for my “very liberal” political leanings:
But what is really funny….is that they have samples of ads for my African-American “multicultural affinity”:
Hmmmm, credit problems and burner phones? Okay….
But what is interesting is that Facebook has me “categorized” as a US soccer kind of person…not one who has an American Football affinity:
Damn, no sample ads for that either….but keep that tidbit of info handy because we will come back to it shortly.
Why does all this shit matter you may say?
(Date on this link is from 12/2015)
The 2010 U.S. Census reported that Hispanics, African Americans and Asian Americans make up one-third of the U.S. population, and that number is growing rapidly. Reaching and personalizing to these audiences is an essential part of any brand’s marketing strategy. As such, Facebook recognized a need for more multicultural targeting across Facebook and Instagram.
According to Facebook, Multicultural Affinity is “the quality of people who are interested in and likely to respond well to multicultural content.” This new targeting solution enables advertisers to more effectively reach and engage people of varying traditions, beliefs, aesthetics, languages and musical tastes. The targeting is based on affinity, not ethnicity. Affinity can be described as “a relationship, like a marriage, as a natural liking, and as a similarity of characteristics.” This means that ads can be targeted to people with multicultural interests.
Three audiences have been broken out in Multicultural Affinity: Hispanic, African American and Asian American affinities:
You can go to the link to read about the three audiences, the point to this should be highlighted here, cough…cough:
This targeting is very concentrated and it may not be the best solution for every advertiser or every campaign. To drive the best results, this targeting should only be used with a specific goal to reach a specific audience. Conduct a test to see how Multicultural Affinity targeting performs against existing targeting to determine its effectiveness.
However when you look more into the real reason for the breakdown, you can see what the real target is used for:
Facebook Lets Advertisers Exclude Users by Race — ProPublica
Oh, look at the date on this, Oct. 28th, 2016
Facebook’s system allows advertisers to exclude black, Hispanic, and other “ethnic affinities” from seeing ads.
Imagine if, during the Jim Crow era, a newspaper offered advertisers the option of placing ads only in copies that went to white readers.
That’s basically what Facebook is doing nowadays.
The ubiquitous social network not only allows advertisers to target users by their interests or background, it also gives advertisers the ability to exclude specific groups it calls “Ethnic Affinities.” Ads that exclude people based on race, gender and other sensitive factors are prohibited by federal law in housing and employment.
You can see the actual name of this feature was called “Ethnic Affinity”:
The ad we purchased was targeted to Facebook members who were house hunting and excluded anyone with an “affinity” for African-American, Asian-American or Hispanic people. (Here’s the ad itself.)
When we showed Facebook’s racial exclusion options to a prominent civil rights lawyer John Relman, he gasped and said, “This is horrifying. This is massively illegal. This is about as blatant a violation of the federal Fair Housing Act as one can find.”
The Fair Housing Act of 1968 makes it illegal “to make, print, or publish, or cause to be made, printed, or published any notice, statement, or advertisement, with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.” Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 also prohibits the “printing or publication of notices or advertisements indicating prohibited preference, limitation, specification or discrimination” in employment recruitment.
Facebook’s business model is based on allowing advertisers to target specific groups — or, apparently to exclude specific groups — using huge reams of personal data the company has collected about its users. Facebook’s microtargeting is particularly helpful for advertisers looking to reach niche audiences, such as swing-state voters concerned about climate change. ProPublica recently offered a tool allowing users to see how Facebook is categorizing them. We found nearly 50,000 unique categories in which Facebook places its users.
Oh boy…go and read the whole thing, and then see the follow-up here:
Facebook (Still) Letting Housing Advertisers Exclude… — ProPublica
Yeah, the date here is Nov. 21st, 2017
After ProPublica revealed last year that Facebook advertisers could target housing ads to whites only, the company announced it had built a system to spot and reject discriminatory ads. We retested and found major omissions.
In February, Facebook said it would step up enforcementof its prohibition against discrimination in advertising for housing, employment or credit.
But our tests showed a significant lapse in the company’s monitoring of the rental market.
Last week, ProPublica bought dozens of rental housing ads on Facebook, but asked that they not be shown to certain categories of users, such as African Americans, mothers of high school kids,people interested in wheelchair ramps, Jews, expats from Argentina and Spanish speakers.
All of these groups are protected under the federal Fair Housing Act, which makes it illegal to publish any advertisement “with respect to the sale or rental of a dwelling that indicates any preference, limitation, or discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, handicap, familial status, or national origin.” Violators can face tens of thousands of dollars in fines.
Every single ad was approved within minutes.
The only ad that took longer than three minutes to be approved by Facebook sought to exclude potential renters “interested in Islam, Sunni Islam and Shia Islam.” It was approved after 22 minutes.
Under its own policies, Facebook should have flagged these ads, and prevented the posting of some of them. Its failure to do so revives questions about whether the company is in compliance with federal fair housing rules, as well as about its ability and commitment to police discriminatory advertising on the world’s largest social network.
Damn…that is surprising…ain’t it? (Snark is heavily insinuated here.)
Based on Facebook’s announcement, the ads purchased by ProPublica that were aimed at racial categories should have been rejected. The others should have prompted a screen to pop up asking for self-certification. We never encountered a self-certification screen, and none of our ads were rejected by Facebook.
“This was a failure in our enforcement and we’re disappointed that we fell short of our commitments,” Ami Vora, vice president of product management at Facebook, said in an emailed statement. “The rental housing ads purchased by ProPublica should have but did not trigger the extra review and certifications we put in place due to a technical failure.”
Vora added that Facebook’s anti-discrimination system had “successfully flagged millions of ads” in the credit, employment and housing categories and that Facebook will now begin requiring self-certification for ads in all categories that choose to exclude an audience segment. “Our systems continue to improve but we can do better,” Vora said.
About 37 percent of U.S. households rented in 2016, representing a 50-year high, according to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University. On average, renters earn about half as much as homeowners, and the percentage of families with children that rent rather than buy has increased sharply in the past decade, the study said. Minority renters have long faced pervasive housing discrimination. A 2013 study by HUD found that real estate agents show more units to whites than to African Americans, Asians and Latinos.
Gee…innit that the three categories of multicultural affinity?
Facebook has been under fire for other aspects of its automated ad buying system as well. Two months ago, the company disclosed that it had discovered $100,000 worth of divisive political ads placed by “inauthentic” Russian accounts. And in September, ProPublica reported that Facebook’s ad targeting system allowed buyers to reach people who identified themselves as “Jew haters” and other anti-Semitic categories. Facebook pledged to remove the offending categories and to hire thousands more employees to enforce its ad policies.
