Quebec-USA-45019 juillet 2012 (Photo credit: nobilefamily)
English: President Obama had called on the two former Presidents to help. During their public remarks in the Rose Garden, President Clinton had said about President Bush, ‘I’ve already figured out how I can get him to do some things that he didn’t sign on for.’ Later, back in the Oval, President Bush is jokingly asking President Clinton what were those things he had in mind. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
English: "Former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton film a public service announcement encouraging the American people to make cash donations to the tsunami relief effort through www.usafreedomcorps.gov in the White House Library Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2005." (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Lorenzo Received by the Liberal Arts Procession - Botticelli (Photo credit: Scott MacLeod Liddle)Signs from Saturn - have a look!
address-withheld@my.opera.com.invalid (Dr. John v. Kampen) at - 7 minutes ago
Link: http://youtu.be/VMYGG4lR4T4
When you go outside to watch Saturn (in a binocular or telescope) mind the
rare lunar elliptical halos that occur these days. Although still rare they
are more often spotted these days for unknown reasons ('ice age is
coming'?). All reasons to throw a glance at the skies when you intend to
turn in for the night. Enjoy a good weekend,
John
Land Pics
These were shot mainly to use up the rest of the film in the disposable
camera used for the Worlds of Fun photos and will serve as "before" photos.
Hopefully there will be an "after!"
The Woodshop, Barn, and Trailer.
Same view from a slightly different vantage to show Southern Man's
impressive collection of brick and stone.
This washout will one day be a lovely garden pond.
Southern Man is a little obsessive about collecting, cutting, and stacking
firewood. No, he does not yet have a fireplace.
A couple of boats that he's had for nearly twenty years. They've yet to be
on the ... more »
Bill Clinton At George W. Bush Library Opening
So many easy jokes that I could drop here. Not doing it. The whole Election
2000 through Inauguration 2009 period still makes me mad. Good thing we
have a former president who can go to crap like this and yuck it up so we
don't have to. Every president gets to have a party and a library, so cue
the Big Dog. Here's G.W. Bush's speech. President Clinton is now on
twitter, where he tweeted out this picture of the five surviving
presidents.
Congratulations George and Laura on opening @thebushcenter. Proud Hillary
and I could be here. twitter.com/billclinton/st…
— Bill Clinton (@billcli... more »
Worlds Of Fun
The Church Of The Nazarene will once a year rent out amusement parks for
Nazarene Night. Southern Man has been to many down south at Six Flags but
with Teen Daughter living up north he went to Worlds of Fun with her this
year.
There's nothing like an evening at an amusement park with a pack of middle
school aged girls.
After driving seven hours to get there Southern Man went straight for the
Go Karts.
Teen Daughter and friends in the Old Time Cars.
In line at the Timberwolf.
The Mamba.
Teen Daughter was worn out by eleven so Southern Man took her home (nabbing
a Missouri g... more »
The Liberals' Renaissance in Quebec.
Quebec's federal and provincial Liberals appear to be enjoying something of
a renaissance. The *Toronto Star's* Chantal Hebert figures the Trudeau
Libs now give Mulcair's New Dems' Quebec-centric power base a serious
challenge.
*In an ever-expanding forest of positive polls for the Liberals, the latest
CROP snapshot of Quebec public opinion stands out but not necessarily for
the usual Justin Trudeau-related reasons.*
**
*...the poll suggests that Quebec is undergoing a Liberal revival, with
both the federal and provincial parties in first place in voting intentions
at 38 per cent.*... more »
The Sad Death of Off-the-Record
One of the very useful bits of education I had as a grad student were the
frequent visits from politicians, other political actors, and journalists
to small lunch seminars hosted by Nelson W. Polsby's Institution of
Governmental Studies. Some of them didn't depart from their normal talking
points, but most of them spoke reasonably openly. Many of them also spent
the day hanging out in Nelson's office, or stuck around for tea at the IGS
later in the day. Some would also make guest appearances in undergrad
classes, or otherwise share their time.
Again, some of them were basically a wa... more »
Viking Moses - Crosses
Viking Moses - Crosses. YouTube Video Description - [Channel: ThePerse23]:
without love life is gone
without life love goes on and on
so take me in your arms
bring me back with ivory horns
and break me in your arms
break my pride in all its forms
without love life is gone
without life love goes on and on
crosses 'side the road
cross his eyes, cross his nose
cross his little toes
crosses stand in rows and rows
without love life is gone
without life love goes on and on
This song was included in a limited release album called The Golden Apples
of the Sun. This album is a compilation of indi... more »
Society of Ob-Gyns Wants Boys Vaccinated for HPV
Canada's Society of Obstetricians & Gynecologists has set the cat among the
fundamentalist pigeons this time. They want all Canadian provinces to
follow Prince Edward Island's lead and make HPV vaccination available to
boys as well as girls.
HPV, or human papillomavirus, is generally considered a disease transmitted
unknowingly by infected males to females. There's a mistaken belief that
males are unaffected by HPV and that the virus only plagues females. Not
so. HPV can cause a variety of cancers in males also.
Because HPV is sexually transmitted it gets plenty of straight-la... more »
Why Does the F-35 Have Just One Engine? Blame It On Those Damned JarHeads.
A huge limiting factor of the F-35 is that it has just one engine. In a
vast, sparsely populated country with extreme weather (yes, that would be
Canada), twin-engine reliability is a huge bonus. One engine goes out -
from a bird strike or mechanical failure, whatever - and you've still got
one to let you limp back to the barn.
The F-35's vastly more capable big brother, the F-22, has twin engines.
So why just a single, massive jet engine for the F-35? There is an answer.
When the F-35 was conceived it had to be designed to suit a lot of
potential users. It was supposed to re... more »
Photos O'odham Solidarity Project Spring Gathering 2013
.
.
.
.
O'odham Solidarity Project Spring Gathering 2013
The award-winning Waila band Papago Warrior, featured at the Native
American Music Awards and winner of Mul-Chu-Tha Battle of the Bands,
donated three hours of music for the spring gathering on the border.
O'odham youths, up and coming photographers and videographers,
documented the band.
Video interview with
US Unveils Iraq WMD "Curveball-Style" Lies Vs. Syria
As NATO terror front collapses in Syria, US attempts to justify
intervention by drumming up familiar WMD lies.
*Image: From Independent's "Man whose WMD lies led to 100,000 deaths
confesses all: Defector tells how US officials 'sexed up' his fictions to
make the case for 2003 invasion." In retrospect, the corporate-media has no
problem admitting the insidious lies that were told to justify the invasion
and occupation of Iraq - the lead up to the war was another story. A
verbatim repeat of these admitted lies are being directed at Syria amidst
the West's failure to overthrow the gov... more »
Wild Bill: Obama is an enemy of freedom...
*summed up well by Wild Bill.*
Europe's Dynamic Genetic history
The unexplained period of genetic turnover surely coincides with the
emergence of Bronze Age technology which certainly spread village to
village by a natural apprenticeship program. This brought in the advanced
technology as well as the genes. A similar thing happened during the
Middle Ages with the movement of Judaism which brought improved commercial
skills.
That also explains how these shifts actually take place. Skilled young
men move onto the next attractive community and provide skills while
marrying directly into the community itself. It is not an invasion becau... more »
How Canada Dominates African Mining
This writer comes from an anti development mindset and is quick to bite on
whatever flimsy grounds can be drummed up. Yet the core narrative is
correct. Canadian mining has become a global force in wealth creation and
job creation in the whole resource extraction industry.
In fairness, it is essentially unbeatable and this will continue simply
because it is now completely global. Observe that 90% of all exploration
and development capital is raised in Canada. Without that component, the
rest is rubbish. Thus the trend continues.
Mining expertise always needs to be imp... more »
Chinese Bubble
Without question China is seriously in need of a credit crash and a long
period of consolidation during which consumer finance is properly funded
and established throughout society.
Right now the money creation is flooding the top end of society which
merely promotes gross speculation. This is surely a repeat of the South
Seas Bubble. Smarter is to subsidize credit throughout to massively
increase demand. That has yet to happen and it should have happened four
years ago. The bull is satiated and needs to rest a long time in order to
digest its excess.
In the meantime gro... more »
Driverless Cars Imminent
What is truly eminent is the capacity to step out of your door and have an
automated electric vehicle immediately pick you up and then travel at a
rapid clip to your destination. Freeways will naturally operate at close to
one hundred miles per hour. Better yet, roads will become lanes and street
parking will evaporate as the vehicles will rarely park there except to
pick up and drop off. It will be valet service 24/7.
Our urban space can become vastly more civilized and generally
comfortable. Fumes will become a distant memory.
There will certainly remain a culture deter... more »
Crunching the F-35 Numbers. It's Anything You Want.
There's one thing F-35 pilots won't be seeing as much as they'd like - the
inside of an F-35. Instead they'll be spending a good deal more time
pretending to be inside an F-35, in a simulator inside some cavernous
hangar.
Now how the balance between actual stick and rudder time and simulator time
is struck will depend on a lot of factors, some of them political.
One of the big political issues of the day, at least to prospective
purchasers and operators of the F-35 light attack bomber, is the cost of
operating the warplanes. Some critics seem to think they'll be very
expensive ... more »
What Has The Republican Party Done To The American Economy
Is this just too simplistic? The Republican Party nihilists crashed the
economy with their ideologically and greed-driven Austerity Agenda under
Bush and then obstructed every effort President Obama and the Democrats
have made to fix it. I mean, there are nuances-- like Obama's own inherent
conservatism and misplaced belief in Austerity and compromise-- but, in
effect, that sentence describes what's happened to the American economy
since 2000. Yesterday the *NY Times* editorial board took a shot at
focusing in on one catch-all aspect-- sequestration-- and explaining why
it's a dis... more »
A Stark Choice (A Reply to PLG)
Purple Library Guy spaketh thusly:
If I thought that the collaboration thing was both necessary and sufficient
to get proportional representation, I'd certainly support it. I'm skeptical
for tactical reasons. At a minimum, I'd like to see non-Conservative
parties get together in a sort of joint policy development process and come
up with an electoral system they all support, up front, and craft a bill
that they all will commit to. Then maybe it might be worth talking about
collaborating in the election to get in and pass that bill. Until you've
got at least that, there are some seri... more »
da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (April 15, 1452 – May 2, 1519) was an
Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician,
mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer,
botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other
figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been
described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of "unquenchable
curiosity" and "feverishly inventive imagination". He is widely considered
to be one of the greatest painters of all time and perhaps the most
diversely talen... more »
Political Fights - Marquis Of Queensbury Rules VS A Kick In The Nuts ........
