Politics, Humor, Music and just the plain simple pleasure of being an annoying sonofabitch.
Fans of our old friend, the Keystone XL pipeline, come into the new year with the hope that the administration will be vewwwy, vewwwy quiet as it green-lights the death funnel that will bring the world's dirtiest fossil fuel from the environmental moonscape of northern Alberta to the refineries of Texas, trying (and likely failing) to avoid bringing permanent goopy desolation to the country's most valuable farmland along the way. Paul Ryan took a short break a couple of weeks ago from discovering poor people to try and make approval of the death-funnel part of his overall program of zombie-eyed granny starving.
It's important to remember that just producing this cancer juice is as deadly a process as shipping it down through Nebraska is.
Mercury wafting out of oilsands operations is impacting an area - or "bull's-eye" - that extends for about 19,000 square kilometres in northeast Alberta, according to federal scientists. Levels of the potent neurotoxin found near the massive industrial operation have been found to be up to 16 times higher than "background" levels for the region, says Environment Canada researcher Jane Kirk, who recently reported the findings at an international toxicology conference. Mercury can bioaccumulate in living creatures and chronic exposure can cause brain damage. It is such a concern that Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq signed an international treaty in October pledging Canada to further reduce releases to the environment.
The problem with this kind of thing is that we always catch up with the real damage after it already has occurred. Environmentalism has become a reactive matter of simply trying to keep up.http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/More_Poison_In_The_Pipeline
(CNN) - At least one wealthy donor in New York City is skittish about Pope Francis' comments about capitalism.
Ken Langone, the billionaire Roman Catholic who helped found Home Depot, told CNBC he has heard grumbling about the Pope's comments about the wealthy. Langone is helping to run the New York Archdiocese's $180 million fundraising effort to restore St. Patrick's Cathedral in Manhattan.
The billionaire investor and philanthropist, who gave $200 million to New York University's medical center in 2008, told CNBC an anonymous seven-figure donor felt slighted by the pope's recent comments.
Langone has not been shy about sharing those opinions with New York Archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan, telling him, "you get more with honey than with vinegar."
Hey there Mr. Pope dude -- you better start saying some nice, sugary things about us billionaires if you want to see those checks keep coming in for your parish projects and poverty outreach programs. Better yet, why don't you plant a big fat smooch twixt the fleshy part of our very fleshy, and if you didn't already get the point, obscenely wealthy, ass cheeks.
"One of the weirdest things to me about our current pathology of worshiping the rich is that they demand it from us proles. I mean, they are the true winners in society, and they just don’t understand why we don’t love them as much as they love themselves. Everyone knows that the importance of Christian charity is giving away .5% of your wealth and then salving the wound with the grateful tears from the populace."http://www.balloon-juice.com/2013/12/31/the-world-must-stop/
Nuclear war. Volcanic eruption. Terrorist attack.
Though the scenarios of how an apocalyptic event would paralyze or destroy society varies, a group of like-minded individuals in East Pierce County believes a good defense is the best way to prepare for doomsday.
And some believe a good offense is even better.
“We’re not in it to stockpile. We’re in it to take what you have and there’s nothing you can do to stop us,” Tyler Smith says. “We are your worst nightmare, and we are coming.”
Smith, 29, is the leader of Spartan Survival. The group has more than 80 dues-paying members. Smith founded the organization in 2005 to train and prepare others on survivalism.
On Tuesday night, Smith’s story will be told on the National Geographic Channel survivalist TV show “Doomsday Preppers.”
"Now you should know that I really do not have a problem with most of those that call themselves "Survivalists." By and large they are a harmless lot. They believe in a philosophy which is not unlike that of the Mormons. Being prepared for the worst, in their minds, is just common sense. And I can grok that. My whole adult life has, more or less, been devoted to the same general (if not specific) philosophy, albeit from a national perspective. Though I must say, we sort of part ways pretty early on.
And most of those who are self-styled "Survivalists" are what the much-lamented Douglas Adams would have called "mostly harmless." Which is also cool. You want to stockpile three years of food (which you will continually have to replenish as older stocks go out of date and mean that you would die if you ate them), or stockpile multiple years of ammunition (which unless properly stored in a climate controlled environment, will also go bad in just a couple of years), well then that is your right. Spend your money that way, enjoy. Buy that unused nuclear missile bunker. Support our economy by buying, over and over and over again, things that you were sure you would need in the next couple of years, starting in the late 1980s. By the way, how is that working out for you and your family?