“We’re adding additional layers of review where people use potentially sensitive categories for targeting,” Facebook General Counsel Colin Stretch said during Senate testimony earlier this month.
After Stretch’s public statement, we wondered whether the ability to buy discriminatory housing ads had really been addressed. So we set out to buy an advertisement with the exact same targeting parameters as the ad we bought last year. The ad promoted a fictional apartment for rent and was targeted at people living in New York, ages 18–65, who were house hunting and likely to move. We asked Facebook not to show the ad to people categorized under the “multicultural affinity” of Hispanic, African American or Asian American.
(ProPublica generally forbids impersonation in news gathering. We felt in this instance that the public interest in Facebook’s ad system justified the brief posting of a fake ad for non-existent housing. We deleted each ad as soon as it was approved.)
The only changes from last year that we could identify in Facebook’s ad buying system was that the category called “Ethnic Affinity” had been renamed “Multicultural Affinity” and was no longer part of “Demographics.” It is now designated as part of “Behaviors.”
Go…yeah, go and see the actual screenshots of the ad placements. Remember that thing I mentioned up top about the soccer affinity?
Then we decided to test whether we could purchase housing ads that discriminated against other protected categories of people under the Fair Housing Act.
We placed ads that sought to exclude members of as many of the protected categories as we could find in Facebook’s self-service advertising portal. In addition to those mentioned above, we bought ads that were blocked from being shown to “soccer moms,” people interested in American sign language, gay menand Christians.
Just read the rest of the thread at the link, but wait there is more:
According to ProPublica, Facebook to Temporarily Block Advertisers From Excluding… — ProPublica
Uh…the date on this is Nov. 29th, 2017
The social network’s actions come after a ProPublica investigation revealed that Facebook failed to keep its promise to reject discriminatory housing ads.
Facebook said it would temporarily stop advertisers from being able to exclude viewers by race while it studies the use of its ad targeting system.
“Until we can better ensure that our tools will not be used inappropriately, we are disabling the option that permits advertisers to exclude multicultural affinity segments from the audience for their ads,” Facebook Sheryl Sandberg wrote in a letter to the Congressional Black Caucus.
ProPublica disclosed last week that Facebook was still allowing advertisers to buy housing ads that excluded audiences by race, despite its promises earlier this year to reject such ads. ProPublica also found that Facebook was not asking housing advertisers that blocked other sensitive audience categories — by religion, gender, or disability — to “self-certify” that their ads were compliant with anti-discrimination laws.
[…]
In her letter, Sandberg said the company will examine how advertisers are using its exclusion tool — “focusing particularly on potentially sensitive segments” such as ads that exclude LGBTQ communities or people with disabilities. “During this review, no advertisers will be able to create ads that exclude multicultural affinity groups,” Facebook Vice President Rob Goldman said in an emailed statement.
Goldman said the results of the audit would be shared with “groups focused on discrimination in ads,” and that Facebook would work with them to identify further improvements and publish the steps it will take.
Here are a few other articles on the matter:
Facebook disabling “multicultural affinity” group advertising tool – Axios
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said in a letter today to Congressional Black Caucus chairman Cedric Richmond that it is disabling a tool that allows advertisers to exclude “multicultural affinity” segments from their audiences. She also declared that Facebook is “determined to do better” on multicultural marketing.
Why it matters: Rep. Robin Kelly said in a press release earlier this month that Facebook’s “Ethnic Affinity” advertising option makes Facebook “complicit in promoting restrictive housing practices.” Sandberg said in her letter that Facebook would strengthen policies to prohibit discriminatory advertising, and that until Facebook can “better ensure that our tools will not be used inappropriately,” the tool is being disabled.
Show less
Facebook suspends ability to target ads by excluding racial groups | Article [AMP] | Reuters
Sandberg said in the letter that advertisers who use Facebook’s targeting options to include certain races for ads about housing, employment or credit will have to certify to Facebook that they are complying with Facebook’s anti-discrimination policy and with applicable law.
Sandberg defended race- and culture-based marketing in general, saying it was a common and legitimate practice in the ad industry to try to reach specific communities.
I take it, those ads for burner phones and credit problems are legitimate practices…reaching a specific community…the multicultural African-American affinity community.
Alright…now for the fucking funnies!
By the way…if Mueller is fired…protest marches are already planned. To find the closest one in your area, text Mueller to Resistbot at 50409…the location of the nearest immediate protest march will appear with all pertinent information.
And now the cartoons:
And that’s all folks!
This is an open thread…
State of the Union Live Blog
Posted: January 20, 2015 Filed under: Live, Live Blog, SOTU | Tags: 2015 State of the Union Live Blog 105 Comments
Tonight we’re watching the State of the Union address to see exactly what the last two years of the Obama presidency may bring. It will be a tough few years given the group that was sent to Congress last fall. We’re about to see a bunch of whackadoodle dandies go wild. There are several rumors up on the internet concerning possible executive orders that will be announced to tonight. Here is one of the more interesting ones.
It is being reported that one of President Obama’s surprises at the State Of The Union will be an announcement of an executive order that will take on the Koch Brothers and Citizens United.
Eleanor Clift of The Daily Beast reported:
Wednesday is the fifth anniversary of Citizens United, and reformers have been told that the president may announce executive action in his SOTU speech that would require businesses contracting with the government to disclose political contributions after contracts have been awarded. This would ensure that the contracting process is blind, but also give the public (and the media) the information needed to connect the dots to look for backroom deals or conflicts of interest.
Guess who happens to have multi-million dollar contracts with the Department of Defense? The federal government hatingKoch Brothers have tens of millions of dollars in defense contracts with the federal government. Rush Limbaugh also has a federal government contract that allows his showto be broadcast on the American Forces Network.
It is possible that the president will announce this executive order tonight, but he may also decide to wait and make a separate announcement. When/if the president does decide to make this announcement it will be a huge boost to transparency. The Koch brothers have a web of secret organizations that they route their money through, so most of their campaign spending will remain a secret, but it will become a bit easier to connect the dots and figure how much direct influence campaign donations are having on public policy decisions.
Ron Fournier of the National Journal suggests we just the President’s agenda with this set of criteria. Progress or Politics?
Republicans just seized control of Congress. President Obama’s job-approval ratings just jumped. Gas prices and the unemployment rate are down. The gross domestic product is up. Now what? Democratic and Republican leaders face a choice: Begin governing together, or treat this moment like just another stop on a perpetual campaign.
Unfortunately, both the White House and the GOP-led Congress seem focused prematurely on 2016. Republicans are sending to the White House legislation they know Obama will veto. The president is pushing an agenda he knows Congress won’t pass. It’s a recipe for more gridlock, more fighting, more courting of donors and ignoring the needs of a country in transition.