*(How some Liberals & New Democrats would like to conduct a Political Fight)
*
*(How Conservatives actually conduct a Political Fight)*
*
**Quess who's winning .........*
[image: Progressive Bloggers]
As the fourth “annual” fund-raising drive turns!
*THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013*
*We survey The One True Channel and the public schools:* What will MSNBC be
like in the coming years? How about Salon?
We think it’s important for liberals to badger the news orgs which are
starting to define the liberal world. We’re going to try to be more polite
about the work we see at such outposts.
But liberals need to fight for better performance from these entities. If
you agree with us on that point, we will ask you to impoverish yourself as
part of our fourth or fifth annual fund-raising drive.
After some fifteen years!
In the coming year, we wi... more »
Bruce Melton : Calling all Earthlings
Alien
beings emerge from “What Was Once Lake Buchanan” as the water level
falls. Photos by Bruce Melton / The Rag Blog.
Calling all earthlings:
Climate change communications
may as well be from aliens
Relative to most of the 20th century, Austin’s January highs and lows
were not 2.9 and 1.4 degrees above normal, but 9.9 and 10.4 degrees
above normal!
By Bruce Melton / The Rag Blog / July 25,
Even the EPA Sees the Keystone XL Pipeline as Threatening the Ogallala Aquifer
Washington Post: EPA wants State Dept. to rework analysis of Keystone XL
pipeline By L. Bernstein and J. Eilperin (2013, April 22),
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/epa-wants-state-dept-to-rework-analysis-of-keystone-xl-pipeline/2013/04/22/1c6e9812-ab9f-11e2-b6fd-ba6f5f26d70e_story.html
[Excerpted] The Environmental Protection Agency objected Monday to the
State Department’s latest review of the Keystone XL oil pipeline,
suggesting that more work must be done before the Obama administration
can
determine whether to approve the 1,179-mile northern leg of the pr... more »
They Needed Extra Space for the Popup Books
Every Thursday on Twitter, there's a popular hashtag,
#throwbackthursday, in which users are encouraged to do a little time warp
and bring attention to people, fashions and events from a bygone era. Since
right wingers keep colliding with irony and bathos, it should come as no
surprise to anyone that one of the biggest news items of today happens to
be George W. Bush opening the doors of his presidential library at Southern
Methodist University in Texas.
Therefore in the spirit of #throwbackthursday, let's do a little time
warp of our own and pretend we're in the salad day... more »
The Importance of Carbon Capture to the Climate Debate
Dan Sarewitz and I have a piece just out in The Atlantic on the
importance of carbon capture to the debate over climate change. Here is how
the short piece starts out:
Today, more than 85 percent of the world’s energy still comes from fossil
fuels. Despite centuries of growing use, these fuels remain abundant.
Powerful economic and political interests are organized around the
fossil-energy system, as are complex social arrangements (consider, for
example, the dependence of rapidly expanding cities on conventional
electrical grids).
These realities have made a mockery of the 20... more »
Breaking: A striking report from Dagestan!
*THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013*
*A portrait of life lived in tribes:* A few days ago, we read something
which almost made us feel sorry for poor Joseph Stalin.
How many different peoples can one man be asked to subjugate? That was our
question after reading a detailed Wall Street Journal profile of the
Tsarnaev family.
Anzor Tsarnaev is the father of the alleged Boston bombers. As it turns
out, he crossed an ethnic line when he married his wife:
CULLISON (4/22/13): Back in the 1940s, Anzor Tsarnaev's parents were
deported to Kyrgyzstan from their native Chechnya after Josef Stalin's
re... more »
U.S. believes Syrian government used some chemical weapons: Hagel
A gal can't even have lunch in peace
[image:
http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/17e/news/world/article11543103.ece/ALTERNATES/w220/web-hagel-syria-0425.JPG]
*This is ominous................*
"U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel on Thursday said the U.S. intelligence
community believes the Syrian government has used sarin gas on a small
scale against rebels trying to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad.
“This morning the White House delivered a letter to several members of
Congress on the topic of chemical weapons use in Syria. The letter ...
states that the U.S. intellige... more »
George Bush interviewed by Diane Sawyer...
*remember when our presidents acted like gentlemen in public? And first
ladies were actually ladies?*
Hey, maybe Obama can "bust a move" and Mooch can wiggle like a hoochie-mama
at the Bush Library dedication today.
CONFIRMED: Both FBI & CIA Watched Boston Bombing Suspects for Years
FBI & CIA now admit to putting Boston bombing suspect on 2 "watch lists,"
directly contradicting previous public statements. CIA most likely
sponsored suspect's trips to meet US-backed terrorists in Chechnya, Russia.
*April 25, 2013* (LD) - It is now confirmed that Russian investigators contacted
the FBI at least as early as 2011 in regards to Boston Marathon bombing
suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and again just 6 months before the Boston attacks.
Additionally, it is now revealed that both the FBI and CIA had Tsarnaev on
at least 2 terrorist watch lists, contradicting previous FBI state... more »
Labeled Kids Art Supplies Buckets
[image: Kid art supply organization]
I live in my craft room. Seriously, I do. I would say I spend at least half
of my waking hours in that room each day. Whether I am blogging, sewing,
painting, or creating something completely random, it is all done in my
craft room.
When I was first planning my craft room, I had so much I wanted to fit in,
a sewing table, my computer, fabric, there wasn't a lot of room to spare,
but I know I needed a kid's corner. As much time as I spend in my craft
room, I really wanted my four-year-old to be comfortable too. I didn't want
to spend all of our t... more »
Adrian Dix interview with Bill Good, live streamed..NOW
http://www.cknw.com/nwelection/index.aspx
The Straight goods
Cheers Eyes Wide Open
Kauilapele's Blog: Rachel Maddow on 4-24-13… “A Lesson in How to ‘Push’ Disinformation”… (and Why I Have Stopped Watching Rachel, and Pretty Much Anyone Else, on MSNBC)
*
* *I don't often watch MSNBC since Dylan Ratigan left the TV network but
I
did see this episode yesterday when Rachel was promoting a novelized
version of the 9/11 report and a comic book version of it. I was
stunned!
Here's the woman that did fantastic job exposing the corruption of the
Bush administration, now flogging that administration's Casus Belli. So
much for my estimation of Rachel Maddow's intelligence... -AK*
http://kauilapele.wordpress.com/2013/04/25/rachel-maddow-on-4-24-13-a-lesson-in-how-to-push-disinformation-and-why-i-have-stopped-watching-rachel-and-pretty-mu... more »
Tom Hayden : Earth Night
Is
'Earth Night' coming? Image from Wikimedia Commons.
Earth Night
Al Gore wrote in 1992, 'the maximum that is politically feasible still
falls short of the minimum that is truly effective.' Making it
'politically feasible' to tackle extreme climate change remains the task
two frustrating decades later.
By Tom Hayden / The Rag Blog/ April 25, 2013Monday, April 22, 2013,
marked the 43rd
IA ALEC State Chair -" ALL House and Senate - Members of ALEC"
OOPS in Iowa
IOWA DEMS – better ask the accounting department if accounting paid for
Dems to be ALEC members this year.
The accounting department should immediately verify which legislators were
made members of ALEC by the state automatically paying ALEC dues
Why ... Cause the DEMS opted OUT- - - -
OOPS in Iowa
My emphasis
Rep. Greg Forristall ignored a request to release information about the May
2-3 meeting of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), where he
will serve as Chair of the Education Task Force, according to
correspondence released by Progress Iowa tod... more »
RED AND BLUE WITH RACE ALL OVER: Sirota’s point was easy to state!
*THURSDAY, APRIL 25, 2013*
*Part 3—Why did he state it so strangely:* Shortly after the Boston
bombing, David Sirota wrote a column at Salon with a slightly peculiar
headline:
“Let's hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American,” that slightly
odd headline said.
Sirota’s piece is still being mocked on Fox. But in its essence, his column
was built around an obvious and simple idea—an idea which is easy to state.
It’s easy to express the concern which lay at the heart of Sirota’s column. In
today’s Washington Post, E. J. Dionne describes a basic concern he felt
when he lear... more »
Give Me a Boilin' Hot Cup of Joe
Ol' Joe is in the hotseat in the House of Commons today. The New Democrats
plan to grill NatResMin Oliver over his remarks smearing leading climate
scientist James Hansen. Oliver who is openly inimical to parts of the
country, including the entire province of British Columbia, accused the
former head of NASA's Goddard Space Laboratory as "always crying wolf" for
his opposition to the Athabasca Tar Sands and the Keystone XL pipeline.
Slackjaw Joe is also on record as claiming that he heard somewhere that the
whole business of global warming is less than true. That is a remarkable
... more »
Norman Pagett and Josephine Smit : Can We 'Downsize' and Survive?
Sewers
under construction, north bank of the Thames looking west. Image from
End of More.
The end of more:
Can we 'downsize' and survive?
We continue to delude ourselves that 'downsizing' will somehow allow us
to carry on with our current lifestyle with perhaps only minor
inconveniences.
By Norman Pagett and Josephine Smit / The End of More / April 25, 2013
"Healthy citizens are the
Mohawk Nation News 'Brown Face, White System'
BROWN
FACE, WHITE SYSTEM
Posted on April 25, 2013 by admin
MNN. Apr. 25, 2013. Beware Injun Conferences where we have to listen to
Indian Act or Federal Indian Law sell-outs spout the glories of
colonialism. They are the “Finder’s Fee Indians”. The speakers are
mostly band or tribal councilors, or those who are trained to conduct
treason against
Burning Bridges
Deborah Meier and Elliott Witney have been attempting to bridge differences
about ideology and practices associated with Knowledge Is Power Program
(KIPP) charter schools, a “no excuses” view of children, poverty,
education, and the world. I admire Meier’s patience and diligence in this
discussion and strongly reject KIPP and other “no excuses” schools as
racist and [...]
Part 3- Boston Bombing : NATO, Oil and the battle for Chechnya
Continuing on from Part 1: *Boston Bombing: NATO- Taking the fight to
Russia via Georgia/Chechnya ??*
Where I first introduce the premise of taking the battle to Russia to
further the agenda of destabilization.
For multiple reasons. Bolstering that narrative with: *Pt 2- Boston
Bombing: NATO, Oil and the Battle for Chechnya*
Hoping to make it very clear, here in this installment, the third, that
the Boston bombing frame up has a clear beneficiary in the NATO global war,
pipelines, control of resources and geopolitical destabilization.