The fact that a significant percentage of the people that follow this path cannot economically afford to do so, to restock and replenish unused resources every year, or that they choose to do so to the detriment of their own children's inheritance, is not really my problem. After all, it is a free country.
But that dude? The one who has a plan to actually attack other Americans to steal their resources (food, fuel, etc) when he thinks the end-times have come, well that is really absurd. But I see now that there is no denying, these people are out there, mostly contributing to the NRA apparently.
My personal favorite? His home-made body armor made out of kitchen floor tiles. Yea, seriously, you can't make this shit up."http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/bateman-on-survivalism-123113
Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) has a recommendation for cleaning your gun: liberal tears.
Stockman, who's a longshot candidate running in the Republican primary against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), tweeted out a picture of a gun with a spray can that read "liberal tears." The text with the picture read: "the best gun lubricant."
The best gun lubricant around. (HT @LolaGOP) pic.twitter.com/CkjOpBsWfl
— Rep. Steve Stockman (@StockmanSenate) December 30, 2013
Five years after all those bailouts for big banks, major financial institutions like JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America agreed to pay many billions of dollars in fines this year to settle claims involving a range of wrongdoing, from questionable mortgage practices to trading fiascos.
Others corporate titans have paid out, too. Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $2.2 billion to settle claims that the company marketed a drug for unproved uses and paid kickbacks to doctors. Another big drug company, Glaxo SmithKline, agreed to pay $3 billion and pleaded guilty to criminal charges that it illegally marketed drugs.
The list goes on. But amid all the headlines — and there have been many in recent years — the question remains: Do big fines actually prompt corporations to mend their ways? Many ordinary people certainly want companies to be held accountable. But for corporations, fines sometimes seem like the cost of doing business.http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/30/business/video-a-year-of-corporate-fines.html
"The same way we made up the death penalty. We made them both up, Sanctity of life and the death penalty. Aren't we versatile? And you know, in this country, now there are alot of people who want to expand the death penalty to include drug dealers. This is really stupid. Drug dealers aren't afraid to die. They're already killing each other every day on the streets by the hundreds. Drive-bys, gang shootings, they're not afraid to die. Death penalty doesn't mean anything unless you use it on people who are afraid to die. Like... the bankers who launder the drug money. The bankers, who launder, the drug money. Forget the dealers, you want to slow down that drug traffic, you got to start executing a few of these fucking bankers."
Paul Ryan, the zombie-eyed granny starver from the state of Wisconsin and First Runner-up in our most recent vice-presidential pageant, is death on people who don't work for a living. Unemployment benefits create a culture of entitlement, after all. The modern welfare state destroys the work ethic that made America the kind of place where a burger-flipping kid from Janesville, only through luck and pluck and Social Security survivor benefits (You're welcome, dickhead.), could rise to a point where Joe Biden laughed at him on national TV. Paul Ryan believes that government benefits have a corrosive effect on society, depriving its members of the character-building effects of poverty and hunger. He believes in the salvific effect of money earned in the perfect free-enterprise system.
He also believes in casinos.
After years of remaining neutral on an off-reservation casino in Kenosha, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan of Janesville signaled Thursday that he supported a casino plan as long as competing tribes were on board. He also credited Gov. Scott Walker for taking his time and not rushing a decision on the Menominee tribe's efforts to build an $800 million gambling complex. For months, Walker has been weighing a decision on the project, which has faced opposition from the Forest County Potawatomi, who operate a Milwaukee casino. The Ho-Chunk, with casinos near Madison and Baraboo, have also opposed the project. "I would like to think they could have a win-win situation and make it to the benefit for everybody. That would be my preference," Ryan said during an interview with reporters and editors of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Ryan added, "It would be great to see them come up with a system where no one loses and everyone gains and we net-create jobs. So how you have an arrangement where the Potawatomi have a stake in Kenosha, I don't know how you'd do it. Have some kind of an arrangement where they can make it mutually beneficial."
Considering that Ryan's basic position is that we also should turn Social Security and Medicare over to his cronies in the Wall Street casino, I guess there's a sort of consistency there in his deep affection for economic parasites.http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/paul-ryan-support-for-casino-122713
Texans living in deregulated electricity areas paid about $22 billion more in the last decade than they would have under a regulated system, according a recent analysis by a consumer group.