In other words: The state of the union is the status quo.
If you’re OK with that, stop reading. If you’d rather see progress than partisan gains, consider this: The State of the Union address is an opportunity for the president to chart a path toward consensus on issues like jobs, social mobility, education, infrastructure, energy, the debt, the environment, and terrorism.
Is Obama more interested in politics or progress? Here are five ways to tell from his address tonight.
Isn’t Obama a lame duck? After all, this speech comes after Republicans won control of both chambers for the first time this presidency. Here’s a trivia question: When was the last time a President gave his seventh year State of the Union to a Congress that wasn’t controlled by the other party? Answer: Franklin Roosevelt in 1939. Every other two termer had lost control of Congress by the last lap of his presidency. They all faced a steeper political terrain than Obama does. Dwight Eisenhower faced Cold War setbacks. Ronald Reagan spoke in 1987 right after the Iran-Contra scandal broke, and he had to lead the speech with a discussion and apology. Bill Clinton was in the middle of his Senate impeachment trial in 1999. And George W. Bush spoke at a time when we were losing in Iraq. He faced withering controversy over the “surge” of troops, which proved a good policy, but made for a challenging speech environment. Some of them had productive last two years; some didn’t. But there is much room for a creative president and Congress to achieve things, even by fighting.
For President Obama, the new party balance offers some unexpected benefits. In recent years, Congress has been paralyzed, polarized, and entirely dysfunctional. Now conservatives control it, but at least it might actually pass legislation. Obama suddenly will be more central, more relevant than he has been in domestic politics over the past year. His veto pen will be all that stands between the Republican agenda and enactment. He can draw lines, pick fights, or choose cooperation. In so doing, too, he will have the ability to make broad public arguments in the context of a real debate—on the economy, on the role of government, on contentious long-term issues such as climate change.
How can the President use this diminished but still potent platform?
So, grab the popcorn and let’s see if this year’s hostile audience pulls any big tricks.
President Obama is courting controversy with his decision to address a group that has become dominated in recent years by extremists.
Some have questioned the appropriateness of the President speaking to such an extremist group, especially because in the past it has issued threats against the United States government.
The SOTU will be streaming at CSPAN and on the White House Website if you want to avoid the District Puppetry errrrr Punditry.
MLK Holiday Reads
Posted: January 19, 2015 Filed under: morning reads, SOTU | Tags: 2016 presidential race, Martin Luther King's Birthday 22 Comments
Good Morning!
It’s our holiday to celebrate the contributions of Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King! No holiday celebration is complete without drawings by grade school children!!
President Obama will give his SOTU address tomorrow and will call for raising taxes on the wealthy to provide tax cuts for the middle class. This is an interesting strategy and I’m sure the Republicans are planning on screaming “class war” for the next few days.
President Obama will use his State of the Union address to call on Congress to raise taxes and fees on the wealthiest taxpayers and the largest financial firms to finance an array of tax cuts for the middle class, pressing to reshape the tax code to help working families, administration officials said on Saturday.
The proposal faces long odds in the Republican-controlled Congress, led by lawmakers who have long opposed raising taxes and who argue that doing so would hamper economic growth at a time the country cannot afford it. And it was quickly dismissed by leading Republicans as a nonstarter.
But the decision to present the plan during Tuesday’s speech marks the start of a debate over taxes and the economy that will shape both Mr. Obama’s legacy and the 2016 presidential campaign.
It is also the latest indication that the president, untethered from political constraints after Democratic losses in the midterm elections, is moving aggressively to set the terms of that discussion, even as he pushes audacious moves in other areas, like immigration and relations with Cuba.
The president’s plan would raise $320 billion over the next decade, while adding new provisions cutting taxes by $175 billion over the same period. The revenue generated would also cover an initiative Mr. Obama announced this month, offering some students two years of tuition-free community college, which the White House has said would cost $60 billion over 10 years.
The centerpiece of the plan, described by administration officials on the condition of anonymity ahead of the president’s speech, would eliminate what Mr. Obama’s advisers call the “trust-fund loophole,” a provision governing inherited assets that shields hundreds of billions of dollars from taxation each year. The plan would also increase the top capital-gains tax rate, to 28 percent from 23.8 percent, for couples with incomes above $500,000 annually.
Those changes and a new fee on banks with assets over $50 billion would be used to finance a set of tax breaks for middle-income earners, including a $500 credit for families in which both spouses work; increased child care and education credits; and incentives to save for retirement.
The initiative signals a turnabout for Mr. Obama, who has spoken repeatedly about the potential for a deal with Republicans on business tax reform but little about individual taxation, an area fraught with disagreements.
“Slapping American small businesses, savers and investors with more tax hikes only negates the benefits of the tax policies that have been successful in helping to expand the economy, promote savings and create jobs,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah and chairman of the Finance Committee. “The president needs to stop listening to his liberal allies who want to raise taxes at all costs and start working with Congress to fix our broken tax code.”
Republicans have already referred to it as “trolling” given that they run both houses of the US Congress and will pass neither one. This does, 
however, have very bad optics for them. It puts them squarely in league with the uberwealthy.
“It’s not surprising to see the president call for tax hikes, but now he’s asking Congress to reverse bipartisan tax relief that he signed into law,” said Don Stewart, deputy chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Stewart said that “Republicans believe we should simplify America’s outdated tax code; that tax filing should be easier for you, not just those with fancy accountants; and that tax reform should create jobs for families, not the [Internal Revenue Service].”
Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee, also criticized the proposal.
“This is not a serious proposal,” said Ryan spokesman Brendan Buck in a public statement. “We lift families up and grow the economy with a simpler, flatter tax code, not big tax increases to pay for more Washington spending.”
Plan details include hitting big banks and inheritance taxes. These suggestions really go at the types of tax cuts that incent gambling and increase financial wealth rather than industrial and business wealth that create jobs and economic growth.
During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Barack Obama will lay out a plan to extend tax credits to the middle class by hiking taxes on wealthier Americans and big banks, according to senior administration officials.
Under the plan, the capital gains tax for couples with income over $500,000 per year would be raised from its current level of 23.8 percent up to 28. The plan would also strip a tax break, known as a “step-up,” that allows heirs to avoid capital gains taxes on large inheritances.
In addition, the plan would institute a new tax on the biggest financial institutions, basing the fee on liabilities in order to discourage risky borrowing. The administration says the fee would hit the roughly 100 banks that have assets of $50 billion or more.