We are going to start, again, with the words of... more »
Untitled
*Survey: Americans nationwide willing to shell out personally to save our
coast ~Bob Marshall, The Lens*
*New Mississippi "personhood" amendment drive to begin*
*Eight New Orleans Fairgrounds Horses Aim Towards Kentucky Derby*
*Jazz Fest poster captures essence of Aaron Neville ~Dean Shapiro *
**~Hat Tweet @lunanola ~Today at LA Music Factory @ 210 Decatur: One Mind
Brass Band @ Noon; Smoking Time Jazz Club @ 1 PM; Billy Iuso @ 2 PM! Johnny
Sansone w/ Anders Osborne, Stanton Moore, & Robert Mercurio @ 3 PM! Dukes
of Dixieland @ 4 PM, @*Bonerama* @ 5 PM, and Hot 8 Brass Band @ 6 PM!... more »
Fouad Ajami’s Flawed Argument For The Iraq War
Fouad Ajami is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute, and a long time
commentator on Iraq. For the last several years he has argued that the
Middle East’s autocrats gave rise to Islamist terrorists, and that was what
led to 9/11. Because Saddam Hussein was a perfect example of that type of
dictatorial rule he advocated that he be deposed to stop future terrorism.
This was an idea based upon changing the entire Middle East and North
Africa, not necessarily taking on those that were directly responsible for
attacking America. Ajami shared many ideas with the neoconservatives, and
... more »
ALEC Legislators Plagiarizing Legislation
Making the rounds this morning is a great article on *CommonDreams* by Jim
Hightower.
I* recommend reading the whole thing *– I just wanted to pull out his
wisdom in the article about ALEC.
*'Factory Farms' Aren't Farms: They Are Concentration Camps for Animals*
Gagging on 'Ag-gag' laws
Oddly, each of these state proposals is practically identical, even
including much of the same wording. That's because, unbeknownst to the
public and other legislators, the bills don't originate from the state
lawmakers who introduce them. Instead, they come from a Washington-based
corporate front ... more »
Another great image a la #cpsboycott, racism in chicago
Self-explanatory. Filed under: CHALK FACE: General News & Commentary
Tagged: chicago, closures, cps boycott, testing
O'odham Solidarity Project: Voices on the Border
O'odham
Solidarity Project: Voices on the Border
A supporter of the O'odham Solidarity Project shares her feelings and
insights after spending time with Tohono O'odham in their ancestral
homeland. She describes the reality of the system in the United States
and what it means here.
She reacts to learning of the militarization of O'odham homelands, the
constant abuse of O'odham by US Border
Guest Post By Jay Stamper, Who's Running For The Senate Seat Lindsey Graham Is Occupying
*Profiles in Courage and Cowardice
-by Jay Stamper*
I’ve given a lot of thought to the courage of the Marathon runners who ran
toward the blasts and then kept on running to donate blood to the injured.
I've also thought about less courageous moments.
In the days following the bombings, Lindsey Graham suggested that Dzhokhar
Tsarnaev, a U.S. citizen, should be denied Miranda rights and tried as an
enemy combatant in a military court. Graham must have been thinking that
our anger and disgust at a horrific crime would make us forget about the
Bill of Rights. Thank God he was wrong.
... more »
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Christopher Newman, 58. Nope, I never heard of him,
either. But he was on the crew -- assistant director or some such
on...ready? Match Point; Sense and Sensibility; Much Ado; Brazil; Return of
the Jedi; The Great Muppet Caper; and Supermans II and III. Also, Rome --
and he's a producer on Game of Thrones. And lots more. That's not bad!
Enough to even mean we should forgive whatever contributions he had to,
alas, The Phantom Menace.
Good stuff:
1. Sean Trende on the possible electoral effects of passing immigration
reform.
2. Okay, there are lots of good reasons... more »
Government By Distraction
Bill S7 is a deeply flawed piece of legislation. Its provisions for
"preventative detention" and forcing people to answer questions are
unlikely to pass a Supreme Court challenge. But the bill passed yesterday
amid all the yelling and screaming about political attack ads. Susan
Delacourt writes in *The Toronto Star*:
While the stage had been set in Ottawa for a debate over whether MPs are
free to speak their minds, a new wave of ads created a battle over the
freedom to wage partisan advertising wars instead.
Liberals are crying foul at yet another set of looming Conservative attac... more »
Funding ALEC - Tax dollars should not be used
Three great 20 second audio clips to listen to on the following link.
These comments are after the SD House passed a half a million dollar travel
bill for legislators in SD - which included travel to ALEC meetings AND
paying the dues for EVERY South Dakota legislator, EVERY legislator.
*Each clip is priceless audio:*
*>>>>HERE<<<<*
ALEC
South Dakota tax dollars should not be used to fund a partisan organization
like this
very partisan ... not how you spend public tax dollars
Anti-public education, anti-worker, and I think anti-rural America ...
They do not need to exist on South D... more »
DRESSING UP A WARM CRIMINAL
The George W. Bush presidential library extravaganza is a disgrace to law,
morality, justice, and truth.
The man should be tried and put behind bars as a war criminal - right
alongside of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, Colon Powell and the
rest of the crooked bastards.
Obama will now go and proclaim all the great things Bush did which is
disgraceful and demeaning to all those innocents who Bush and company had
killed. It indicates how the corporate oligarchy works - good cop and bad
cop - but in the end they all protect one another. Just like the mob -
it's a crimina... more »
The Left’s Top 6 Boston Bombing Lies | FrontPage Magazine
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-tapson/excusing-jihad
Won’t Let You Opt Out? Try All “A” Day
It is heartening to see the testing boycotts in Chicago, Portland, Seattle
and elsewhere, and yet there is so much more to do to bring down the high
stakes testing that has turned our schools in profit centers for
corporations, while killing learning and teaching. So boys and girls, if
your parents are skittish about [...]
A Message From Move To Amend Anouncing New Hampshire and Maine Speaking Tour
* * * PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE WIDELY:
David Cobb, a fiery speaker and former Green Party presidential candidate,
is touring New Hampshire and Maine to give his talk "Creating Democracy &
Challenging Corporate Rule."
David will be traveling with Daniel Lee, a member of the Move to Amend Exec
Team and Affiliate Coordinator of Move to Amend Los Angeles.
This presentation is part history lesson and part heart-felt call-to-action!
All events are free and open to the general public. Move to Amend finances
these tours, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Click the
li... more »
Smash Facebook!
In my experience, anarchists are either the funsome tricksters of
revolutionary politics; or the most terribly po-faced, super serious folk
going. There is no happy medium. So I can't quite decide if Anarchists: We
need to talk about Facebook is serious polemic bemoaning the lack of
revolutionary responsibility, or a wind up.
The argument runs like this. Anarchist collectives have expended enormous
reservoirs of labour and resource constructing a parallel architecture of
tough-to-crack servers and hard-encrypted email facilities. And yet, to
their dismay, rather than hang out at th... more »
5 Scientifically-Supported Tips for (Nearly) Instant Happiness by Elizabeth Renter
Source:
https://www.facebook.com/TFarmacy#!/TFarmacy
5 Scientifically-Supported Tips for (Nearly) Instant Happiness
by Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society, 23 April 2013
Some people are naturally happy. You probably know one, or maybe you
*are*one. These people are quick to smile or offer the “bright side”
when
encountered with a friend who needs a boost. Minor setbacks are seen by
this crew as just that—minor, rather than the serious life-changers that
otherwise unhappy people experience. And while there is no true
scientific
formula for achieving happiness, there are indeed ways to ... more »
Lawyers may be sued by someone other than client for trial conduct:
Amato v. Welsh, 2013 ONCA 258 is a pleadings case. Accordingly it needs
only to find a proposition of law is tenable. That said, it is a very
important decision holding a lawyer may be sued by someone other than the
lawyer's client for things said or done during trial. Whether this will
open the floodgates to litigation, especially in a family law context, will
be seen. Disappointed family law litigants often complain the other lawyer
was wrongfully in cahoots with their client - many doubtful law society
complaints are seen in this context:
[83] Notably, in *Demarco*, Kreve... more »
chemtrails - PHOTO OF THE DAY - non-persistent contrail in a chemtrailed sky
it's about 0920 hours on Thursday 25th April 2013, and here's a lovely
example of a 'normal' non-persistent contrail from a commercial jet heading
north to south at cruising altitude in a just CHEMTRAILED SKY
in the wider shot, below, the skylong white line indicated from A to B
(west to east) has just been laid down, literally FIVE MINUTES AGO as I
watched.
both planes were at cruising altitude: explain.
April Taxcast from Tax Justice Network
This month's Taxcast from the Tax Justice Network highlights the
International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' major data dump from
leaked documents, the agreement of the Group of 20 that automatic exchange
of tax information should be the global standard, the imminent collapse of
banking secrecy in Luxembourg (yes, you read that right!), and phantom
foreign direct investment into India.
Enjoy the podcast!
How to combat World Hunger
Sam Kinison had his own views on combatting world hunger.
An apologia for firewalls
*Anniversaries*: there are lots and lots of birthdays and deathdays of
mathematicians who influenced physics today, including Felix Klein, Siméon
Denis Poisson, Andrey Kolmogorov, and Felix Berezin.
A decade ago, I would enthusiastically read many or most papers authored or
co-authored by Joe Polchinski who would be a fountain of crisp, creative,
and perfectionist physics. I may have voted for him as the world's #1 most
clearly thinking physicist.
Sadly for me, I unregistered from the club of regular readers of his papers
after I looked at several important places in this new AMPS... more »
How the GOP's Disinformation Campaign Could Tarnish Obamacare
*BY MARC McDONALD*
Like many progressives, I've never been a big fan of the Affordable Care
Act. After all, in many ways, it's really nothing more than a warmed-up
revision of the Heritage Foundation/GOP health care proposal from the 1990s.
However, given the awful state of the current bloated, inefficient U.S.
health care system, Obamacare is bound to be an improvement (if only
because it's impossible for the system to be much worse than it is now).
And if Obamacare improves access to health care for millions of Americans,
it will pose a big problem to the GOP in elections for year... more »
DZHOKHAR'S DOUBLE?
*3* *on cap *
*7** on cap*
*Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or his double?*
*Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or his double?*
*Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or his double?*
*
**
**Dzhokhar in hospital, allegedly*
*
**
**The real Dzhokhar*
*
*The Boston police chiefs are total liars, reportedly.
