March 15, 2013

Rachel Maddow Tears Into Ted Cruz

In addition she gives a background of Diane Feinstein's record and responce to Cruz..terrific


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/15/rachel-maddow-ted-cruz-gun-control_n_2883141.html

March 14, 2013

14 GOP -Congressmen Who Think Government Souldn't Borrow Have Big Debts of Their Own

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/14/1717901/14-http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/03/14/1717901/14-gop-congressmen-who-think-government-shouldnt-borrow-have-big-debts-of-their-own/


Think Progress
By Josh Israel on Mar 14, 2013 at 10:19 am


Congressional Republicans again rally around Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) budget and its goal of eliminating the deficit in ten years, many are using an old talking point. They claim that the federal government should model itself on the families and businesses and stop spending more money than it takes in. But a ThinkProgress examination of recent personal financial disclosure filings reveals that many of the same lawmakers who are urging the nation to balance its books are themselves in debt and have taken out personal and/or business loans.

Government is nothing like a business and cannot be run as one — its aim is to protect its citizens, not to turn a profit. Businesses and individuals often borrow in the short term to make investments for the long term — mortgages, lines of credits, and other sorts of loans are facts of life for millions of Americans and businesses of all sizes. Start-up businesses rarely break even for the first several years and few people can afford to buy their first home outright or pay for their kids to go to college out of pocket.

Still, many politicians who advocate for cuts to vital programs and a dangerous Balanced Budget Amendment to the U.S. Constitution use the argument that government needs to live with in its means because everyone else does — but have debt of their own. These hypocrites include:

•House Budget Committee Member Tom Rice (R-SC): Wrote: “At a time when hardworking American families are living off of a budget, the federal government should be no different. My colleagues and I believe it is time for America to change course and get back on a path of prosperity. This begins with a balanced budget plan.” Reported five mortgages totaling over $4 million.

more at link above..

March 12, 2013

Regrettable: The troubling things I learned while rereporting Bob Woodward's Book on John Belushi

Slate:

By Tanner Colby|Posted Tuesday, March 12, 2013, at 5:42 AM


http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2013/03/bob_woodward_and_gene_sperling_what_woodward_s_john_belushi_book_can_tell.html


A little more than a week ago, during an interview with Politico, Bob Woodward came forward to claim he’d been threatened in an email by a “senior White House official” for daring to reveal certain details about the negotiations over the budget sequester. The White House responded by releasing the email exchange Woodward was referring to, which turned out to be nothing more than a cordial exchange between the reporter and Obama’s economic adviser, Gene Sperling, who was clearly implying nothing more than that Woodward would “regret” taking a position that would soon be shown to be false.


A rather trivial scandal, but the incident did manage to raise important questions about Woodward’s behavior. Was he cynically trumping up the administration’s “threat,” or does he just not know how to read an email? Pretty soon, those questions tipped over into the standard Beltway discussion that transpires anytime Woodward does anything. How accurate is his reporting? Does he deserve his legendary status?


I believe I can offer some interesting answers to those questions. Thirty-one years ago, on March 5, 1982, Saturday Night Live and Animal House star John Belushi died of a drug overdose at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles—which, bear with me a moment, has more to do with the current coverage of the budget sequester than you might initially think.*

Two years after Belushi died, Bob Woodward published Wired: The Short Life and Fast Times of John Belushi. While the Watergate sleuth might seem an odd choice to tackle such a subject, the book came about because both he and Belushi grew up in the same small town of Wheaton, Ill. They had friends in common. Belushi, who despised Richard Nixon, was a big Woodward fan, and after he died, his widow, Judy Belushi, approached Woodward in his role as a reporter for the Washington Post. She had questions about the LAPD’s handling of Belushi’s death and asked Woodward to look into it. He took the access she offered and used it to write a scathing,
lurid account of Belushi’s drug use and death.

When Wired came out, many of Belushi’s friends and family denounced it as biased and riddled with factual errors. “Exploitative, pulp trash,” in the words of Dan Aykroyd. Wired was so wrong, Belushi’s manager said, it made you think Nixon might be innocent. Woodward insisted the book was balanced and accurate. “I reported this story thoroughly,” he told Rolling Stone. Of the book’s critics, he said, “I think they wish I had created a portrait of someone who was larger than life, larger than he was, and that, somehow, this portrait would all come out different. But that’s a fantasy, not journalism.” Woodward being Woodward, he was given the benefit of the doubt. Belushi’s reputation never recovered.

March 11, 2013

How Diet Soda Makes You Fat (and Other Food and Diet Industry Secrets)

Dr. Mark Hyman.
Huffington Post.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-mark-hyman/diet-soda-health_b_2698494.html

How do you lose weight? Substitute diet drinks for sugary drinks. Eat low-fat foods. Just eat less of the bad foods -- it's all about the calories. We are told, "Just have more willpower."
These ideas are false. They are food and diet industry propaganda that make and keep us fat and sick. Lies by the food industry combined with bad government policy based on food industry lobbying are the major cause of our obesity and diabetes epidemic.