The president’s plan would use revenues from those tax code changes to finance credits aimed at the middle class, officials said. That includes extending the earned income tax credits to families without children, which would benefit an estimated 13 million low-income workers, while also tripling the maximum tax credits for child care in low- and middle-income homes.
“This proposal is probably the most impactful way we can address the manifest unfairness in our tax system,” an administration official said.
The tax hikes on capital gains would run into heavy opposition from Republicans in the GOP-controlled Congress. Other elements of the president’s plan, however, have enjoyed some degree of bipartisan support. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) has proposed a similar tax on big banks, and many Republicans favor the idea of broadening the earned income tax credit.
According to officials, the capital gains tax reforms would impact “almost exclusively” the top 1 percent of earners, carving out the majority of middle-income families from the hikes.
![scan0002[17]](https://dakiniland.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/scan000217.jpg?w=234&h=300)
Here’s an essential outline for the items up for revision in the President’s plan. Is it his Piketty moment? This one is my personal favorite but they’re all good.
Raise the top capital gains tax rate from 23.8 to 28 percent. This is straightforward enough. Money you get from investments is taxed less than money you get from, you know, actually working, and while that might be good for the economy, it’s not good for a basic sense of fairness. Not when the top 400 households are getting 16 percent of all capital gains, and the top 0.1 percent are getting half of them. That’s why, as theCongressional Budget Office (CBO) dryly puts it, “preferential tax rates on dividends and capital gains provide almost no benefit to households in the bottom four quintiles, but provide notable benefits to households in the top quintile”.
So Obama wants to push the top capital gains tax rate, which only applies to couples making more than $500,000, up from its current level of 23.8 percent to 28 percent, where it was when Ronald Reagan left office. In all, the White House calculates that increasing the capital gains tax and getting rid of step-up basis would raise 99 percent of its money from the top 1 percent, with 80 percent of that coming from the top 0.1 percent.
This is one of the items that has really drawn money out of doing business and into stock market gambling. Why work when you can day trade your life into a lower tax bracket as a wealthy person?
Here’s a few political things sure to give you some fits and giggles. Lady Lindsey is said to be considering a run at the Presidency.
Sen. Lindsey Graham acknowledged on Sunday he’s seriously exploring a bid for the Republican presidential nomination.
Asked on NBC’s “Meet the Press” if he had started polling voters about his chances in 2016, Graham said he is not polling, “but we set up a testing-the-waters committee under the IRS code that will allow me to look beyond South Carolina as to whether or not a guy like Lindsey Graham has a viable path.”
“I don’t know where this will go, but I’m definitely going to look at it,” said Graham, the senior senator from South Carolina.
![MLK picture_thumb[1]](https://dakiniland.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/mlk-picture_thumb1.jpg?w=590)
A new CBS poll shows 29 percent of Republicans would like to see Christie run for the Republican nomination for president. But 44 percent say no. CBS points out “Only former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s numbers are more underwater: 30 percent of Republicans say they’d like to see her run, but 59 percent disagree.”
Fifty-nine percent of Republicans would like to see Mitt Romney jump into the 2016 race, while 26 percent believe he should stay out.
“Fifty percent of Republicans would like to see former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush on the campaign trail as well, while 27 percent disagree,” pollsters said. “If both Romney and Bush run, analysts expect them to wage a competitive battle for the allegiance of the Republican establishment.”
Numbers for some of the others often mentioned:
– Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: 40 percent of Republicans urge him to get in, and 29 percent say stay out.
– “Twenty-seven percent of Republicans would like Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul to mount a bid, but 34 percent disagree. Twenty-six percent would like Florida Sen. Marco Rubio to run, while 19 percent would not. Twenty-one percent want Texas Sen. Ted Cruz to run, while 25 percent want him to not run.”
– Gov. Rick Perry of Texas: 21 percent yes, 29 percent no.
– Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana: 14 percent yes, 20 percent no.
– Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin: 22 percent yes, 12 percent no.
Maybe winning isn’t everything after all. “Republicans, by a 61 to 35 percent margin, believe it’s more important to have a nominee who agrees with them on the issues than a nominee who can win the general election,” according to the poll.
Eeeshhh.
Well, that’s it for today! We’ll see you with a live blog for the SOTU tomorrow!! Have a great holiday!
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
Wednesday Reads: Leon sells cartoon balloons in town…
Posted: January 29, 2014 Filed under: Bailout Blues, Banksters, Barack Obama, Congress, Corporate Crime, Foreign Affairs, Iceland, just because, SOTU, the GOP | Tags: State of the Uterus, winter storm leon 64 Comments
Intellicast – Current Radar in United States
Okay, so the storm is not called “Levon” but “Leon.”
It’s just that I had substituted the name Leon in that Elton John song as it “played” in my head, all day long yesterday…
Uh, Good morning!
Find the latest on the weather system the weather channel is calling Leon:
Winter Storm Leon: 12 Inches of Snow?
Winter Storm Leon: Live Updates on Southern Snow, Ice Storm – weather.com
This storm is kicking the South’s ass…But this is no laughing matter: State troopers headed to schools where students, teachers are… | www.ajc.com
Shortly before midnight, about 50 students were still aboard Atlanta Public School buses, a spokeswoman for the district said. In DeKalb County, at least 20 vehicles were involved in a pileup on U.S. 78 eastbound, past Hugh Howell Road. All lanes were blocked around 1 a.m. Wednesday.
These kids are stuck in buses, some are stuck overnight in schools: State troopers to help with security at schools where stranded kids are spending the night | AccessNorthGa
Gov. Nathan Deal says state troopers are being sent to schools where students are stranded because they could not make it home on clogged roads caused by Tuesday’s snowstorm.
The governor spoke at a news conference at he State Capitol late Tuesday night.
Deal also said that state and local officials will try to rescue those stranded along highways that are at a standstill. Normal 30-minute commutes have turned into hourslong odysseys for thousands.
A winter storm that would probably be no big deal in the North all but paralyzed the Deep South, bringing snow, ice and teeth-chattering cold, with temperatures in the teens in some places.
Gridlock continues as unspeakably horrible commute home… | www.ajc.com
The winter storm has mostly moved into the Carolinas, but metro Atlanta traffic remained gridlocked at 4 a.m. Wednesday as Tuesday’s afternoon rush hour from hell stretched into hour 16.
Traffic was still bumper-to-bumper and barely moving on several Atlanta interstates, including on I-75 north of downtown, on I-20 west of downtown and on the top-end Perimeter.
Imagine those people stuck on the road without medicine…and running out of gas.
There were warnings…I don’t understand why the schools did not close or plan for a delayed opening. My kids almost did not make it home from the bus themselves, the snow hit so fast and hard. We could not believe how close the school board cut it this time. It really amazes me how many people got caught up in this mess.