*"Two unnamed U.S. officials have told the Associated Press that the
surviving suspect in the Boston bombings was unarmed when police captured
him hiding inside a boat in a neighborhood back yard.*
"The report contradicts the Boston police department's own account of
Dzhokar Tsarnaev's capture on Friday - after *commissi... more »
dream - very smooth space potato - enormous asteroid tears through the Earth
yup, had the MASSIVE ASTEROID dream, no idea what it means, but it was big,
and it sorta raced through like this:
NOBODY KNEW NOTHING.
Jerry Looked Up At Him At One Point and Said, "You See, Comedy Is What We're Really About. The Music, Yeah, This Music Thing Is All Well and Good, But Comedy Is What We're Really About."
When the events in our world get just too unbelievable for words (like this
week's). Some of us turn to the memory of that echoing chant "GRATEFUL
DEAD! GRATEFUL DEAD! GRATEFUL DEAD!" for comfort and enlightenment. Rolling
Stone has done us a good turn in this month's issue. Thank you, Bob and
Phil. And Jerry, most of all. Furthur Keep the Dead Alive at Historic New
York TheaterQ&A: Bob
Is the United States the best country in the world? Not even close. Among the 29 countries evaluated by UNICEF, the U.S. ranks from between 23rd to 27th in all six categories considered (the 27th being in education).
------------------------------
*UNICEF: U.S. kids worse off than many of their Western counterparts*
Posted by Caitlin Dewey and Max Fisher on April 18, 2013 at 11:48 am
Data source: UNICEF
American children are on average worse off than children in Western Europe
and barely better off than their counterparts in the Baltic states and the
former Yugoslavia, according to a recent report from United Nation’s
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) on the welfare of children in developed countries.
The report, which compares kids in 29 Western countries, measures
well-being across f... more »
Hegel On God, Religion, And Eckhartian Mysticism
Related: *Glenn Alexander Magee - Goethe the Alchemist*.
Below is an excerpt from Glenn Alexander Magee's book, *"Hegel and the
Hermetic Tradition."* 2001. Cornell University Press: Ithaca. Pg. 224-27.
"In the *Philosophy of Right*, Hegel states that "The content of religion
is absolute truth, and consequently the religious is the most sublime of
all dispositions" (Knox, PR 270; 165-66). Speculative philosophy, Hegel
insists, is not hostile to religious belief: "nothing is further from its
intention than to overthrow religion, i.e., to assert that the content of
religion cannot *... more »
20 Tips for adding value to our lives
Our last SURVEY asked the question, *"Were you raised green?"* It was a
close race but the winner was "Yes".
The comments were interesting. In most cases people shared that they grew
up in families where common-sense principles were taught ... things like
conserving resources, planting food, and avoiding waste. I had the sense
that regardless of when they officially began living green, their early
lives paved the way.
One comment suggested that green living is cultural. After a little
research, I was surprised to learn that green-living is a middle-class
trend. So could it be tha... more »
Ugly On The Outside
There are some good things about getting older. Being less swayed by the
superficial is certainly one of them. I've heard more than a few people
remark that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is handsome. I've heard people say they
thought Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann are pretty. When I look at
Dzhokhar, Sarah and Michele those aren't the attributes that come to mind.
Rotted evil is.
Politics industry trade rag, *The Hill* announced their 10th annual "Most
Beautiful" List and they're opening it up to the White House, Cabinet
departments and executive agencies. In the past it has mostly been a... more »
Diné Hada’ Asídí: A Peaceful Revolution against the Internal Enemies
Navajo child protests at Salt River Project in Tempe, Ariz.
Diné Hada’Asídí
Navajo Vigilant Ones
A Navajo People’s
Public Interest Organization
We need a Peaceful People’s Revolution against the internal enemies
Censored News
NGS: It’s All About
Water (Today’s ‘Blue Gold’) and Disloyal Insiders
Navajo Generating Station (NGS) is not Navajo, but uses our
coal, water, land, and
Thursday Morning Linkage
If last’s week Thursday morning linkage was Africa-themed, this week’s
links are China-related and inevitably harken back to the events in Boston:
Laurie Garrett, as she is wont to do, wonders if this recent bird flu
outbreak in China is “the big one“ Beijing air is so bad they are canceling
recess, kids at grave
Continue reading
Right Wing Fringe Group To Harass J&J About Dumping ALEC
*Conservative Group to Urge Johnson and Johnson to Rethink Its Decision to
Stop Working with Mainstream Conservative Group at Behest of Left-Wing
Extremists
Also Will Ask Health Care Giant to Endorse Plan to Repeal ObamaCare's
Medical Device Tax*
*New Brunswick, NJ / Washington, D.C.* - Today, at the annual meeting of
Johnson & Johnson shareholders in New Brunswick, New Jersey, the National
Center for Public Policy Research plans to criticize Johnson & Johnson CEO
Alex Gorsky's decision to stop working with a respected, 40-year-old
national organization of supporting state legisl... more »
"A Look to the Heavens"
“This beautiful, bright, spiral galaxy is Messier 64, often called the
Black Eye Galaxy or the Sleeping Beauty Galaxy for its heavy-lidded
appearance in telescopic views. M64 is about 17 million light-years distant
in the otherwise well-groomed northern constellation Coma Berenices. In
fact, the Red Eye Galaxy might also be an appropriate moniker in this
colorful composition of narrow and wideband images.
*Click image for larger size.*
The enormous dust clouds obscuring the near-side of M64's central region
are laced with the telltale reddish glow of hydrogen associated with star... more »
Crabs in a Bucket"
"*Crabs in a Bucket"*
by Sarah Robinson
"When I was a little girl, I lived very close (and hour and fifteen
minutes) to the Florida panhandle beaches. Which meant we spent a TON of
time there. Early evening was one of my favorite times to walk the beach
with my mom and my older brothers. We were all clean and fed and slightly
sun weary but still desperate to be outside. So, we would grab flashlights,
dip nets and a bucket and search the ocean’s edge for crabs. We would catch
a bucket full in an evening and drag them back home where my mom or my
grandmother would cook them up i... more »
Canadian KXL Minister - Not Very Neighborly
From Rw Story - snips
*Canadian official attacks U.S. climatologist James Hansenover Keystone
pipeline*
By Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 20:37 EDT
Canada’s natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, rarely bothers to hide his
dislike for critics of the country’s carbon-heavy tar sands or the
controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
But it still came as a surprise to hear Oliver lash out at one of America’s
pre-eminent scientists, climatologist James Hansen, during a visit to
Washington DC.
The charm offensive evidently did not apply to Hansen. In remarks made... more »
Memes galore
The advice animal periodic table... in case you were wondering.
To support the end of overtesting, consider putting your facebook profile on pause @dianeravitch
Courtesy of Jean Schutt McTavish. Put your profile on pause to boycott
test-driven education. Filed under: CHALK FACE: General News & Commentary
Tagged: boycott, facebook profile thumbnail, pause, testing
Round up of links from the student #CPSboycott today. Congrats!
Pretty shameless, but I must first plug our special radio episode today
with veteran Chicago arts educator Ellen Gradman, live from the events
downtown. Then, a Yahoo News article in which Mark Naison and I are quoted.
We also have a piece from Common Dreams and Huffington Post. Look for a
special episode with student [...]
Dirty Wars
Jeremy Scahill's Dirty Wars video trailer http://dirtywars.org/
“How Do We Humans Ever Make Good Decisions?”
*“How Do We Humans Ever Make Good Decisions?”*
by Jim Taylor, Ph.D.
“It’s a wonder that good decisions are ever made by the species known as
Homo Sapiens. The reality is that the cards are stacked against us whenever
we are faced with choices, especially when the decisions are of
consequence. Think about all of the horrendously bad decisions that have
been made in recent history and how obviously bad they look in our
rear-view mirrors. The Iraq war, securitizing mortgages, Congress not
voting for background checks on gun purchases, another season of The
Bachelor, the list goes... more »
Judy Gumbo Albert : Writing for the Hell of It
Yippie
Girl: Judy Gumbo Albert on the cover of the Berkeley Tribe, 1970. Image
from Babylon Falling.
How to bug a Yippie Girl:
Writing for the hell of it
My 1960s and '70s had been a Dostoyevskian drama of love, honor,
loyalty, and betrayal embedded in the American revolution of my time.
By Judy Gumbo Albert / The Rag Blog / April 24, 2013
Listen to the podcast of Thorne Dreyer's April 13,
DPP Job Opening
*Hillside near Houli.*
From several venues... one of the DPP departments is interested in a
researcher. Contact Jerome Keating (jkeating@ms67.hinet.net), he'll forward
the email along.
*Here are the specs:*
*--a MA degree in public policy(international relations, foreign affairs,
etc)*
*--fluent in English (mainly) or Japanese (with excellent writing skill)*
*--NGOs(Taiwan/international) experience*
*--under age of 40*
*--a minimum starting salary of $NT 40,000*
_______________________
[Taiwan] Don't miss the comments below! And check out my blog and its
sidebars for events, links ... more »
MORE Questions About The Boston Marathon Bombing.......
This goes with my last post *Questions About The Boston Marathon Bombing*.
(Big Dan: YOU have to be a MORON to believe this "OFFICIAL STORY". There's
no hope for you. Just watch some more TV and then go back to sleep...you'll
believe ANYTHING!)
*Was Boston Bomber Radicalized at U.S.-Sponsored Workshop?*
*Tamerlane Tsarnaeva recruited via the Georgian Foundation. One of the
organizers of the terrorist attack in Boston, studied at the workshop held
in conjunction with the Georgian special services Americans*
It sure looks like the older brother was taken alive (and then killed?) in ... more »
Last year the OCJ took in 560,000 new criminal cases
And 2,000,000 provincial offences.
TV Watch: Newfangled ways of measuring time (1): From "Nurse Jackie" 5/1 to 5/2 (and "Mad Men" 6/2 to 6/3)
*The new All Saints ER doctors: Carrie Roman (Betty Gilpin) and Ike
Prentiss (Morris Chestnut)*
*by Ken*
For any readers who noticed my recent disappearance, let me say that it:
(1) was planned and (2) seems to have achieved its objectives with great
success. I'm back home with a new knee that already seems to be working
better than the original-equipment one, though that's not saying much.