Now, more than 35 percent of Americans are obese, and almost 70 percent are overweight. This is not an accident but the result of careful marketing and money in politics.

We are told it is all about making better choices. If we all took more personal responsibility, we could stop this obesity and diabetes epidemic. We have been told there are no good or bad foods, that the key to weight loss is moderation. And, of course, if we all just exercised more, all of us would lose weight. These ideas hold us hostage.

What the Food and Diet Industry Doesn't Want You to Know

1.Diet Soda and Diet Drinks Make You Fat and Cause Type 2 Diabetes
Diet soda makes people fat? Really? How does that happen?
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There are four or five more things the diet and food industry does not want you to know...Worth 5 mintues it takes to read..Especially the part where sugar, salt and fat are strongly addictive..........Not bad for the Huffington Post....

from deep within the article I found this..worth quoting:
"You might say that people who are overweight and just about to get diabetes drink more diet soda, but they scientifically controlled for body weight. And they found the artificial sweeteners increased diabetes independent of body weight!"

March 11, 2013

Republicans are all for sequestration until their something gets sequestered in their back yard

Republicans are all for sequestration until their something gets sequestered in their back yard

Last edited Mon Mar 11, 2013, 10:24 AM USA/ET - Edit history (1)



March 11, at 7:30 am Pacific Time, 10:30 am Eastern

Jed Lewison for the Daily Kos

Just ask Wyoming’s lone House member, Rep. Cynthia M. Lummis (R), who applauded the $85?billion carved across the board in a letter to constituents.
“Instead of blindly filling empty desks,” she wrote last week, “federal agencies will be forced to consider which positions are crucial and make their decision based on necessity rather than luxury.”
...until they hit home, like they did last week at Yellowstone National Park in Lummis's home state of Wyoming, where park superintendent Dan Wenk froze his workforce and delayed the start of seasonal hiring and plowing after being ordered to cut $1.8 million from his budget due to sequestration. The cuts will hurt Yellowstone tourism, delivering a blow to the region's economy, but thanks to cheerleaders of sequestration like Lummis, Wenk's hands were tied.
When Lummis was confronted with angry constituents, the obvious thing to do would have been to support repealing or replacing the sequester. Instead, she invented a fantasy in which Wenk was the villain, because instead of cutting his operating budget he should have lobbied Congress for permission to cut his capital budget. But not only was her "solution" not actually a solution, it would have actually increased spending over the long-run.

In an interview, Lummis suggested that Wenk petition House and Senate appropriators for permission to take money from his capital budget to cover the cuts, an idea he said was not legal and would never get through Congress in time. ,,,,,italics mine

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Republicans are selfish creatures that need to spend about a month on the street begging for food and are homeless. That might help
see some truth........maybe.....



Read more: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/11/1193173/-Republicans-are-all-for-sequestration-until-their-something-gets-sequestered-in-their-back-yard

March 10, 2013

Admiral Calls cimate Change Top Security Issue..Daily Kos..

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/03/09/1192924/-Admiral-calls-Climate-Change-top-security-issue

According to the Commander of U.S. Forces Pacific (PACCOM),

by A. Seigal...for Climate Hawks.

...significant upheaval related to the warming planet “is probably the most likely thing that is going to happen . . . that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about.’

Admiral Samuel Locklear had a meeting the other day with national security experts at Tufts and Harvard. After this session, he met with a reporter who asked him asked what the top security threat was in the Pacific Ocean. Rather than highlighting Chinese ballistic missiles, the new Chinese Navy aircraft carrier, North Korean nuclear weapons, or other traditional military threats, Admiral Locklear looked to a larger definition of national security.

Locklear commented that “People are surprised sometimes” that he highlights climate change -- despite an ability to discuss a wide-range of threats, from cyber-war to the North Koreans. However, it is the risks -- from natural disasters to long-term sea-level rise threats to Pacific nations that has his deepest attention.


“You have the real potential here in the not-too-distant future of nations displaced by rising sea level. Certainly weather patterns are more severe than they have been in the past. We are on super typhoon 27 or 28 this year in the Western Pacific. The average is about 17.” Climate Change merits national security -- military -- attention for very pragmatic reasons. Climate Change merits national security -- military -- attention for very pragmatic reasons.

"The ice is melting and sea is getting higher,” Locklear said, noting that 80 percent of the world’s population lives within 200 miles of the coast. “I’m into the consequence management side of it. I’m not a scientist, but the island of Tarawa in Kiribati, they’re contemplating moving their entire population to another country because [it] is not going to exist anymore.”

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Strange find...Six Years ago babylonsister put this one up (I was checking to see if other posts like this have been posted)......April 15, 2007..on same subject..I guess the idea is not new......title of article in 2007:

Top ex-military leaders call global warming major security risk

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x659720

Here us link to the original article that babylonsister found at Huffington Post...April 15, 2007

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20070415/na-gen-us-global-warming-security/

March 10, 2013

God Worried He Fucked Up His Children: The Onion...an interview with God..

http://www.theonion.com/articles/god-worried-he-fucked-up-his-children,31597/

News• religion• News• ISSUE 49•10• Mar 8, 2013

THE HEAVENS—Saying that maybe He wasn’t around enough and could have expressed His divine love a little better throughout the history of mankind, Our Lord God and Almighty Father expressed concern Thursday that He might have fucked up His children.