In Atlanta, the gridlock was so bad, a baby girl was delivered alongside Interstate 285, said Capt. Steve Rose, a spokesman for Sandy Springs police in suburban north Atlanta. He said an officer made it to the mother and her husband in time to help with the delivery, which he described as “flawless.” There were no complications and the family was taken to a hospital.
That is something, eh?
Yesterday was the SOTU: Full text: State of the Union | Al Jazeera America
President Obama’s 2014 address was his fifth in office. Read the entire transcript here, all 6,777 words
What does it mean if I did not watch the speech live, nor did I watch a taped version, I haven’t read any commentary or summaries, and the thought of reading all those 6,777 words makes me want to throw up everything I ate this evening. Even the possibility of nodding off during the speech was nothing to look forward to…
SOTU cheat sheet: Everything you missed
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sits among the other justices during President Obama’s address. Win McNamee, Getty Images
• Did Justice Ginsberg fall asleep? Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 80, was trending during Obama’s speech, with viewers speculating that she had fallen asleep, or at least was in full head-bob mode. We may never know for sure if it was a slump or a nap.
It would not be the first time she nodded off…But WTF is this all about?
Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., left, and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., share a sign as they take their seats for the president’s speech. Charles Dharapak, AP
You know, that is pretty close to the sign for vagina (when I took ASL in college…from what I remember) could it be code for an anti-woman PLUB agenda? Or is it some little “I heart pussy” thing? Perhaps they were making reference to this:
The State of the Uterus (video)
To whet your State of the Union pallate, I give you: “The State of the Uterus.”
The State of the Uterus is a fun new video – it literally just went live – about a serious issue, women’s rights in America.
Here’s a portion of their press release:
We all know the State of the Union is strong, but what about the State of the Uterus? On this most ceremonial of days in the nation’s capital, a uterus is taking up that question and will deliver a live address moments after President Obama’s Speech and the Republican Party responds.
“Madam Uterus” (UTOUS) for so she shall be addressed — will talk at length about the state of the uterus, and the vagina, in a country where state legislatures have variously deemed that women are pregnant before they are pregnant, have magical powers to deactivate rape sperm, and must be forced to carry stillborn babies to term.
“The state of our uterus is in the hands of so many,” Madam Uterus will say, according to the text of her prepared remarks. “As the old saying goes, behind every successful uterus is a man calling her a whore while cutting her pay.”
So here are a few links on the SOTU speech:
Dak, Boston Boomer and others live blogged it here…and here.
State of the Union by Political Cartoonist Bruce Plante
SOTU POTPOURRI | Gin and Tacos
The best of the worst: Right-wing Twitter reacts to the State of the Union – Salon.com
We Got Your Back | BobCesca.com | News and Politics Blog and Podcast | We Cover the World
After the speech there was this: Rep. Grimm Threatens NY1 Reporter Following State of the Union – NY1
Staten Island Rep. Michael Grimm physically threatened NY1 political reporter Michael Scotto at the conclusion of an interview in the Capitol Rotunda following Tuesday night’s State of the Union address.
Grimm’s threats came at the end of a brief interview in which he discussed the president’s speech, calling the address “divisive.”
Scotto then tried to ask the congressman about the ongoing federal investigation into his 2010 campaign fundraising:
Grimm told the reporter:
Grimm: “Let me be clear to you, you ever do that to me again I’ll throw you off this f—–g balcony.”
Scotto: “Why? I just wanted to ask you…”
[[cross talk]]
Grimm: “If you ever do that to me again…”
Scotto: “Why? Why? It’s a valid question.”
[[cross talk]]
Grimm: “No, no, you’re not man enough, you’re not man enough. I’ll break you in half. Like a boy.”
Hmmm…taking some pointers from Christie? Or did he watch that movie A Few Good Men? Or perhaps he was listening Divine on his iPod during the speech: You Think You’re A Man Lyrics – Divine
You will notice in the video…there are a lot of boys being tossed over balconies.
Digby had this nugget of news at her site: Hullabaloo
Iceland’s big problem: bringing 4% unemployment down to 2%
by digby
At one time there was a big debate about whether or not Iceland came out on top during our current depression, largely due to it’s hard core treatment of its banks. It was always pretty obvious that they made the smarter decision. It looks even more obvious today:
Iceland let its banks fail in 2008 because they proved too big to save.Now, the island is finding crisis-management decisions made half a decade ago have put it on a trajectory that’s turned 2 percent unemployment into a realistic goal.
While the euro area grapples with record joblessness, led by more than 25 percent in Greece and Spain, only about 4 percent of Iceland’s labor force is without work. Prime MinisterSigmundur D. Gunnlaugsson says even that’s too high.
“Politicians always have something to worry about,” the 38-year-old said in an interview last week. “We’d like to see unemployment going from where it’s now — around 4 percent — to under 2 percent, which may sound strange to most other western countries, but Icelanders aren’t accustomed to unemployment.”
It doesn’t sound strange to me, it sounds fucking awesome!
The island’s sudden economic meltdown in October 2008 made international headlines as a debt-fueled banking boom ended in a matter of weeks when funding markets froze. Policy makers overseeing the $14 billion economy refused to back the banks, which subsequently defaulted on $85 billion. The government’s decision to protect state finances left it with the means to continue social support programs that shielded Icelanders from penury during the worst financial crisis in six decades.
We, on the other hand are making nearly 7% official unemployment (along with many millions not even being counted) the new normal. And we’re slashing our meager safety net, even food assistance. But our megabanks are doing very well which is what matters.
Geez, I really want to move to Iceland…to hell with this country’s right-wing assholes who have taken over everything. I mean, how can we even be at the point where the dicks are actually debating this shit…
…Texas GOP Lt. Gov. Candidates Agree: More Religion Needed in Science Class – Little Green Footballs
Submitted without comment other than to notice how several of the candidates refer to evolution in schools as being part of a “politically correct” conspiracy.
From left: Sen. Dan Patrick, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, Agriculture Commissioner Todd Staples and Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson
Texas GOP Lt. Gov. Candidates Agree: More Religion Needed in Science Class
Oh…can someone get me outta here? I can’t take it anymore!
This is all I can bring myself to write, y’all go ahead and give it up in the comments below.
Oh yeah…
Enjoy your day…
Lagniappe for All!
Posted: February 12, 2013 Filed under: Live Blog, SOTU 31 Comments
There was something for every one in the State of the Union Speech tonight. Even the Republicans clapped and stood up for the idea of comprehensive immigration reform. But, what about raising the minimum wage or climate change or universal preschool? Will they go for that?