It's an oddity of our times, though, that when the spring TV-season
announcements were made, it occurred to me almost at once that I would be
home for the Season 5 premiere of *Nurse Jackie*, a... more »
7 charged with smuggling bladders of endangered fish to China
[image: This March 2013 image provided by the US Attorney's Office shows
Totoaba bladders displayed at a US border crossing in downtown Calexico,
Mexico. Seven people have been charged in a scheme to sell the bladders of
an endangered Mexican fish considered a delicacy for use in Chinese soup,
US prosecutors said on 24 April 2013. Photo: US Attorney's Office via AP]
By Elliot Spagat
24 April 2013
SAN DIEGO (AP) – Seven people have been charged with smuggling bladders
from an endangered fish in what authorities said Wednesday may be a growing
international practice in which the bla... more »
Musical Interlude: Afshin, “Prayer of Change”
Afshin, “Prayer of Change”
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9oZ5A548Ak
Woman must remove niqab to testify
A Muslim woman must remove her niqab before testifying against two men
accused of sexually assaulting her three decades ago, an Ontario judge
ruled Wednesday.
The decision by Justice Norris Weisman comes after years of legal
wrangling, pitting the accused's right to a fair trial against the
complainant's freedom of religion. The case went all the way to the Supreme
Court, where a split decision effectively sent it back to the lower court.
While Judge Weisman wrestled with the implications of making the woman —
who can be identified only as N.S. — choose between her religious
conv... more »
MAINE DRONE SURVEILLANCE BILL HEARING ON THURSDAY IN AUGUSTA
I've just learned that the Maine state legislative* drone bill (LD 236)* is
being discussed again tomorrow *(Thursday)* by the Judiciary Committee in
Augusta at *1:00 pm on the 4th floor* of the capital building.
It would be very important to come to this work session if you can or at
least to contact members of the Joint Standing Committee on Judiciary to
let them know you demand that the police must have warrants before doing
drone surveillance of citizens in Maine.
It appears that Maine's Attorney General Janet Mills (a Democrat) is
pushing hard to *gut the warrant requireme... more »
Stephen Harper Is Running Scared, Soiled Underwear
* *Stephen Harper is running scared, his underpants are soiled, Justin
Trudeau, the newly appointed leader of the third place Federal party has
Harper and the Cons freaked out, polling data has Justin Trudeau winning a
minority Government if an election were held today..Justin is a phenomenon,
Justin Trudeau has starting running his own ads to counter Harper`s
childish antics, a polite ad, a non-personal ad..Justin Trudeau is taking
the new winning approach to politics, ala Adrian Dix..
Stephen Harper is so bland, so old, so boring, a pathetic corporate
bootlick..
Anyone who def... more »
Unions Mobilizing against ALEC in OKC
*Good job - Good job!!!*
The Florida House of Representatives seems to be taking all its legislative
cues from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Not only can the *debate over workers’ pensions be traced back to ALEC*,
but the controversial organization can also be linked to efforts to *prohibit
local governments from implementing laws that extend to paid sick leav*e.
The Florida House passed a sick leave bill last week, Bill 655, which would
also* invalidate initiatives by local governments to mandate living wages
for worker*s.
Wisconsin, Louisiana and Mississip... more »
Jocelyn Pook - Libera Me
Jocelyn Pook - Libera Me.* **Lyrics:*
Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda:
Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra.
Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.
Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira.
Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra.
Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae, dies magna et amara valde.
Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.
Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis.
Deliver me, O Lord, from death eternal on that fearful day,
when the heavens and the earth shall be moved,
when thou shalt come to ... more »
The Law of Detachment
*The Law of Detachment*
April 24, 2013
D also added her 2 cents worth on this post here.
It's easy to forget that misery is self inflicted. A friend once sent me
an article called "NATO Living"...Not-Attached-to-Outcome. When we can BE
in this state, we allow situations to play themselves out without paying
any energy by way of worry into how it will unfold. No expectations. When
we are free from attachments, the idea of disappointment seems to fade into
the wind. Having Faith all will work out exactly as it is supposed to is
the ultimate key to inner peace. "It is not that we... more »
Healing Energy Streams Flow from Portal to Portal…
*
* *
* *Healing Energy Streams Flow from Portal to Portal…*
by ÉirePort
Healing energy streams flow from portal to portal as Gaia balances with
Hue-manity and humanity (smaller h) energies.
Light Workers called to portal adjustments are encouraged to follow healing
energy flow within, as this aligns with the Gaia Healing energy streams,
and will lead each to their Gaia healing portal center.
As Hue-manity aligns, and more and more of humanity (smaller h) begins to
align, with these healing energy streams, and accepts those processes
within themselves, Gaia rests in the resulting ... more »
DEPORTED FROM JEJU ISLAND
Emily Wang from Regis Tremblay on Vimeo.
Regis Tremblay writes:
Taiwanese peace activist, Emily Wang, is being held by Korean Immigration
and is to be deported for opposing the construction of that massive naval
base in Gangjeong village, Jeju Island, South Korea. The base will serve
the purposes of America's "pivot to Asia" and will not ensure the security
of South Korea or S. E. Asia.
After a casual visit to Gangjeong Village, Emily discovered the struggle
opposing the construction of the base and her conscience demanded she
remain. While there, Emily discovered an amazing abil... more »
Syria is hoping to clinch more financial aid from from allies...
Found this interesting. Reuters picks it up today, but, it appears to be
older news from Syria
Syria hopes to clinch more financial aid from its allies Russia and Iran
soon, but still has enough foreign reserves to pursue its war on rebels
trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad, the central bank governor said.
Speaking at the bank's headquarters, hit by a car bomb on April 8, Adeeb
Mayaleh said: "We are expecting much more support from friendly
countries... Yes, financial support from Iran and Russia and it could also
be from other friendly countries.
"Discussions are going on. W... more »
Bachmann (MN-Nut Job) Promoting Fanaticism
*Mixing up her extremist religious beliefs with STATE business.*
*This is probably a result of her spending the past weekend with fanatics
and extremists. *
(My emphasis throughout)
*Bachmann Enters Into Congressional Record Support of Event Likening
Homosexuality With Terrorism*
by David Badash on April 23, 2013
Republican U.S. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann* has entered into the
Congressional Record* an announcement of support for a National Day of
Prayer and Fasting event to be held on September 11.
Joseph Farah, America’s top birther and the founder of World Net Daily, now
j... more »
Kierkegaard On Man's Relation To God
Related: * *
*Kierkegaard On Socratic Ignorance*.
*Kierkegaard On "Man."** *
*Kierkegaard On Socrates And The Immortality of The Soul.*
*Kierkegaard On God's Love.*
*Kierkegaard On Passion.*
* Kierkegaard On Martyrs of Truth.*
*Kierkegaard On Truth*.
*Kierkegaard On The Difference Between "Popular" And "Philosophical."*
*Kierkegaard On Religion And Doubt.*
* Kierkegaard On Imagination.*
*Kierkegaard On Objectivity And Subjectivity.** *
*Kierkegaard - God Is Love.*
Below is an excerpt from, *"The Soul of Kierkegaard: Selections from His
Journals."* Edited by Alexander... more »
Reinhart/Rogoff Gets the Colbert Treatment
Via Paul Krugman, Steven Colbert takes on Reinhart and Rogoff. Also be sure
to check out his interview with Thomas Herndon.
German tax enforcement paying dividends
I have long advocated that the United States should follow Germany's
example of aggressive pursuit of tax evasion, in particular its practice of
paying informants for account information from secrecy destinations like
Liechtenstein and Switzerland. The German Parliament's upper house
(Bundesrat) rejected a deal in November that Prime Minister Angela Merkel
was willing to sign with Switzerland that would have allowed German account
holders to pay tax anonymously. (As I reported on April 12, automatic
exchange of information is rapidly becoming the standard to which even
Luxembourg wi... more »
Decades of Threats and the Delusions of Shimon Peres
Chuck
Hagel meets with Shimon Peres at the Israeli President's office in
Jerusalem on April 22, 2013
(Photo Credit: UPI/Menahem Kahana/Pool)
Iran's Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi said today that American and
Israeli "threats have no value and at the same time, show their
aggressive nature, and reveal their deceitful and misleading claims,"
adding that any Israeli strike on Iran would be the
Ending Jail Overcrowding in LA County-- Guest Post from Los Angeles Sheriff Candidate Lou Vince
Last month we heard from LAPD Supervisor and LA County Sheriff candidate
Lou Vince about the prisoner abuse scandal in the L.A. County jails under
current Sheriff Lee Baca. For years, Sheriff Baca has been in denial about
the >troubling events taking place in his jails.
As Vince noted in his guest post, a major factor in the scandal is the
overcrowding of inmates in the county jails in California today. As he
promised, he has penned the following guest post to explain what he would
do to reduce overcrowding.
If you like Vince’s solutions, be sure to visit his website-- LouVince.co... more »
BOSTON BOMB MYSTERIES SOLVED? LINK TO CIA
On 23 April 2013, a body was found "in India Point Park in Providence
Harbor", near the Wyndham Garden Providence Hotel, *Rhode Island.*
Is the body that of Tamerlan Tsaraev?
Tamerlan's wife's family is from Rhode Island.
"The body appeared to be a male in his twenties and had 'been in the water
for a while,' said Commander Thomas Oates of the Providence Police
Department...
"The Rhode Island medical examiner's office is trying to determine if a
body pulled from a river is missing Brown University student Sunil Tripathi,
who was erroneously linked on social media to the Boston ... more »
Long way from the Appalachian Trail
This is so sad I almost feel sorry for the guy. Now abandoned by the
national party and with his opponent, Elizabeth Colbert Busch effectively
ignoring him, Mark Sanford is reduced to debating a cardboard photo of
Nancy Pelosi. Why is he debating Pelosi instead of a cardboard Colbert
Busch? Hell if I know. It's true, Pelosi is an all-purpose villian,
especially reviled by cons, but she's not running for Congress in South
Carolina.
TPM has a short video clip of the sorry spectacle at the link. Has to be
seen to be believed. [photo via]
Watching you remember
Welcome to our 4th day. We are right between the beginning and the end of
this Quest. Consider unconditional self love. Do you have it? What is
stopping you?
The words “but” and “if” and “when” and “almost” have no place in a
sentence with Agape. You either do or you don’t. You can’t be a little
bit pregnant. You can’t be a little bit Agape.
It is the same with Freedom. You can’t be partially Free. Either someone
else pulls your strings, or they don’t.
You know now, the Truth. The “other” only shows up as a reflection of
your state of BEing.
... more »
RAG RADIO / Thorne Dreyer : Yippie Pioneers Judy Gumbo Albert and Nancy Kurshan 'Tell It Like It Was'
Judy
Gumbo Albert, left, and Nancy Kurshan, photographed in Hanoi,
January 2013, were our guests on Rag Radio April 13, 2013.
