I’m writing for tomorrow and am feeling quite tired. I normally sleep in two segments, one in the late afternoon and evening, and the other in the early morning, after I get the blog up, distribute links and eat. At my new digs, the second coincides with high street noise from commercial activities below me. I’m going to have to change my schedule. I’m not sure how, but instead of forcing myself to get the blog up right after midnight, I’m going to make sleep the priority and get it up when I get it up. I’m guessing that I’ll be doing more of my blogging during that high noise interval. It will take some time for my body to discover the schedule that works here and adjust to it.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:28 (average 5:25). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: In the wake of the Citizens United case, critics of the ruling, which lifted prohibitions on direct campaign spending by corporations, raised the prospect of this allowing foreign nationals to influence US elections. Very serious people dismissed this trusting the our "robust" election laws would be up to the task of keeping foreign influence out of US elections. They were dead wrong.
In a first of its kind case, federal prosecutors say a Mexican businessman funnelled more than $500,000 into U.S. political races through Super PACs and various shell companies. The alleged financial scheme is the first known instance of a foreign national exploiting the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in order to influence U.S. elections. If proven, the campaign finance scandal could reshape the public debate over the high court’s landmark decision.
Until now, allegations surrounding Jose Susumo Azano Matsura, the owner of multiple construction companies in Mexico, have not spread beyond local news outlets in San Diego, where he’s accused of bankrolling a handful of southern California candidates. But the scandal is beginning to attract national interest as it ensnares a U.S. congressman, a Washington, D.C.-based campaign firm and the legacy of one of the most important Supreme Court decisions in a generation.
Matsura was able to evade US law by using a shell corporation in order to funnel the donations to US candidates.
At the time SCROTUS trashed the Constitution for their Republican corporate criminal masters, I said this was going to happen. Republicans seem to think that even foreign corporations are people with more rights than US citizens.
From NY Times: President Obama’s ambitious trade agenda appeared to fall further victim to election-year politics on Capitol Hill on Friday when Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in a closed-door retreat with House Democrats, said he understood why they would not grant Mr. Obama the crucial authority he needs to conclude large trade deals with Asia and Europe.
This is one of those rare instances in which I fully oppose Obama’s policy, so I see this as good news.
From Think Progress: The dead of winter is a hard time for climate journalists. As snow falls from the sky, like it does and will continue to do every winter, climate deniers are given more fodder to make baseless claims. “It’s freezing outside and you’re whining about warming,” they say [propaganda delinked], as if a localized weather event were reflective of a long-term global climate shift.
Frustrating as it is, the inevitable increase in climate change trolling during cold season is at the very least beneficial because it forces us to remind ourselves of the long-term nature of climate change. Climate change does not manifest itself as one hot day, nor does it disprove itself with one freezing night. In fact, it is characterized by swaths of peer-reviewed data that have shown clear warming trends at every corner of the globe — not just outside our windows — over the last 125 years.
Nowhere does this fact manifest itself more than in a newly updated interactive map from the weekly science and technology magazine New Scientist. Titled “Our Warming World,” the map — published a year ago and updated last week with 2013 data — shows yellow, orange, and red splotches to illustrate just how much different areas have warmed up over the years, in some cases since 1881. The colors are relative to the average temperature between 1951 and 1980, a period New Scientist says is “the earliest period for which there was sufficiently good coverage for comparison” worldwide. It uses Surface Temperature Analysis data from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
The map makes it crystal clear. Try it out.
Cartoon:
10 Responses to “Open Thread-2/16/2014”
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3:43 The lights came on a little too late for me.
4:00 I kept looking for the deer…or maybe the dear! Oh dear!
4:19 I'm in too much of a hurry having just come in from my mother's and trying to eat dinner.
Daily Kos ~ Millionaores and billionaires don't need Immigration Reform to participate in our elections. Their wealth entitles them a free ride to do anything they please.
NY Times ~ Maybe all those petitions I signed did some good. This new trade agreement would do more harm to our country than good. I think it's worse than NAFTA.
Think Progress Interesting map. I like when they do those interactive thingies. Our "favorite" Meet The Press host, David Gregory had a climate change segment this AM. It featured Bill Nye, the Science Guy and GOP starlet Marsha Blackburn. So we have an actor and a politician "debating" one of the most important issues facing the world today. David let Marsha talk all she wanted to while Bill, in his split screen, smiled at the camera. Whenever he started to speak David cut him off. I realize he is an actor and an engineer but he does know more about climate change than Marsha does.
Cartoon ~ I found it sad that they boted the Union down last week.
5:22 Who comes up with these products? On second thought, don't tell me. I don't wany to know.
Kos – The only mystery is why anyone – anyone – ever thought it wouldn't happen.
NY Times – "Ambitious" is the word for those trade plans all right, and not in a friendly way. The kind of ambition that got Caesar assassinated. Which unfortunately set the stage for oligarchy and empire. We can't go that route (even if we wanted to).
Think Progress – Of course the Arctic is hurting the worst. So big oil wants to jump in and drill. Well, we are making a little progress against that, but the war is certainly not over.
Cartoon – Yes, merde, Scheiss, mierda, govno, kuso, et cetera. And they did it the good old Republican way – scaring the people into voting against their own best interests.
Time 2:22 – These puzzles are very tricky.
More trade plans that will again take American jobs to other lands. No, that was not supposed to happen with NAFTA but it did, and now TPP – why are these meetings held not just in secret but kept secret? I have no trust in any of this.
The trade unions are struggling to make a new and viable impact and workers are again seeing the value in having a group voice over one single voice. I cheer them on.
I strongly suspect that this issue with the campaign money is just the tip of a huge ice burg, and it will show up in all parties. We either demand and force real campaign reform, or stop complaining. There are far more of us and if want changes we can make it happen.
I have decided that anyone that so stupid to cling to idea that climatic change is not here and not man made, while biting us in the back side; is also too stupid for my time.
Best of luck with getting some sleep TC, it seems to get more difficult as we age.
Interesting to me no or little change in the bermuda-triangle region… 🙄
Puzzle – 5:04
Daily Kos: You were right, foreign nationals did take advantage of this ruling. How could Scrotus not have known this, too?
NY Times: If this is about TPP, I agree. That treaty will only make all our lives harder. It is worse than NAFTA!
Think Progress: The naysayers will disagree with the map, of course.
Cartoon: by now, you know the workers in the VW plant voted against the union, guess the repubs got to them.
There is always change when you move. I lived in the same place for 30 years before moving here. It took me about three months to get adjusted to the silence I have here. I hope you are feeling better.
Puzzle — 4:19 I'm in too much of a hurry having just come in from my mother's and trying to eat dinner.
Daily Kos — I'll bet if Matsura were contributing to Democrats predominently, the Republicanus/Teabaggers would find a way to shut that down, and fast. Election financing reform is definitely needed!
NY Times — I presume this is predominently about the TPP, although there are discussions in Europe. The TPP essentially would give corporations greater rights over certain things within sovereign states. That is bad enough with NAFTA, but the TPP is worse. How can a politician do that to his people? I guess, as in the Daily Kos post, the answer comes down to that song in 'Cabaret' — "Money, Money, Money".
Think Progress — I still think that if we were to refer to global warming as 'climate change', people would think of it differently. There was a bit on the news today about this and of particular note was the change in the jet stream. Changes in North America can change the climate in Africa and Europe.
Cartoon — If something makes sense, the Republicanus/Teabaggers are against it.
Thanks evveryone. Kitty Kitty Klobbered again!
The only way Republicans defeated the users was to scarer the workers into voting no, for fear that they would screw the company and cost them their jobs.