We’ll find out shortly when Rubio and Paul rebut SOTU. It’s a Republican Grudge Match!!!
Republicans will offer not one, but two responses to the president’s speech. The first will come from Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who will aim to offer an alternative vision to Obama’s agenda. The second will come from tea party-favorite Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who will offer an alternative to the alternative. Confused? Welcome to the GOP.
Rubio, of course, is on the unofficial short list of presidential candidates for 2016. (Time magazine last week dubbed him the savior of his party.) The affable 41-year-old will represent what is presumably the mainstream wing of the fragmented GOP, which, as no shortage of pundits have pointed out, is suffering from a serious public-relations crisis. Rubio — young, charismatic, well-spoken — will aim to change America’s perception of the party on Tuesday evening, taking advantage of his time on the national stage. He will respond to the president’s stance on jobs, the federal debt, immigration and gun control, and his overall demeanor will depend largely on the type of ammunition given to him by Obama himself.
Obama Care!! Climate Change!! Gun Control OH MY!!!!!!
“Mr. President, I still live in the same working class neighborhood I grew up in. My neighbors aren’t millionaires. They’re retirees who depend on Social Security and Medicare. They’re workers who have to get up early tomorrow morning and go to work to pay the bills. They’re immigrants, who came here because they were stuck in poverty in countries where the government dominated the economy. The tax increases and the deficit spending you propose will hurt middle class families. It will cost them their raises. It will cost them their benefits. It may even cost some of them their jobs. And it will hurt seniors because it does nothing to save Medicare and Social Security. So Mr. President, I don’t oppose your plans because I want to protect the rich. I oppose your plans because I want to protect my neighbors.”
Live Blogging SOTU
Posted: February 12, 2013 Filed under: Live, Live Blog, SOTU | Tags: State of the Union address 2013 56 CommentsTonight’s State of the Union address is Obama’s first of his second and last term in office. Speculation is rampant about the focus and tone of the
speech given the changes apparent in the inauguration address to the nation. We’ve already seen that many of the invited guests tonight will victims of gun violence. Another guest of FLOTUS will be the 102 year old woman who represents voting rights in America. Ensuring the right to vote may be central a central them in tonight’s address to the nation.
President Barack Obama will announce a bipartisan presidential voting commission to focus on improving the Election Day experience, The Huffington Post has learned from two sources outside the White House with knowledge of the plans.
The commission is one of a number of efforts the Obama administration is making to address the problems that plagued voting on Election Day 2012. The commission, which will focus specifically on Election Day issues and not broader voting reform, will likely be co-chaired by one Republican and one Democratic lawyer, according to one of the sources.
The White House announced Tuesday that 102-year-old Miami resident Desiline Victor will be a guest of first lady Michelle Obama during the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night, during which Obama is expected to discuss voting reforms. Victor is a naturalized U.S. citizen who stood in line for three hours at a local library on the first Sunday of early voting until workers told her to come back later that evening. A crowd of thousands of people erupted in applause when she emerged with an “I Voted” sticker, the White House said.
The FLOTUS guest list may hint at other themes. It includes many women including soliders, pay discrimination activists, and teachers. It also includes scientists.
- Dr. Jill Biden
- Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to the President
- Sergeant Sheena Adams (Vista, CA) – Team Advisor & Lead Instructor, Female Engagement Team
- Alan Aleman (Las Vegas, NV) – DREAM Student
- Jack Andraka (Crownsville, MD) – Winner of the 2012 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair
- Susan Bumgarner (Norman, OK) – Early Childhood Educator
- Deb Carey (New Glarus, WI) – Small Business Owner, New Glarus Brewing Company
- Sergeant Carlos Evans, USMC (Cameron, NC) – Wounded Warrior
- Tim Cook (Cupertino, CA) – CEO of Apple
- Cleopatra Cowley-Pendleton and Nathaniel A. Pendleton Sr. (Chicago, IL)
- Menchu de Luna Sanchez (Secaucus, NJ) – Registered Nurse, NYU Langone Medical Center
- Bobak Ferdowsi (Pasadena, CA) – Flight Director, Mars Curiosity Rover
- Bradley Henning (Louisville, KY) – Machinist, Atlas Machine and Supply
- Tracey Hepner (Arlington, VA) – Co-Founder, Military Partners and Families Coalition
- Peter Hudson (Evergreen, CO) – Co-Founder and CEO, iTriage
- Governor John Kitzhaber (D-OR)
- Mayor Marie Lopez Rogers (Avondale, AZ)
- Amanda E. McMillan (Jackson, MS) – Pay Discrimination Victim
- Lee Maxwell (Wilton, IA) – Graduate, Kirkwood Community College Wind Technician Program
- Lieutenant Brian Murphy (Oak Creek, WI)
- Lisa Richards (Arlington, VA) – #My2K Participant
- Kaitlin Roig (Greenwich, CT) – 1st Grade Teacher, Sandy Hook Elementary School
- Abby Schanfield (Minneapolis, MN) – ACA Beneficiary
- Haile Thomas (Tucson, AZ) – Let’s Move! Champion
- Desiline Victor (Miami, FL)
Draft dodger and confessed pedophile gun nut Ted Nugent is coming as a guest of nutty Texas Rep Steve Stockman. The Nuge is well known for threatening the president and calling women leaders misogynistic slurs.
NUGENT: I was in Chicago last week. I was in Chicago and said, “Hey, Obama you might want to suck on one of these you punk.” Obama, he’s a piece of shit, and I told him to suck on my machine gun. Let’s hear it for him. And then I was in New York. I said, “Hey, Hillary, you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch. Since I’m in California, how about [Senator] Barbara Boxer [D-CA], she might want to suck on my machine gun. And [Senator] Dianne Feinstein [D-CA], ride one of these you worthless whore. Any questions? [Ted Nugent via LiveLeak.com, accessed 10/1/12]
Our hope is that some one will come to their senses and disinvite him. You’ll probably see him surrounded by the Capitol Police and the Secret Service. Here’s hoping he’s ignored by the press.
An enhanced version of the SOTU is available from the White House and will include stats and charts. The channel is on now with a lot of interesting historical background on the address, on previous presidents, and on the event itself. There’s also a chance to get on a mail list plus an after speech chat with a group of white house policy experts. You should look at it just because it’s really interesting and has some interesting background on the speech writing process too.
So, the speech starts tonight and can also be watched at the C-SPAN site.
Tonight, C-SPAN brings you President Obama’s fourth State of the Union address before a Joint Session of Congress. Our coverage begins at 8pm ET with comments from Frank Newport of Gallup and reporters from National Review and Huffington Post.