Rag Radio podcast:
Sixties activists and original Yippies
Judy Gumbo Albert and Nancy Kurshan
Judy and Nancy discuss their recent trip to Vietnam and reminisce about
their experiences in the Sixties, the legacy of the Yippies, and their
lives and work in the ensuing
Judges, Please
The good news, as I discussed in the earlier item, is that the Senate is
getting better at processing judicial nominations.
The bad news? They're running out of nominations to process. Not because
all the vacancies are filled. No, it's because the promised increased pace
of judicial nominations still hasn't materialized.
There remain around 60 spots without any nominee, including 11 at the
appellate level. And including three spots, still, on the DC Circuit. It's
true that some of this is the Senate's fault, with (mostly) Republican
Senators blocking home-state selections (and Democ... more »
Mohawk Nation News 'UN Chicanery'
UN
CHICANERY
Posted on April 24, 2013
MNN. Apr. 24, 2013. Canada is not a constitutional democracy. They
follow their corporate by-laws, not the rule of law. Like every
corporation their duty is to provide ever-growing dividends to the
shareholders. In the case of Thahoketoteh of Kanekota, the Federal Court
of Canada refused to answer the constitutional question about Section
109 of the BNA
Alo and Здравейте! ('Hello' in Romanian and Bulgarian)
During my lunch hour at work on Monday, I clicked into the BBC News website
and saw the prominently-featured headline *Few planning to migrate to UK -
poll*, concerning a *Newsnight* survey about possible immigration to the UK
from Romania and Bulgaria from 1 Jan 2014. The headline had changed to *Polls:
No indication of huge Romanian-Bulgarian influx *by the time I'd got home,
but you can still see the original headline on the link provided by
anticipatory piece posted the night before.
Having read the BBC article and its 'nothing to worry about, folks!'
headline, I then clicked... more »
We’re asking for your overwhelming support!
*WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013*
*These issues are worth pursuing:* What will MSNBC be like in the coming
years?
That is a very important question. For our money, Hayes and Maddow have
done a good job reporting on the Boston bombing. Hayes seems to be moving
to a discussion about the explosion in Texas.
There is a great deal to discuss about both topics, and about many others.
It would be an enormously helpful thing if these people developed strong
cable news programs.
As readers will know, we’ve often been critical of Maddow’s work. She still
can’t stop the incessant clowning, but a ... more »
The problem with surveys of us the people!
*WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013*
*This just in concerning background checks:* Everyone and his great uncle
has mentioned the fact that 90 percent of the public supported expanded
background checks on gun purchases.
The polling seemed quite clear. Then, the gun bill got voted down, in a
Senate vote where 55 senators would have supported the background check
provision.
Today, Pew and the Washington Post have released a new survey of public
opinion. Respondents were asked this question:
*What word best describes how you feel about the Senate voting down new gun
control legislation that in... more »
Rabbit hole...
The Boston bombings are proving a strange fascination. They are being
investigated by federal prosecutors. Their abiding metaphor, at least in
public, seems to be “rabbit hole”. The only man who could have unravelled
their mystery, who could have said why the bombings happened, is dead.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother, seems to have been the instigator of
these acts. He is described as being “self-radicalised”. The evidence of
his internet browsing and mosque attendance shows a man who became
attracted to a hard line, literalist interpretation of islam around three
or four yea... more »
The Daily "Near You?"
Anadarko, Oklahoma, USA. Thanks for stopping by.
Here Are Your Options Re: Cable
If cable companies were honest... how might those commercials sound? If you
don't want to simply go the raw internet route, one way to circumvent your
imperial television overlords is with a Roku. I don't personally have one,
but I hear good things. The latest version is reviewed by CNET:
We’re asking for your overwhelming support!
*WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013*
*These issues are worth pursuing:* What will MSNBC be like in the coming
years?
That is a very important question. For our money, Hayes and Maddow have
done a good job reporting on the Boston bombing. Hayes seems to be moving
to a discussion about the explosion in Texas.
There is a great deal to discuss about both topics, and about many others.
It would be an enormously helpful thing if these people developed strong
cable news programs.
As readers will know, we’ve often been critical of Maddow’s work. She still
can’t stop the incessant clowning, but a ... more »
"Ubuntu"
"An anthropologist proposed a game to the kids in an African tribe. He put
a basket full of fruit near a tree and told the kids that who ever got
there first won the sweet fruits. When he told them to run they all took
each others hands and ran together, then sat together enjoying their
treats. When he asked them why they had run like that as one could have had
all the fruits for himself they said: ''UBUNTU, how can one of us be happy
if all the other ones are sad?'' 'Ubuntu' in the Xhosa culture means: 'I am
because we are'."
"How many of you knew this?"
- Found in a group ch... more »
Satire: "People Believe Something on Twitter for Some Reason"
*"People Believe Something on Twitter for Some Reason"*
by Andy Borowitz
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)— "Federal investigators said today that
they were “baffled” as to why millions of people chose to believe something
they read yesterday on Twitter, a social-media site that has falsely
reported the deaths of more than seventy-five thousand different
celebrities. “It’s mystifying,” said one investigator working on the case.
“One theory we’re considering is that people who spend time on Twitter
eventually lose their capacity for critical thinking and become sheep.”
The Syr... more »
Raid On Protest Site In Hawija, Iraq Leads To Armed Retaliation
Iraqis have been demonstrating in several cities since December 2012 to
protest what they see as marginalization by the central government. On
April 23, 2013, security forces raided a protest site in Hawija in Tamim
province looking for militants that attacked an army checkpoint a few days
beforehand. The operation quickly turned violent with several people killed
and wounded, and dozens arrested. Immediately, there were retaliatory
attacks in surrounding areas, and some leaders of the demonstrators started
talking about taking on the security forces, which they claimed were under ... more »
English as the Official Language of the European Union?
There's a move afoot to have English declared the common language of the
European Union and it's a German who is pushing the idea. Here *The
Guardian *gives a pretty clear reason why a common language might be
helpful when representatives of the constituent nations sit down to parlay.
*Money talks, especially in Brussels. A billion euros are usually "mil
milhoes de euros" in Portuguese, or a thousand million. In Spanish,
likewise, "billón" means a million million, so billion is "mil millones de
euros". Confusingly, "billion" translates as "milijarde" into Croatian, or
"miljard" in... more »
Americans Settling In to Reality of Terrorism
The American people might just be getting terrorism fatigue after more than
a decade of efforts by their politicians and media to keep them in a
heightened state of anxiety. How long can anyone do that and stay sane?
What price has already been exacted of them by those who have manipulated
them since September, 2001?
*A majority of Americans say occasional acts of terrorism are "part of
life", and many doubt the government can do much more to prevent them, a
new poll finds.*
* *
*About three-quarters of Americans said they agree that "occasional acts of
terrorism in the US will... more »
TEST ONLY of YouTube TV: Thor trailer and more...
address-withheld@my.opera.com.invalid (Dr. John v. Kampen) at - 23 hours ago
Link: "https://www.youtube.com/tv?vq=medium#/watch?v=7p7rocHEecE" or:
http://youtu.be/7p7rocHEecE
*The question is*: can you see this on your device? There are a few 'new'
embedding codes around for YouTube clips. For instance:
Original: src="http://youtu.be/7p7rocHEecE"
Opera: [VIDEO=http://youtu.be/7p7rocHEecE width=620 height=375][/VIDEO]
but:
240p: &vq=small
360p: &vq=medium
480p: &vq=large -- with best sound
720p: &vq=hd720
Hence code becomes: http://youtu.be/7p7rocHEecE&vq=large
YouTube TV: https://www.youtube.com/tv?vq=medium#/watch?v=7p7rocHEecE
The above... more »
Blocking HIV Reservoirs
This is a huge step closer to eliminating the HIV virus. We know the key
protein and we know that we have to turn it of to win. This is at least a
clear pathway.
The disease itself is now well controlled but certainly not cured.
Eliminating these reservoirs opens the door to an outright cure.
This will ultimately be described as one of the greatest battles in
medical science but also one of the most productive in terms of new science.
I do think that we are in the homestretch with HIV. This is not the only
route now.
*Discovery may help prevent HIV 'reservoirs' ... more »
“Loving Your Servitude”
*“Loving Your Servitude”*
by James Quinn
“The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those
who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal because they are so
well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been
silenced so early in their lives that they do not even struggle or suffer
or develop symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may
be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation
to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal
society is a measure ... more »
12 fotos gratis de rosas de colores - Flowers
*Nota:* Click aquí para visitar nuestro Banco de Imágenes
Por favor visite nuestra página oficial: www.fotofrontera.com
Long time GOP intern caught in creepy cyber-stalking scandal
This kid, who apparently aspires to be a professional political intern, has
worked with a lot of big name Republicans, including most recently Mitt
Romney. It seems when he wasn't busy fetching coffee and pizza for his
boss, Adam Savader, 21, was attempting to extort nude photos from random
women he mostly knows from school.
Savader is a political science student at SUNY Farmingdale who’s interned
for former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and GOP vice presidential candidate
Paul Ryan as well as Romney. He’s charged with illegally obtaining nude
pictures of 15 women and threatening t... more »
Adrian Dix Rocks BC Liberals With Shrewd Business Announcement!
Absolutely brilliant, Adrian Dix has announced a blue-ribbon panel to look
at the financial situation of both BC Place and the Vancouver convention
center.
As you know both of those entities bleed money every year, they both lose
money on the operational side...And there is also the capital debt of $1.2
billion dollars, interest on that debt is in the range of $40 million
dollars per year..
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/bc-election/says+will+sell+Place+cover+PAVCO+debt/8288356/story.html
Add up the operational debt, the interest payment and these two entities
cost the BC taxp... more »
Tinariwen, from the Sahara Desert, in Tucson
Censored
News Music Video: Saharan Desert band Tinariwen in Tucson, in concert
with Dine' band Sihasin (Hope) with the incredible sounds of healing and
a borderless world. From the Sahara to the Sonoran Desert
Also: Censored News Video: Sihasin sings AIM song, in concert with
Tinariwen, at Hotel Congress, April 23, 2013.
http://bsnorrell.blogspot.com/2013/04/
It's a "No Lose World" Once You Have Captured the Political Process
The Great Recession of 2008 devastated broad swathes of the population of
the developed world. Foreclosures, unemployment, insolvency, homelessness,
the gamut of economic misery. For most but not for all, not for some.
A new report from the Pew Research Center finds that the first two years of
the recovery were Manna from Heaven for those who had already cemented
their capture of both economic and political power, the richest of the
rich. Nowhere was this more apparent than in the United States.
