I’m writing for tomorrow and getting as much rest as I can for tomorrow’s prison volunteer trip. However, I may not get to go, because the group that has that time on the Activities Floor has exceeded the maximum number of visitors allowed on the floor. When that happens, we get bumped. That rarely happens, and I’ve requested a waiver. I feel frustrated not knowing. I am not at all pleased with the new format for the Pro Bowl. They have made it a show for individual aggrandizement instead of a competition between the conferences. DANG! They TEAbuggered the holy Ellipsoid Orb!! :-( On the other hand, they had to do something for the NFC players. 😉
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:49 (average 5:49). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From The New Yorker: Dr. Stephen Hawking’s recent statement that the black holes he famously described do not actually exist underscores “the danger inherent in listening to scientists,” Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minnesota) said today.
Rep. Bachmann unleashed a blistering attack on Dr. Hawking, who earlier referred to his mistake on black holes as his “biggest blunder.”
“Actually, Dr. Hawking, our biggest blunder as a society was ever listening to people like you,” said Rep. Bachmann. “If black holes don’t exist, then other things you scientists have been trying to foist on us probably don’t either, like climate change and evolution.”
Rep. Bachmann added that all the students who were forced to learn about black holes in college should now sue Dr. Hawking for a full refund. “Fortunately for me, I did not take any science classes in college,” she said.
Andy has given us a tough one, because Hawking must be wrong in saying black holes do not exist. If the space between Batshit Bachmann’s ears, from which no light has ever escaped, isn’t a black hole, what is?
From Upworthy: Oil spills often bring to mind images of oil-drenched birds and blackened coastlines, but this incredible time-lapse video presents the human and financial cost of every oil spill since 1986. Politics aside, these stats are downright disturbing.
Does that boggle your mind, or what? States where Big Oil hasn’t gotten their blood money by killing someone (the red dots) are few and far between.
From NY Times: Rising inequality has obvious economic costs: stagnant wages despite rising productivity, rising debt that makes us more vulnerable to financial crisis. It also has big social and human costs. There is, for example, strong evidence that high inequality leads to worse health and higher mortality.
But there’s more. Extreme inequality, it turns out, creates a class of people who are alarmingly detached from reality — and simultaneously gives these people great power.
The example many are buzzing about right now is the billionaire investor Tom Perkins, a founding member of the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. In a letter to the editor [Murdoch delinked] of The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Perkins lamented public criticism of the “one percent” — and compared such criticism to Nazi attacks on the Jews, suggesting that we are on the road to another Kristallnacht.
You may say that this is just one crazy guy and wonder why The Journal would publish such a thing. But Mr. Perkins isn’t that much of an outlier. He isn’t even the first finance titan to compare advocates of progressive taxation to Nazis. Back in 2010 Stephen Schwarzman, the chairman and chief executive of the Blackstone Group, declared that proposals to eliminate tax loopholes for hedge fund and private-equity managers were “like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.”
Click through for the rest of another excellent Paul Krugman editorial, in which he makes several valid observations. However, he missed one key point that needs making. Perkins and other vulture capitalists are engaging in projection. They are accusing the left of the very thing that they are trying to accomplish. They would establish a fascist Republican plutocracy: of, by, and for the 0.1%. Their Reich would be secure, because elections would exist for show only. Only “approved” voters could vote. There may be a Kristallnacht in America’s future, but if there is, they will be the perpetrators, not the victims.
Cartoon:
16 Responses to “Open Thread–1/28/2014”
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3:33 We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
3:33 I think there is room for both of us to cross together!
3:39 Four of us 2 minutes or more under the average, Pretty good puzzle solving if you ask me.
New Yorker ~ If black holes don't exist, the space in Batshit Bachmann's skull is filled with batshit.
Upworthy ~ Sickening in more ways than one.
NY Times ~ The 1% get no pity from me. If they are so paranoid about another "Kristallnacht" maybe they should change their ways. Hah!
Cartoon ~ RepublicanT Family Values' poster boy.
5:40. Better then nothing..
Andy: This is exactly as if some "journalist" took the picture of the atom that we all learned in grade school and made a big headline of it doesn't really exist. Well duh! It's called a MODEL, people. It happens all the time in atomic physics and especially in quantum physics because they are forming models to help people, including themselves, conceptualize the invisible. Models are always subject to change. We have known for decades that "black holes" aren't "black" – at least Hawking has. Check out http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140127-black-hole-stephen-hawking-firewall-space-astronomy/ for a much better explanation.