At 9pm ET, C-SPAN & C-SPAN Radio broadcast President Obama’s address and the GOP response from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). (Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) speaks at 10pm, C-SPAN.org). Then, viewer reactions via calls, Twitter & Facebook.
This post kicks off the first part of our live blogging sessions. Please join us through out the night!
Evening News Reads 020612: Black and Unwanted and Prop 8 Ruling
Posted: February 6, 2012 Filed under: abortion rights, Barack Obama, black women's reproductive health, court rulings, Diplomacy Nightmares, Drone Warfare, Foreign Affairs, Great Britain, Iran, legislation, Planned Parenthood, PLUB Pro-Life-Until-Birth, racism, religious extremists, Reproductive Health, Reproductive Rights, science, SDB Evening News Reads, Senate, SOTU, War on Women, Women's Rights | Tags: LGBT rights, Prop 8 11 Comments
Vintage clothing ad
Good Evening…
So many newsy links for you today, I don’t know where to begin. I guess we will start with the news out of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.
The long anticipated appeals court ruling is expected to address three issues: (1) whether former U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker should have recused himself from hearing the case because he is gay and had a long-time partner with whom he was not married; (2) whether the proponents of Proposition 8 have the right to appeal Walker’s decision striking down Proposition 8 as unconstitutional when none of the state defendants chose to do so; and (3) whether, if Walker did not need to recuse himself and the proponents do have the right to appeal, Walker was correct that Proposition 8 violates Californians’ due process and equal protection rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.
You can read the background at that link above. Here is a bit of information on what will happen when the decision is published.
On Tuesday, the Ninth Circuit is expected to rule on the questions of Walker’s recusal and the proponents’ standing. The court, if it holds that recusal was not necessary and that the proponents do have standing, will address the constitutionality of Proposition 8. As the public information office is not the court’s judges, its words are not law, but today’s notice does gloss over the standing question, which would make it appear that the court is likely to find that the proponents do have standing — which was to be expected in light of the California Supreme Court’s decision on that matter.
[UPDATE @ 5:30P: As the Ninth Circuit previously had issued a stay of the trial court’s judgment pending appeal, there is no reason to think that the court’s opinion — should it affirm the unconstitutionality of Proposition 8 — will take effect immediately. The judges almost certainly will issue a stay of their decision to allow the proponents to decide whether they will appeal such a decision.]
It is a rather long piece so give it a look.
I am going to stick with Federal Appellate Court rulings for a moment. Specifically the recent decision regarding sonograms prior to abortion in the state of Texas. Judge lets songram law take effect – Houston Chronicle
U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks declined to stop a new sonogram law from taking effect in a ruling Monday that indicates his hands were tied by an appellate court.
“There can be little doubt that (the law) is an attempt by the Texas Legislature to discourage women from exercising their constitutional rights by making it more difficult for caring and competent physicians to perform abortions,” Sparks wrote in his decision.
“It appears the (three judge appellate court panel) has effectively eviscerated the protections of the First Amendment in the abortion context,” and “in no other medical context does the government go so far in telling doctors what they must, and must not, do,” Sparks said in the ruling.
Sparks granted a temporary restraining order last fall, which kept the law from taking effect, but three judges from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals last month overturned Sparks, who was appointed to the federal bench by President George H.W. Bush.
The Center for Reproductive Rights filed the lawsuit last summer…
“It is a terrible injustice that Judge Sparks could not rule in favor of protecting the constitutional rights of Texas doctors because of the Fifth Circuit panel’s decision,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “We urge the full Fifth Circuit to consider Judge Sparks’ sound legal analysis when reviewing our request for a new hearing.”
Aside from the utter ridiculous nature of these laws and legislation against women, the frightening thing is that courts are upholding them. WTF?
Then you have crap like this: House GOP Memo: “Abortion Is the Leading Cause of Death in the Black Community” | Mother Jones
You may remember the billboards in ATL last year…
Anti-abortion billboards in Atlanta sparked a nationwide controversy last year as Georgia tried to pass a law outlawing abortion on the basis of race.
Well check out the latest GOP memo…
A House GOP memo obtained by Mother Jones argues for a controversial “prenatal discrimination bill” by referring to “black abortions” as distinct from abortions in general and claiming that “abortion is the leading cause of death in the black community.” The memo (PDF) was circulated by Republicans on the House judiciary committee on Monday in advance of Tuesday’s markup of Rep. Trent Franks’ (R-Ariz.) Susan B. Anthony and Frederick Douglass Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act.
Franks’ bill, which is also known as H.R. 3514, didn’t make it out of committee when it was introduced in the last Congress. But the fact that it’s now receiving a markup—a key step on the way to a floor vote—and that 78 cosponsors have signed on suggests that it could proceed to a vote of the full House before November’s elections. In addition to banning abortions based on the race or gender of the fetus, H.R. 3514 would give a woman’s family members the ability to sue abortion providers if they believed an abortion was obtained based on race or sex. Critics warn that it would be next to impossible to prove that an abortion was obtained on the basis of race or gender and fear the provision could lead to nuisance suits against abortion providers by family members who are opposed to abortion on principle.
In Georgia, they tried to pass a bill that made abortion a crime due to race…fortunately, it ran into problems.
Stephanie Mencimer reported:
The campaign started with controversial billboards, which began popping up in the state after President Obama was elected. They featured a photo of a beautiful, sad black baby boy and the line: “Black children are an endangered species.” Anti-abortion activists claimed to be out to save the black community from genocide at the hands of Planned Parenthood.
“The most pernicious part was, they’re trying to hijack the civil rights legacy in the service of conservative causes, trying to appropriate the mantle of the civil rights movement in a really despicable way,” says Loretta Ross, the national coordinator of SisterSong, a reproductive justice organization for women of color in Atlanta. She says the effort even featured white people singing “We Shall Overcome” at black women as part of a pro-life “freedom ride” bus tour that stopped at Atlanta’s Martin Luther King Jr. Center.
The MoJo article has an update, as follows:
Adam Serwer notes that the essay the Republican memo cites as evidence that “a thorough review of the American family planning movement reveals a history of targeting African-Americans for ‘population control'” is actually a thorough debunking of arguments like those in the memo that argues the opposite point. Here’s a choice excerpt:
Activists are exploiting and distorting the facts to serve their antiabortion agenda. They ignore the fundamental reason women have abortions and the underlying problem of racial and ethnic disparities across an array of health indicators. The truth is that behind virtually every abortion is an unintended pregnancy. This applies to all women—black, white, Hispanic, Asian and Native American alike. Not surprisingly, the variation in abortion rates across racial and ethnic groups relates directly to the variation in the unintended pregnancy rates across those same groups.