*During the first two years of the nation’s economic recovery, the mean net
worth ... more »
Drones Cause 'Growing Hatred of America' Senate Panel Informed
Drones cause ‘growing hatred of America,’ bipartisan Senate panel told
By Ernesto
Londoño, Published: April 23The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/drones-cause-growing-hatred-of-america-bipartisan-senate-panel-told/2013/04/23/4863b1f8-ac6e-11e2-a8b9-2a63d75b5459_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines
[Excerpted]
A bipartisan panel of senators held a spirited and unusually public
debate
Tuesday afternoon about the legality and unintended consequences of
America’s targeted killings overseas, a forum convened amid growing
calls
for stronger oversight of the... more »
Two Informative and Provocative Fukushima Links for Today
Natural News: Massive, uncontained leak at Fukushima is pouring over 710
billion becquerels of radioactive materials into atmosphere,
http://www.naturalnews.com/040058_Fukushima_radioactive_nuclear_leak.html#ixzz2ROa31hhu
Optimal Prediction: Xenon detected by CTBTO, blamed on North Korea.
New Paper on Privatizing Europe, Entrenching Neoliberalism
Majia's Blog - 1 day ago
Majia here: Europe and other western countries are in the process of
'dispossessing' their populations through cuts to education and
social-welfare, while failing to cut government spending in substantial
ways on bank bailouts and militaries.
Liz Alderman of the New York Times Reports (4/17/2013) that More Children
in Greece Going Hungry
[Excerpted] ATHENS — As an elementary school principal, Leonidas Nikas is
used to seeing children play, laugh and dream about the future. But
recently he has seen something altogether different, something he thought
was impossible in Greece: child... more »
“Extras”
*“Extras”*
by Eric Fry
“Beware the government that provides “more.” Fear the government that
provides “extra.” “More government” always means more of something, but not
always more of something a productive individual desires. More government
means more rules and regulations, more agencies to enforce the
proliferating rules and regulations, more taxes to pay for the
proliferating agencies that enforce the proliferating rules and
regulations. Before long, “more government” begins to feel a lot like
“less” — less opportunity, less liberty, and certainly less after-tax
income.
... more »
Open Thread
Another age-old mystery solved, courtesy of Welcome Back to
Pottersville.
Today happens to mark the fourth anniversary of the last day I ever
worked at a fulltime job. It was on this day in 2009 when I worked on a
Friday and when I went back to work on Monday the 27th, I got the axe just
before I would've punched in. This seemingly endless skein of joblessness
is still largely inexplicable to me, although I have lots of theories as to
why this has happened.
As I've been screaming for years, outsourcing, spearheaded by the US
Chamber of Commerce, plays a big part in it... more »
Muslims in America...
*not
such a good idea. *
H/T *1389 Blog*
And now, via *Terry at Nox and Friends*, take a gander at the following
article and ask yourself how a man whose legs have been blown off
(picture
at following link) has not died from blood loss. Note also that he was
being transported in a wheelchair. Hmmmmmmm, odd conveyance for a
person
with both legs blown off. Was there no stretcher handy?
When I first saw the picture the above two questions popped
*immediately*into my mind. They also popped right out of my mind as I
was a bit
shocked.
Now I'm asking those questions again...
... more »
How Do You Like Your Odds?
A decade ago, Britain's Astronomer Royal, cosmologist Martin Rees, wrote "*Our
Final Hour, A Scientist's Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental
Disaster Threaten Humankind's Future In This Century - On Earth and Beyond*."
In it he makes compelling arguments that, with bio-terror and bio-error and
similar man-made hazards that confront us today, mankind has a no better
than 50/50 chance of surviving this century.
Lord Rees is convinced we are now on the verge of a *post-humanity* era
that will see mankind undergo various forms of geo-engineering of our minds
and bodies, v... more »
A Coup for Parliament or a Recruiting Tool for CHP
As we know, Warwara's Wank ended with a further wank, this one about Free
Speech.
The long-awaited Speaker's decision on his point of privilege over having
his member's statement (S.O.30) snuffed by the CON Whip was announced
yesterday at around 3 p.m.
Here's Kady O'Malley's story filed at 4:57 p.m.
If backbench MPs want to the right to speak freely in the House, they're
going to have to start standing up to be counted -- even if it means
ignoring the speaking lists prepared by the party whip to compete against
their caucus colleagues for the attention of the speaker.
That, it se... more »
EMILY's List Up To No Good Again-- In L.A... And In Hawaii?
Sen. Brian Schatz, City Councilman Eric Garcetti-- too progressive for
EMILY's List
On election day eve, late summer 2008, long after mail-in ballots had been
sent in, EMILY's List sent out a bizarre message to its members in
Tennessee. They withdrew their endorsement from the corrupt, conservative
Democratic woman they had recruited and backed all year, Nikki Tinker, a
cog in the Harold Ford political machine who was taking on progressive
incumbent Steve Cohen, a 100% pro-choice ally. Tinker, was the
quintessential candidate of the new EMILY's List: conservative, Blue Dog,
corrupt ... more »
Tentative Report Card on Senate Reform
The Senate just voted unanimously to confirm Jane Kelly, nominated by the
president for the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals. This is how it's supposed
to work! Kelly was nominated on January 31 of this year for a brand-new
opening, with Michael Malloy taking senior status. A circuit court spot
filled in under three months? Well done, Barack Obama and the Senate!
So, two things. One is that everyone has given Harry Reid a lot of grief
over Senate reform, but it sure seems to me that things have been steadily
improving. That's five circuit court vacancies filled this year so far. It
leav... more »
thwap's mail-sack and (maybe) etc.,
Back when blogs used to be a more hep, groovy and "with it" kinda scene,
they used to attract more idiots. So I really filtered the old comments
section. As a result, I've gotten a couple of emails from people not
registered with google. Here they are - - -
"Kip" writes:
Good evening Thwap,
I read and enjoy your posts regularly.
I'm not a *Party* supporter: democracy needs to work toward acceptance of
the fact that *one person/one vote* means, well, *one person/one vote*, and
we need to openly acknowledge that our current party based systems do not
allow for that.
I was going to... more »
Prosthetic and double amputee were used to fake legs blown off by Boston Marathon Bombs.
Another confirmation that prosthetics were used in the staged inside job. —
with Alfred Lambremont Webre III, Cherie Martin, Lisa Elkins Goodman, Michael
Edward, Michael Roseand Peter Stewart.
If Sandy Hook, 911 and Aurora shootings had all been planned and
orchestrated by the same evil forces, then it stands to reason that the
Titanic was deliberately set on a "suicide collision" course into the
dangerous ice bergs zone to pave the way for the Federal Reserve system a
year later.
America is suffering today for that "Titanic Plot" 100 years... more »
VIDEO Sihasin in concert Tucson: AIM song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORPQ853bz2Q
Dine'
band Sihasin welcomes Saharan desert band Tinariwen to the Sonoran
Desert, and home to Tohono O'odham and Yaqui, live at the Hotel Congress
in Tucson on April 23, 2013. Jeneda and Clayson Benally's new band is
on tour and will be at the Gathering of Nations this weekend. Jeneda and
Clayson spoke for hope and unity during the incredible concert,
Presentation on Weather Risk & Climate Change
Here in PDF is a handout of a presentation I gave earlier this week to the Intermediaries
and Reinsurance Underwriters Association 2013 Spring Conference.
Here are the questions and answers that I presented in the talk:
Anyone with questions or comments please send them along (again, the link
to the handout is here in PDF). If you'd like to reuse any of the figures
in the talk, just drop me an email, I am happy to share.
Thanks to the IRUA for an excellent conference and stimulating discussions.
DZHOKHAR IS INNOCENT
New surveillance images from Boston show chilling images of 'Red Bull and
Doritos'.
*dailymail.*
*Tamerlan Tsaraev attended the same school as actors Matt Damon and Ben
Affleck.*
Friends describe Dzhokhar Tsaraev as a mild-mannered pot-smoker, and seem
genuinely shocked that he could have been involved in violence.
*Dzhokhar*
According to Dzhokhar's Twitter account, *Dzhokhar dreams of cheeseburgers,
jokes with friends about getting high, finding girls and watching the
fantasy saga "Game of Thrones" on TV. *
The day after the bombing, he tweeted: 'I'm a stress-free kind of gu... more »
Record floods hit U.S. Midwest – ‘We have seen some of the worst flooding damage to neighborhoods and homes across our state in Illinois history’
[image: Flooding inundates a road along the Mississippi River north of
Clarksville, Missouri, on Sunday, 21 April 2013, in a handout photo from
the Missouri governor's office. Photo: Handout / Reuters / Landov]
By Doyle Rice
23 April 2013
(USA TODAY) – A rainy Tuesday added to flooding misery in the Midwest, as
bloated rivers and streams continued to rise across the region.
Floodwaters rose to record levels along the Illinois River in central
Illinois on Tuesday, while in Missouri, six levees north of St. Louis were
overtopped by the surging Mississippi River, though mostly farmla... more »
Nation starting to realize new era of American innovation never gonna happen
[image: Illustration of a wind farm, a high-speed train, a domed colony in
the desert, and a PV solar power plant. Sources say they have been misled
into thinking America was on the verge of an exciting and bold new
technological frontier. Graphic: The Onion]
WASHINGTON, 22 April 2013 (The Onion) – After nearly a decade of promises
that the nation was on the brink of a technological, economic, and
scientific golden age, citizens across the country confirmed Monday they
are now realizing a bold new era of American innovation is just flat-out
not gonna happen.
Citing the fragile ec... more »
The Preston Manning Centre for Building Buildings
Covert cell phone video catches a Calgary developer homebuilder referring
to buying the campaigns of development-friendly local candidates. In his
speech to 150 Calgary industry nobs in November, his remarks about Preston
Manning, who also attended and spoke at the meeting, appear at the 1:54
mark:
"... keeping in mind, in order to bring Preston on board, 11 of us put up
100 thousand - so $1.1-million. So it's not like we haven't put up our
money you know, and we are also going to be there to put up it again and
yet we're also supporting the candidates."
Hey, those Manning Centr... more »
2013 has eighth warmest start on record, despite cooler-than-average winter in much of Northern Hemisphere
[image: Selected significant global climate anomalies and events, March
2013. Graphic: NCDC]
Global Highlights
- The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces
for March 2013 tied with 2006 as the 10th warmest on record, at 0.58°C
(1.04°F) above the 20th century average of 12.3°C (54.1°F).
