October 31, 2013

Thursday TOON Roundup 2- Tricks only from this party

October 31, 2013

Thursday Toon Roundup 1- Drama Queen

October 31, 2013

Blasphemy...not a problem when conservatives do it

Conservative activists compared Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to Jesus Christ during an event Friday, earning a chorus of amens from the audience of Iowa Republicans. Steve Scheffler, a conservative Christian activist, thanked God for the freshman Texas senator who helped engineer the 16-day government shutdown in his effort to derail the Affordable Care Act. He also prayed for more conservative leaders like Cruz who were willing to “be crucified for their belief system,” reported BuzzFeed…. “Every time one of these guys attacks him, it’s good for him,” said one Iowa Republican operative. “He’s like a superhero. The more bullets that get shot at him, the bigger and stronger he gets.”…. Cruz and other conservatives at the annual Reagan fundraising dinner cast themselves as victims and compared themselves to David fighting an army of Goliaths that included the mainstream media and the Obama administration.

Imagine the hue and cry, the furious weeping and gnashing of teeth, that would erupt if someone on the Left compared…say, Harry Reid…to Jesus Christ. The absurdity of the comparison aside, the Christian Right would be aflame with righteous indignation over the idea that Liberals would DARE mention Reid in the same breath as the Prince of Peace (whom they view as their very own). Then look at what happened in Iowa over the weekend, where Ted Cruz was frequently (and absurdly) mentioned in the same breath as their Lord and Savior. No problem, right? Only when the Left does it…because as any REAL American knows, God’s a Conservative free-market Republican.

When godless Liberals do it, it’s the worst sort of anti-Christian blasphemy imaginable. When Conservative Christians do it, they’re simply expressing their admiration for someone willing to “be crucified for their belief system.” The predictable and trite David and Goliath analogies aside, how can it be viewed as hypocrisy when you’re convinced that God’s a Conservative Republican and therefore on your side? When you can’t be bothered with details like the separation of Church and State, it’s easy to believe that the Almighty is rightly and unquestionably on your side.

Except that there’s nothing about Ted Cruz that makes him a “superhero,” nor is he willing to “be crucified for their belief system.” Ted Cruz is all and only about his only political prospects and self-aggrandizement. He’s a demagogue, a hypocrite, and a liar of the first order. If it takes slandering the President to boost his political star, then so be it. One of the beautiful things about being a member of the Rabid Christian Right is that facts are virtually meaningless. What matters is what you can convince like-minded sheeple to be true. When you’re predisposed to assume the worst of The Black Guy in the White House ©, anything that paints him in an unflattering light is easily and quickly accepted as Gospel.

That most of these folks wouldn’t recognize the teachings of Jesus Christ if the Lord himself showed up with an instruction manual almost goes without saying. The truth is that the politics of the Rabid Christian Right has nothing to do with the true meaning of Christianity. What it’s really about is power and control, and if authoritarian zealots can use their conveniently bastardized faith to seize and maintain it, so much the better. The truth is that the Rabid Christian Right is a fraud whose true values have nothing in common with the true meaning of Christianity. Their apocalyptic world view is as grounded in biblical reality as Timothy McVeigh’s was in nonviolence.

more

http://whatwouldjackdo.net/2013/10/blasphemynot-a-problem-when-conservatives-engage-in-it.html

October 31, 2013

Animal Earth: New Photos Exploring the Diversity of the World’s Most Obscure Species

Nudibranchs, together with a huge variety of other marine mulluscs, are commonly known as sea slugs (Coryphella polaris). Photo by Alexander Semenov.




In the cnidarians, what looks like a single individual is often a colony of polyps with specialized functions. In this floating colony (Porpita sp.) there are polyps for providing buoyancy, feeding (tentacles), digestion and reproduction. Photo by Arthur Anker.




The compound eyes of a cynipid wasp (unidentified species). Some insects have simple eyes in addition to compound eyes, three of which can be seen on the top of this wasp’s head. Photo by Tomas Rak.



more

http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2013/10/animal-earth/

October 30, 2013

Paul Krugman- Rentiers, Entitlement, and Monetary Policy

Bill Gross is at it again, coming up with yet another reason for the Fed to tighten despite a still-depressed economy and inflation falling well below target. He is, of course, not alone — it has actually been amazing how wide a variety of reasons people in or close to the financial industry have come up for tight money in an economy that seems to need to opposite. Many of the people making these arguments started with dire warnings about runaway inflation; but when inflation failed to materialize, they didn’t change their policy views, they came up with new rationales for doing exactly the same thing.

This kind of behavior — ever-shifting rationales for an unchanging policy (see: Bush tax cuts, invasion of Iraq, etc.) — is a “tell”. It says that something else is really motivating the policy advocacy. So what is going on here? When I read Gross and others, what I think is lurking underneath is a belief that capitalists are entitled to good returns on their capital, even if it’s just parked in safe assets. It’s about defending the privileges of the rentiers, who are assumed to be central to everything; the specific stories are just attempts to rationalize the unchanging goal.