Also, it’s worth noting, as Jill Lepore did in her excellent New Yorker essay on Planned Parenthood in November, that prominent black Americans such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. were supportive of birth control and family planning, and the history of race and abortion in America is more complicated than the GOP memo would lead you to believe.
Go to the link to read the memo in its entirety, sigh…
From Valerie Jarrett: Securing Equal Pay? There (Should Be) an App for That!
Last week, the Obama Administration launched the Equal Pay App Challenge. We’re inviting software developers to help women ensure that they’re being paid fairly — which in turn will help restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same rules.
Right now, if you’re a woman in the workforce, it can be surprisingly difficult to answer basic questions about equal pay: what’s the typical salary for someone in your position? Should you be asking for more at the negotiating table? What are your fundamental legal rights?
Blah Blah Blah, sorry but until Hillary Clinton starts her full-time advocacy for women…this is all talk, and nothing else.
Jarrett continues:
President Obama envisions an America where his daughters are never limited by their gender. That vision is not yet a reality, and we still have a long way to go. But if we work together — and we invite America’s most creative innovators to join us in tackling this challenge — then I am confident that we will get there.
Yeah…right!
You honestly believe we will “get there” when all the crappy anti-women legislation is getting passed or upheld. Get real!
Since there are so many links for you tonight, I will just give you a list…
The use of drone warfare is becoming more and more popular, and with that, comes the use of drones in civilian situations. Civilian drones to fill the skies after law shake-up – tech – 03 February 2012 – New Scientist
The FAA is planning to unveil a new set of rules this summer regarding these UAVs.
Speaking of the FAA: Senate sends FAA bill to Obama’s desk – The Hill’s Transportation Report The House previously approved the bill…
There is a disturbing story about a teenager’s journal entry after she murdered a young neighbor: Missouri teen describes killing girl, 9, as ‘enjoyable’ experience _ before heading to church – The Washington Post
A Missouri teenager who admitted stabbing, strangling and slitting the throat of a young neighbor girl wrote in her journal on the night of the killing that it was an “ahmazing” and “pretty enjoyable” experience — then headed off to church with a laugh.
In world news:
U.S. Closes Embassy in Syria as Mayhem Escalates – NYTimes.com
The United States closed its embassy in Syria on Monday and withdrew its staff in the face of escalating mayhem for which American officials blamed the Syrian government’s unbridled repression of an 11-month-old uprising.
Obama orders Iranian Central Bank freeze in new wave of sanctions | World news | guardian.co.uk
Barack Obama has ordered the freezing of Iranian government assets in the US, including transactions by the Iranian Central Bank, in tightened sanctions over Tehran’s nuclear programme.
The White House said the executive order by the president “re-emphasises this administration’s message to the government of Iran – it will face ever-increasing economic and diplomatic pressure until it addresses the international community’s well-founded and well-documented concerns regarding the nature of its nuclear programme”.
The new sanctions, which also include the threat of prosecution for foreign financial institutions if they do certain kinds of business directly with Iran, also appeared timed to fit in with measures introduced in other countries, including Britain which has already moved against Iran’s banking system by cutting it off from London’s financial sector.
This next link is fascinating: BBC News – Transplant jaw made by 3D printer claimed as first
A 3D printer-created lower jaw has been fitted to an 83-year-old woman’s face in what doctors say is the first operation of its kind.
The transplant was carried out in June in the Netherlands, but is only now being publicised.
The implant was made out of titanium powder – heated and fused together by a laser, one layer at a time.
Technicians say the operation’s success paves the way for the use of more 3D-printed patient-specific parts.
One more “science” link for you: Mating call of an extinct bush-cricket rings out again after 165m years | Science | The Guardian
A love song that carried on the wind through the ancient forests of the late Jurassic has been reconstructed by scientists in Britain.
Researchers pieced together the staccato mating call of the long-gone creature, a distant relative of the modern bush-cricket, from fossilised remains unearthed in Mongolia.
The audio file is there at that link…cool isn’t it?
Monkeys are closely related to us and their brains have long served as an indispensable model for understanding how our own brain works. But we’re separated from each other by millions of years of evolution, so there are some major differences between their brains and ours. On the one hand, we can’t assume that the results from experiments on their brains can be generalized to humans. But on the other, a better understanding of our differences can provide important clues about the evolutionary forces that shaped the human brain.
A new method may help to overcome some of the difficulties in comparing the human and monkey brains. To test the method, researchers scanned the brains of humans and macaque monkeys while they watched Sergio Leone’s classic spaghetti western The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Their results, published in the journal Nature Methods, reveal a number of surprising differences between the functional architecture of the human and macaque brains.
Oh, I think those PLUBs that are pushing all the anti-woman crap down our throats need to read this article.
In a 2004 study, Uri Hasson and colleagues used functional magnetic resonance to scan the brains of five participants as they watched a 30 minute clip from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. They found that the film activated widespread regions of the cerebral cortex, especially in the visual and auditory parts of the brain, and that the activation patterns were remarkably similar in all of them. This high degree of synchronicity led the researchers to the conclusion that films can make their viewers’ brains tick collectively; it also led to a new field called “neurocinematics,” which aims to assess the similarities in participants’ brain responses during film watching.
Based on these earlier findings, Hasson and his colleagues therefore hypothesized that this might hold true not only for comparisons between humans, but also across species. The new method – called interspecies activity correlation – therefore builds on these earlier findings, and extends the approach to examine the extent to which the brain activation patterns observed in humans correspond to those of monkeys.
They recruited 24 human participants, and used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan their brains as they watched the same film clip. This confirmed that the film clip evoked the same pattern of brain activity in all the participants, as in the 2004 study. They then did the same with four macaque monkeys, each of which was shown the same clip six times, and found that all four animals also exhibited the same activity patterns as each other across multiple viewings. Next, the researchers compared the activity patterns they observed in the human participants with those of the monkeys, focusing on 34 distinct regions the visual cortex.
In both species, visual information is processed in a hierarchical manner. The earliest stages of visual processing take place in the primary and secondary visual cortical areas, often referred to simply as V1 and V2, which contain cells that respond to the simplest features of a scene, such as contrast between adjacent areas of the visual scene and the orientation of edges. Each successive stage of processing encodes increasingly complex features, with higher order visual regions encoding complex features such as object categories.
The article is way to detailed for me to break it down..so just go and read it.
Tonight at 8PM EST, TCM is showing a great Alfred Hitchcock film called, Foreign Correspondent…from 1940. Foreign Correspondent (1940) – Overview – TCM.com
If you can, watch it…cause it is one damn good movie!
Catch y’all later…
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