Texas residential consumers have paid as much as 45 percent more for deregulated electricity than their counterparts in regulated areas of the state since lawmakers devised the new system for much of the state in 1999, according to the Texas Coalition for Affordable Power, which recently published an assessment of Texas energy price data from 2002 through 2012.
The findings raise questions about claims made at the time that deregulation would result in lower prices for Texan consumers. While prices for both deregulated and regulated electricity have fallen since their peak in 2008, average deregulated prices remain about 3 cents high per kilowatt hour than their regulated counterparts for residential consumers.http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/12/26/deregulation-has-brought-22-billion-more-in-electric-bills-for-texas-residents/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter
"What is tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other's folly - that is the first law of nature."
~~~ Voltaire
CNN) – As Pope Francis prepares to celebrate his first Christmas at the Vatican, Americans' opinions of the pontiff appear to be as high as the dome on St. Peter's Basilica, according to a new survey.
A CNN/ORC International poll released Tuesday found that 88% of American Catholics approve of how Francis is handling his role as head of the 1.2 billion-member church.
The popular pontiff has also made a positive impression among Americans in general: Nearly three in four view Francis favorably. The new survey suggests that the Pope is arguably the most well-regarded religious figure among the American public today, said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.
Nine months into his papacy, the Argentine-born Francis has captured attention with crowd-pleasing acts of compassion, from embracing a severely disfigured man, to washing the feet of juvenile delinquents, to hosting homeless men at his birthday Mass this month.
The Pope has also shown a common touch rare for such a lofty religious leader. He has eschewed the trappings of the papacy in favor of humbler digs, simpler vestments and a cheaper car. He worked as a bar bouncer and a janitor before he was a priest, and is not shy about telling people.
The Congress of the United States left town this week very proud of itself. It had reached an accommodation by which the Republicans agreed that they would allow the government to function in a minimal capacity over the next two years and the Democrats agreed that they would be grateful to the Republicans for doing that. And then they all wished themselves well and went home, many of them, the ones proclaiming themselves most loudly to be the followers of the Jesus Christ of the Gospels, looking forward to being able to say "Merry Christmas" freely again, free from the liberals who have placed imaginary shackles upon their fictional freedom to keep the day in their own way. And tonight, many of the members of that Congress once again will go to the church of their choice, as the old public-service ads would have it. There will be candles and singing and fellowship and, afterwards, people will come to the house and there will be more candles and more singing and much more fellowship and nobody will be hungry in those places.
We are two nations but we do not have to be. We are two nations because we choose to be. We are two nations because we have separated churches from religion, religion from faith, and faith from the gospels. We are two nations because we pray to god and against our fellow citizens. We are two nations because we have made of religion a set of laws, and a set of laws into a religion. We are two nations because we hate the sin but love the sinner, and we are not wise enough in our hearts to know that you cannot divorce one from the other. Hate is hate. We are two nations because we hate the sin and are not wise enough in our hearts that this is very definition of self-loathing, because we all stumble and we all fall, rich and poor alike. We are two nations because we choose to be.
There is a kind of justice rising, I believe, and not just because of the season, although I freely confess to being a sucker thereto. There is a pope impatient with the shotgun marriage of cupidity and virtue, and who is not shy about explaining why. There is a sense in our politics that we are now paying for having abandoned the creative act of self-government through which we build a political commonwealth, a sense that we allowed that great work to be hijacked by religious grifters, and political bunco artists, and the various assortment of thieves and brigands to whom we handed the world's finances. There is a feeling in the land that the mist has begin to burn away, and that we see more clearly than ever the consequences of decades of choices, made and not made, and that we see more clearly than ever the work that has to be done to repair what we have chosen to do to our country and to ourselves. We can still refuse to do the work, but we no longer have the excuse available to us that we don't know what has to be done.
We can remain two nations because we choose to be. Or we can shake off the lethargy of an atrophied citizenship. We can rediscover the common good, the deep and abiding current within true democracy toward equality and justice. This is, after all, a season of hope and rebirth and of the fall, silent as the dead of night, of an old order and an ancient way of doing things. We are two nations, but we do not have to be.
I wish you all joy. Be well. Be at peace.