The thing to realize here, then, is that nothing about our current situation says that rentiers are entitled to their rent. And it’s a perversion of alleged free-market thinking to suggest otherwise.

Bear in mind where we are, economically: we are still in a liquidity trap, and we are very much in a paradox of thrift world, where hoarding — not spending — is a positive social evil.

more

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/rentiers-entitlement-and-monetary-policy/

October 30, 2013

Paul Krugman- Borscht Belt Republicans

Has anyone else noticed how much the GOP position on Obamacare resembles the classic borscht belt joke about the two ladies at a Catskills resort? Lady #1: “The food here is so terrible, it’s inedible!” Lady #2: “And the portions are so small!” Republican #1: “Obamacare is slavery!” Republican #2: “And it’s so hard to sign up!”


http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/30/borscht-belt-republicans/?_r=0

October 30, 2013

Gold Class lane to be introduced on road between Dubai and Abu Dhabi

Drivers looking for a bit of luxury on the road between Dubai and Abu Dhabi will soon be able to take advantage of an exclusive members-only car lane when it comes into service next year.

The ‘Gold Class’ lane, which will be available for a set monthly fee, offers a full range of extras unavailable in the other lanes. Gold Class drivers will be given an extra 10kmph top speed limit, newly laid top-of-the-range gold painted tarmac and discounts at various service stations. The whole lane will also be an extra 50cm wide, and will be cordoned off from the other lanes with a red velvet rope.

“We live in a society where luxury lovers can enjoy exclusive access to special areas in the nightclub, metro and supermarket,” said project spokesperson Tarek O’Dowd. “Given our deep love of cars and driving, it seems ridiculous that we hadn’t yet brought this service to the road.”

While the price has yet to be revealed, organisers have said it would be set “disruptively high” in order to prevent the Gold Class lane from becoming overcrowded.

“We want our VIP users to be able to enjoy privileges befitting of people of their elite status. The Gold Class lane will offer them the world’s most lavish drive, be it to work, the beach club or the nine-star underwater shopping mall.”

more
http://www.panarabiaenquirer.com/wordpress/gold-class-lane-to-be-introduced-on-road-between-dubai-and-abu-dhabi/

And we wonder why the 1%'ers think they are so special....

October 30, 2013

Sen. Landrieu says she'll offer bill to allow Americans to keep existing insurance

- Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., says she'll propose legislation to guarantee that Americans can keep their current insurance even if it may not comply with minimum standards under the Affordable Care Act.

Landrieu's comments Wednesday came after reports that insurance companies have sent out hundreds of thousands of letters telling people with individual policies -- not obtained under group, or through employers -- that they must seek other insurance because it doesn't comply with the health's law's mandated coverage.

Republicans said it contradicted numerous statements by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, including Landrieu, that people could keep their policies if they were satisfied with them once the Affordable Care Act was implemented.

"The promise was made and it should be kept," Landrieu told reporters Wednesday. "And it was our understanding when we voted for that, that people when they have insurance could keep what they had. So, I'm going to be working on that fix,"

more
http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/10/sen_landrieu_says_shell_suppor.html#incart_river_default

Maybe she should change her name to Panderieu...

October 30, 2013

Spectacular flyover of Mars

Mars Express video shows near-complete topographical map of planet's surface — and sets it to music.

Elizabeth Gibney

A video based on topographical data of Mars taken by a European satellite gives Earth-dwellers an aerial view of the red planet's surface.

The mountains, craters, ancient river beds and lava flows that mark the Martian landscape are visible in images from a stereographic camera aboard the European Space Agency's Mars Express probe.

ESA released the video, which was produced by German Aerospace Center (DLR) of Cologne, Germany, on 28 October as part of celebrations commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Mars Express launch, in June 2003. The DLR's Stephan Elgner, a member of the mission's planetary cartography team, wrote the original soundtrack.

Mars Express has so far orbited the planet nearly 12,500 times, building up an almost planet-wide digital topographical model.

video at link

http://www.nature.com/news/spectacular-flyover-of-mars-1.14041

October 30, 2013

Magma reservoir under Yellowstone is at least two and a half times larger than previously thought

Alexandra Witze


The reservoir of molten rock underneath Yellowstone National Park in the United States is at least two and a half times larger than previously thought. Despite this, the scientists who came up with this latest estimate say that the highest risk in the iconic park is not a volcanic eruption but a huge earthquake.

Yellowstone is famous for having a ‘hot spot’ of molten rock that rises from deep within the planet, fuelling the park’s geysers and hot springs1. Most of the magma resides in a partially molten blob a few kilometres beneath Earth’s surface.

New pictures of this plumbing system show that the reservoir is about 80 kilometres long and 20 kilometres wide, says Robert Smith, a geophysicist at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. “I don’t know of any other magma body that’s been imaged that’s that big,” he says.

Smith reported the finding on 27 October at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver, Colorado.

Yellowstone lies in the western United States, where the mountain states of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho converge. The heart of the park is a caldera — a giant collapsed pit left behind by the last of three huge volcanic eruptions in the past 2.1 million years.

more

http://www.nature.com/news/large-magma-reservoir-gets-bigger-1.14036