In a frank conversation with reporters, God said it’s not hard to see that all 7 billion of His children are “pretty screwed up” and that many of them are hopelessly maladjusted and unfit to live healthy, normal lives.

“I love my sons and daughters equally, but was I present as much as I could have been? Probably not,” said the Divine Creator, pointing to the human race’s emotional volatility, existential angst, and lack of any real direction as evidence of His failure. “Ever since I molded them in my image, I’ve tried to do right by them. I really have. But they’re just so dysfunctional that I’m starting to wonder if I’m to blame.”

God claimed that though He always made sure to provide His children with food, water, air to breathe, and an earth to live on, He was starting to realize that material things weren’t nearly enough. In addition, while God repeatedly said He loved his children, the Lord our Maker admitted He could have said it more often.

March 10, 2013

How about... "Very Cheap but Extremely Useful and Effective" ...I'll give two.

Duct Tape, and dental floss...anyone else with ideas to share?..

March 9, 2013

Officer Who Fired Shot Suspended....In NY High School...(classes in session)...Talking Points Memo

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/sean-mccutcheon-officer-gun-suspended.php

HIGHLAND, N.Y. (AP) — A New York town that began assigning an armed police officer to guard a high school in the wake of the Connecticut massacre has suspended the program after an officer accidentally discharged his pistol in a hallway while classes were in session.

Lt. James Janso of the Lloyd police department tells media outlets Officer Sean McCutcheon will be suspended while an investigation continues.

McCutcheon was assigned to the high school in the Hudson Valley town of Highland in January. Janso says the program has been suspended for now.

There were no staff members or students nearby when the weapon went off just after 1:30 p.m. Tuesday. Nobody was hurt.

A message was left at a phone number listed in McCutcheon’s name.
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Well...no one was hurt...this time..............oh, there will be a next time.............

March 7, 2013

Very Red Flag Over Cancer Center's Survival Claims :NBC.com.(Cancer Treatment Centers of America)

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/03/06/17211582-very-red-flag-over-cancer-centers-rosy-survival-claims?lite

By Sharon Begley and Robin Respaut, Reuters

When the local doctor who had been treating Vicky Hilborn told her that her rare cancer had spread throughout her body, including her brain, she and her husband refused to accept a death sentence. Within days, Keith Hilborn was on the phone with an "oncology information specialist" at Cancer Treatment Centers of America.

Hilborn had seen CTCA's website touting survival rates better than national averages. His call secured Vicky an appointment at the for-profit, privately held company's Philadelphia affiliate, Eastern Regional Medical Center. There, the oncologist who examined Vicky told the couple he had treated other cases of histiocytic sarcoma, the cancer of immune-system cells that she had.

"He said, ‘We'll have you back on your feet in no time,'" Keith recalled.

Vicky's cancer treatment was forestalled by an infection and other complications that kept her at Eastern Regional for three weeks. In July 2009, when she got back home, things changed. Despite Keith's calls, he said, CTCA did not schedule another appointment. As his wife got sicker, Keith, a former deputy sheriff in western Pennsylvania, was reduced to begging. The oncology information specialist "said don't bring her here," he recalled. "I said you don't understand; we're going to lose her if you don't treat her. She told me I'd just have to accept that. "Vicky Hilborn never got another appointment with CTCA. She died on September 6, 2009, at age 48.

CTCA is not unique in turning away patients. A lot of doctors, hospitals and other healthcare providers in the United States decline to treat people who can't pay, or have inadequate insurance, among other reasons. What sets CTCA apart is that rejecting certain patients and, even more, culling some of its patients from its survival data lets the company tout in ads and post on its website patient outcomes that look dramatically better than they would if the company treated all comers. These are the rosy survival numbers that attract people like the Hilborns.
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interesting history of this company:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_Treatment_Centers_of_America
note: if you go to that site you will see that CTCA has tried to infect the wikipedia site with their own scum garbage..note warning before you get to the honest statement at the bottom of the article................................................................

CONTROVERSY [/B ]
Cancer Treatment Centers of America was the subject of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) complaint in 1993. The FTC alleged that CTCA made false claims regarding the success rates of certain cancer treatments in their promotional materials. This claim was settled in March 1996, requiring CTCA to discontinue use of any unsubstantiated claims in their advertising.[8] CTCA is also required to have proven, scientific evidence for all statements regarding the safety, success rates, endorsements, and benefits of their cancer treatments. CTCA was also required to follow various steps in order to report compliance to the FTC per the settlement.

Cancer centers and hospitals in general (including Cancer Treatment Centers of America) have been the subjects of some controversy over their advertising Many doctors and other observers[11] have noted that many cancer organizations' advertising are sparsely regulated and, therefore, often contain unsupported and misleading claims as to the efficacy of their cancer treatments.[9][10][11]

In 2001, the FDA issued CTCA a Warning Letter concerning three clinical trials that were conducted in violation of FDA requirements.[12]