- The global land surface temperature was 1.06°C (1.91°F) above the 20th
century average of 5.0°C (40.8°F), the 11th warmest March on record. For
the ocean, the March global sea surface temperature was 0.41°C (0.74°F)
above the 20th century average of ... more »
"This Criminal Code is not holy book"
A Montreal man accused of plotting a terrorist attack against a VIA Rail
passenger train denounced the Canadian Criminal Code in a Toronto courtroom
Wednesday during his second court appearance.
“This Criminal Code is not holy book,” Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, told the
court as he stood in the prisoners’ box at Old City Hall.
After Justice of the Peace Susan Hilton cautioned him he was on the record
and he spoke with duty counsel, Esseghaier continued to comment on his
detention, saying the code could not be relied on. “Only the Creator is
perfect,” he said.
“It doesn’t matter in this ... more »
Japan: Cold War Rising Update
The Wall Street Journal reports this morning (4/24/2013) that 'Japan Leader
Charts Path for Military Rise' page A7
[Excerpted] Mr. Abe has, in recent days, talked more openly about returning
to his life's goal of rewriting Japan's 66-year-old-pacifist
constitution.... On Tuesday, tensions intensified around a collection of
islands in the Wast China Sea claimed by both Japan and China, while Mr.
Abe told parliament he wouldn't hesitate to use force to defend the
territory currently controlled by Japan....
Specifically, Mr. Abe now says he wants to revise Article 96, the section
tha... more »
The absence of the intelligentsia!
*WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013*
*James Gleick chats with Dowd:* James Gleick started out at the New York
Times, then moved upward from there.
He spent ten years at the Times, then began writing highly-regarded,
widely-praised books on scientific topics. As such, he is part of the
intelligentsia, to the extent that we have one.
That’s why it’s instructive to see Gleick’s presence in today’s New York
Times.
Over the weekend, Gleick wrote a piece for New York magazine about the way
information spread concerning the Boston bombing. He noted the failures of
cable news and the shortcoming... more »
Wednesday Links / Open Thread
Horror in Bangladesh: a substandard building that housed several clothing
factories supplying American retailers has collapsed, killing at least 70,
injuring hundreds and trapping hundreds more. Employees had noticed a crack
in the building, but were forced by bosses to enter and start working
anyway. A fire in another Bangladeshi clothing factory killed more than 100
people only five months ago. Walmart, of course, sees no evil, hears no
evil, speaks no evil and knows nothing, nada, zilch about its outsourced
slave labor camps.
The devastated tiny town of West, TX is already being ... more »
The 10 things Americans care about more than the environment
[image: An Indian child paints during an awareness event organized by the
Aakalpan Artist Society commemorating Earth Day in Allahabad. Photo: Sanjay
Kanojia / AFP / Getty Images]
By Will Oremus
22 April 2013
(Slate) – Environmentalists like to think that the public is in their
corner—that it’s only the pernicious influence of Big Oil and Big Coal that
keeps Congress from passing a carbon tax or Obama from nixing the Keystone
Pipeline. They’re right that most voters care about the planet, insofar as
they’d prefer not to see it trashed, all other things being equal. But all
other... more »
Boston blasts won't revive US-Russia reset: How will it affect Syria?
*M K Bhadrakumar from Asia Times*
*excerpted:*
Any event that impacts on the United States' "homeland security" would have
worldwide repercussions. The repercussions of the Boston Marathon bombings
are most expected on the United States' ties with Russia.
The US-Russia security cooperation has taken a beating in the recent year
or two even as the "reset" in the relations ended and a period of cold-war
style distrust and acrimony developed between Moscow and Washington.
However, it is too big a surmise to make at this point that a resetting of
the moribund US-Russia "reset" is under ... more »
What would the Koch brothers do to the Los Angeles Times?
[image: The Los Angeles Times Building and 2nd and Spring streets downtown.
Photo: Getty Images]
By Harold Meyerson
23 April 2013
(Washington Post) – On May 21, Los Angeles voters will go to the polls to
select a new mayor. Who will govern Los Angeles, however, is only the
second-most important local question in the city today. The most important,
by far, is who will buy the *Los Angeles Times*.
*The Times* is one of the eight daily newspapers now owned by the creditors
who took control of the Tribune Co. after real estate wheeler-dealer Sam
Zell drove it into bankruptcy. Others ... more »
Falling Yen Fallout
The falling Japanese yen is having a complex effect on Taiwan, with some
industries feeling nothing while others are getting pinched... (FocusTaiwan
):
...Since the beginning of this year, the yen has fallen 14.72 percent
against the U.S. dollar. The magnitude of the depreciation during the
period of April 4-19, in particular, hit almost 7 percent on the back of
more fund injections from the Bank of Japan (BOJ) to boost the economy.
....
Acer Inc., the world's fourth largest PC vendor, agreed with the argument
of little impact from the yen's weakness, *saying as Japan is not the maj... more »
The palpable racism of school closures
There I said it. School closure policies are racist. Not necessarily
bigoted, but indeed racist. Look up the difference. Filed under: CHALK
FACE: General News & Commentary Tagged: chicago, new york city, public
schools, racism, school closures
RED AND BLUE WITH RACE ALL OVER: Red and blue fight about black, white and Muslim!
*WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 2013*
*Part 2—Murky, inane, unhelpful:* Last week, before the photos emerged, no
one knew who had committed the terrible Boston bombings.
Murky, unfocused, unhelpful work soon appeared from the leaders of both
major tribes. Red and blue were quickly fighting about concepts like black,
white and Muslim.
Let’s start with some murky, unfocused work which emerged at a red tribal
site.
Newsbusters is one of the many sites maintained by the Media Research
Center, a long-standing conservative press critique site. Over the years,
the MRC has produced a ton of horribl... more »
Federal court backs EPA regulation of mountaintop removal
[image: A mountaintop removal mining site at Kayford Mountain, W.Va., with
Coal River Mountain, left, in the background, 18 September 2008. Photo:
Jeff Gentner / Associated Press]
By Neela Banerjee
23 April 2013
WASHINGTON (Los Angeles Times) – A federal appeals court unanimously backed
the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate a controversial
form of coal mining called mountaintop removal, overturning a lower court
decision that barred the agency from stopping a large coal mine in West
Virginia.
The ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals is likely to set o... more »
At the Chalk Face on #blogtalkradio: A primer of sorts
We have to brag a little bit. The weekly radio show makes us unique because
it supports the commentary we do, and vice versa. We work our BEE-hinds off
to bring everyone stories and conversations that don’t get covered, related
to education and public schools. In addition to our weekly shows at 6PM EST
on [...]
Formosa: The Fleeting Prussian Possibility in the 19th century.
*Shuimen town, Pingtung, morning.*
From *The Prussian Expedition in the Far East (1860-1862)*, Bernd Martin (
link):
The French Baron Gros even encouraged the Prussian envoy to annex the
island of Formosa as a Prussian colony. The French seemed very keen on
having the Prussians as their allies in colonial adventures in Southeast
Asia. While French troops were to invade the kingdom of Cambodia the
Germans should occupy Formosa and thus hinder both the British and the
Chinese from interfering with France's colonial acquisitions. The idea of
Formosa as a German colony under Prussian ... more »
Nerd-Inflected Wednesday Linkage
The difference between pets in Diablo III and Torchlight II. Blah blah blah
Game of Thrones blah blah credible commitments blah blah blah prisoners’
dilemma. Taylor Fravel says that China hasn’t abandoned no-first use. Pavel
Podvig demolishes “SDI ended the Cold War” claptrap. Key graf: “The
evolution of the Soviet attitudes toward SDI suggests that
Continue reading
time has come
Ladies and Gentlemen,
There really isn't much reason to beat around the bush, I imagine. By now
you have noticed the manipulation and bias within the media. You've watched
as your government has sold you down the river. Corporations have buried
their money into your politics and now influence the decisions of your
government. The banks continue to grow more ruthless and unethical in
practice. All in the name of profit. Your future, your children’s
future...it means nothing to them. The only desired outcome is maximum
profit, obtained with the least possible expense. And whether y... more »
war is obsolete
"It is now highly feasible to take care of everybody on Earth
at a higher standard of living than any have ever known.
It no longer has to be you or me.
Selfishness is unnecessary.
War is obsolete.
It is a matter of converting the high technology
from weaponry to livingry."
- R. Buckminster Fuller
ALEC Legislators Appropriating Your $$$ to Fund ALEC
"Appropriating " Taxpayer Dollars to Fund ALEC
A better word might be STEALING
A post of of South Dakota should be a wakeup call to every American.
While your state legislature is cutting funds to schools and other social
programs - how much are they budgeting to spend on ALEC?
Is this happening in YOUR state - and you just don't know about it, cause
you haven't bothered to check?
Note the following:
Today the Executive Board of the South Dakota Legislature decided to spend
some of that money on sending members to the entirely pro-corporate,
anti-democratic meetings of the Americ... more »
NRA And K Street Lose A Powerful Senator-- Max Baucus Won't Run For Reelection
Helping the GOP filibuster background checks for the NRA made his
reelection untenable
Max Baucus was certainly planning to run for reelection. His Glacier PAC
has been collecting money from the special interests he serves and his
campaign warchest already had $3,594,923 on hand by January 1 this year.
Known as the Senator from K Street, last time Baucus ran (2008), special
interest PACs contributed $4,959,391. Since then, he's further ingratiated
himself to the big money groups that give the most, particularly the
Medical-Industrial Complex and the banksters, who have contributed,
... more »
Harper's Time Has Passed
The Liberals have answered the first of the Conservative attack ads against
Justin Trudeau. That ad blew up in their faces. As Michael Harris wrote
earlier this week:
In a word, instead of defining their political enemy, the Conservatives
have defined themselves. Through years of incumbency, the Harper crowd has
become an increasingly grumpy cabal of aging incumbents full of spite,
malice and, of late, a bloated sense of entitlement. The Senate housing
debacle shows how comfortably the party has settled into the easy chair of
power.
With each display of bad manners and bad judg... more »
Read Stuff, You Should
Happy Birthday to Bruce Kirby, 85. Third-most-common Columbo occasional
actor, despite not (unless I missed one) being a Cassavetes guy. Excellent,
whether in sitcoms or cop shows.
The good stuff:
1. I rarely link to editorials, but I think the NYT gets points to
something important here. One of the real hallmarks of the current group of
Republicans is passing policies and then blaming Barack Obama and the
Democrats for them; it's unusually irresponsible, but they keep going back
to it.
2. Negative recruiting: very difficult to study. Reporters Greg Bluestein
and Daniel Malloy loo... more »
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