Upworthy: Off topic but related: If you care about deforestation you should look at this: http://www.junglistan.org/opinion Readers Digest version, Essar has taken a leaf from Chevron's playbook and is suing victims and activists.
Krugman: Of course they are projecting. There is actually quite a bit of projection being done by Republicans. Huckabee's libido remarks were largely projection. It is very frustrating because it hits people just below rationality and sucks them in.
Cartoon: If you have any sympathy for NFL concussion victims, you might spare a bit for Henry VIII. Were it not for his injuries at the Field of the Cloth of Gold, he might have been quite sane. He suffered not only head injuries but also I believe it was leg injuries which led to lifelong chronic pain – just what every dement needs. The evidence suggests that before this happened he was rational apart from his obsession with chivalry.
Of course, Bachmann got it wrong again. No surprise there. Hawking did not say black holes don't exist. He is modifying the understanding of the black hole's event horizon. Science is always modifying and changing ideas as our understanding of things around us grow. Too bad Bachmann can't do the same.
When do we stop publishing what loons like Bachmann say? Is it news that we prove what an uneducated lunatic she is? It amazes me how guillable the American people are, or maybe it's how religious Americans claim to be.
A woman's body can stop a rape pregnancy? The Earth is only 6,000 years old? Science is a hoax? There is no climate change? A woman must be subserviant to a man? Cutting taxes to corporations will spur job growth? Cutting taxes will increase income to the federal government? And on, and on, and on….
Americans need to pull their heads out of their asses and vote out these demogouges. Americans need more sales resistance, to the hucksters peddling every bat shit idea. Seems Americans can be sold anything. I have to go now, it's time to place my order for spray on hair.
Turns out that of the FOUR Repubican responses to Pres. Obama's upcoming State of the Union Address tonight, Rand Paul has already "pre-recorded" his "response" on YouTube.
I think a "pre-recorded response" is more a prebuttal than anything else.
Yah! Heavy on the "butt" as in Republicanus/Teabaggers dragging them through the sewer system!
The sign at my church says:
Prayer: The only communication that the NSA can't monitor.
Now tell me that what happens in the US doesn't stay there.
Oops! That last line should read:
"Now tell me that what happens in the US stays there."
I did the laundry yesterday and had just returned. I was very tired.
I hope you get to visit your guys tomorrow.
The New Yorker: I wish Bachman and Palin would both deport themselves to another country and take Rand Paul with them so I never have to hear another of their stupid remarks.
Upworthy: Pretty scary. So far, several towns in Ky are fighting the XL pipeline, I hope they win.
NY Times: Krugman always does a good job. I don't think anyone should be able to compare themselves and their situation to the holocaust without being fined. LOsing a few dollars or having someone disagree with you hardly compares to the hell of Kristallnacht. They should be ashamed.
Cartoon: I am sure the Republicans wish they could handle women the way Henry did.
Thank you all.
We stop debunking Batshit B and her ilk, when a large segment of the MSM stop presenting her TEAbuggery as fact.
Thanks TC – again you have said it for me – it is a tried and tested formula for the Right to accuse the left of doing exactly what they are doing – and sadly their supporters don't have the operant brain cells to be able to see it…."Click through for the rest of another excellent Paul Krugman editorial, in which he makes several valid observations. However, he missed one key point that needs making. Perkins and other vulture capitalists are engaging in projection. They are accusing the left of the very thing that they are trying to accomplish. They would establish a fascist Republican plutocracy: of, by, and for the 0.1%. Their Reich would be secure, because elections would exist for show only. Only “approved” voters could vote. There may be a Kristallnacht in America’s future, but if there is, they will be the perpetrators, not the victims." God help us all to avoid that!
PS Henry VIII had hideous syphilis from an early age – an expert on transmittable diseases and how they affect people being able to have children commented on "Who do you think you are?" that the pattern of that person's ancestors followed the same one as Henry VIII – who had problems with stillborn children, then as the disease quietened down a little one survived (Mary) then the disease flared up again and no more survived – then it went quiet for a while and Elizabeth and Edward resulted – then the disease flared up again and no more issue resulted – it also destroyed his brain making him psychotic – look at how dangerous it was to be a relative of the king in those days – most were killed by Henry VIII !
I have just seen this http://www.historyinanhour.com/2010/06/08/henry-viii%E2%80%99s-succession-problem-syphilis-or-bad-luck/ – it is a very good article and gives stats that I couldn't remember if I tried….
"Politics aside, these stats are downright disturbing." Oil Spills