Merry Christmas.http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/christmas-serial-part-3-122413
Greta Van Susteren said on Sunday that President Barack Obama's end-of-the-year press conference Friday provided further evidence of why his approval ratings have dropped so low and how the media are not helping.
Appearing on ABC's "This Week With George Stephanopoulos," the Fox News anchor criticized reporters' treatment of the president and the questions they asked at the press conference.
"The media beat up on him," Van Susteren said. "The media had bad questions. They kept punching him."
At Friday's press conference, Obama was asked several times to reflect on what some are calling the worst year of his presidency. Most notable were the questions from Fox News' Ed Henry on the NSA scandal and the question from NBC's Chuck Todd regarding the failures of the Obamacare website.
Van Susteren said that Obama's presence on Friday was "depressing" and "pathetic," concluding that the president has lost his greatest strength: "his ability to inspire."
"He sucked the oxygen out of the room," she said. "He ends the year where you just want to slit your throat almost because it was so depressing."http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/22/greta-van-susteren-obama-questions_n_4489403.html
I see the New York Times has published yet another article about very privileged people whining about the ACA.
In this case, said article features a couple making $100,000 a year who, under the ACA, will be paying $1,000 a month for health care covering themselves and their two sons. Take it away, Dean Baker:
Here they are with a front page story telling us about the tragic situation of the Chapmans, a New Hampshire couple making $100,000 a year who will have to spend $1,000 a month for insurance with Obamacare. This would come to 12 percent of their income. The piece tells readers:
“Experts consider health insurance unaffordable once it exceeds 10 percent of annual income.”
That’s interesting. If we go to the Kaiser Family Foundation website we find that the average employee contribution for an employer provided family plan is $4,240. The average employer contribution is $11,240. That gives us a total of $15,470. Most economists would say that we should treat the employers payment as a cost to the worker since in general employers are no more happy to pay money to health insurance companies than to their workers. If they didn’t pay this money as health insurance then they would be paying it to their workers in wages.http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_12/the_new_york_times_and_the_aca048305.php
“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.”
― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh
December 15, 2013|By Rene Stutzman, Orlando Sentinel
It's not armed robbers or warring gangs who send the greatest percentage of gunshot survivors to Florida emergency rooms.
It's people who shoot someone, or themselves, accidentally.
Four out of every 10 people who are rushed to a Florida hospital or emergency room with a nonfatal wound were shot by accident, according to hospital data collected by the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration and published by the Florida Department of Health.http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2013-12-15/news/os-gun-accidents-20131215_1_mario-whitehead-florida-agency-hospital
The Center for Budget Policy Priorities released a number of charts today that shows how much the federal government favors high-income households over low-income ones in housing benefits.
This largely results from the fact that homeowners receive significantly more aid than renters and high-income Americans are much more likely to be homeowners.
In 2012, the federal government gave out $240 billion in housing aid. Income data is not available for all of it, but of what is available, more than half went to those with incomes greater than $100,000 ($81.6 billion). Only $40 billion went to those with incomes less than $50,000.
Overall, high income households receive four times as much in housing aid as low-income ones.
The main reason for this is the majority of federal housing aid flows to homeowners, not renters. The mortgage interest deduction is the most well-known program that subsidizes homeownership. That deduction alone is larger than all federal rental aid combined.
DECEMBER 18, 2013, 4:34 PM EST
Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA), a primary candidate in the 2014 Georgia Senate race, on Saturday suggested poor students sweep floors in order to get a free lunch, according to the Huffington Post.http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/gop-rep-suggests-kids-clean-schools-in-exchange-for-lunch
December 17
BY CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABERAP Economics Writer
WASHINGTON — The growing gap between the richest Americans and everyone else isn't bad just for individuals.
It's hurting the U.S. economy.
So says a majority of more than three dozen economists surveyed last week by The Associated Press. Their concerns tap into a debate that's intensified as middle-class pay has stagnated while wealthier households have thrived.
A key source of the economists' concern: Higher pay and outsize stock market gains are flowing mainly to affluent Americans. Yet these households spend less of their money than do low - and middle-income consumers who make up most of the population but whose pay is barely rising.
"What you want is a broader spending base," says Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James, a financial advisory firm. "You want more people spending money."
Spending by wealthier Americans, given the weight of their dollars, does help drive the economy. But analysts say the economy would be better able to sustain its growth if the riches were more evenly dispersed.
