Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Headlines - Wednesday

This cat betrayed his girlfriend:
 
###
 
882 soldiers killed in Afghanistan; 4,351 in Iraq.
 
###
 
Carrie Prejean's Stunt Breasts Face an Uncertain Future; "Foreclosure a Definite Possibility," Some Analysts Say
 
###
 
Goodbye, polar bears.
 
[Conservationists fear the decision to allow Shell to drill for offshore oil in the Arctic will threaten polar bears and endangered animals. (Photograph: Hans Strand/ Hans Strand/Corbis)]
 
U.S. Gives Shell Green Light for Offshore Oil Drilling in the Arctic
 
Conservationists say the decision by the Obama administration to allow drilling in the Beaufort Sea repeats Bush era mistakes
 
 
### 
 
A coalition of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans, under the name Operation Free, is on a 21-state bus tour to alert the public about the dangers of global warming and its threat to national security. Upon hearing about the group's visit to Pennsylvania, State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R) blasted the veterans as "traitors" and compared them to Benedict Arnold:
 
###
 
"What do you do way down there in Mississippi, Congressman Harper?" "I hunt liberal, tree-hugging Democrats, although it does seem like a waste of good ammunition. I probably should just lynch 'em, like my Daddy - and his Daddy - did."
 
###
 
Honest Numbers At Last: 16% of Americans in Poverty, 17% Unemployed

After nearly a decade of the Bush Admin playing with statistics to ensure no one would know how bad it was, I give full credit to Obama for allowing his National Academy of Sciences to correct their poverty formula (or at least begin correcting it) so it reflects the real world instead of deliberately violating it.

http://casadelogo.typepad.com/factesque/2009/10/americans-in-poverty.html#more

Welcome to the richest country in the world. Thanks, Republicons!

###

 
###
 
Poll: public option preferred over bipartisanship
 
It's getting a little tiring writing this over and over, but a new poll shows that a majority of Americans want a public option. This time, a Washington Post-ABC News Poll shows support for the public option, only this one comes with a couple of twists -- respondents preferred a strong public option to a weak one and preferred a partisan public option over a bipartisan bill without one.

On the public option, respondents were asked, "Would you support or oppose having the government create a new health insurance plan to compete with private health insurance plans?" 57% supported it and 40% opposed. When the public option was weakened -- "What if this government-sponsored plan was run by state governments and was available only to people who did not have a choice of affordable private insurance? In that case would you support or oppose this idea?" -- it got a whole lot less popular. 45% supported and 49% opposed.

And on the bipartisanship question, I think people are starting to get it. Yes, bipartisanship is nice, but not if you have to sacrifice results:
http://griperblade.blogspot.com/2009/10/poll-public-option-preferred-over.html
 
###
 
Priorities
 
 

The UN figures we'll need to increase food production by 70% over the next 40 years to keep hundreds of millions from starving.  Looking at historical food production trends, it seems like cereal production has sort of kept pace with population growth (although seafood production has pretty much peaked if not actually declined a bit).  But historical trend analysis doesn't take into account the projected negative impact of global warming on crop production.

Or more immediately, it doesn't take into account the growing diversion of cereal crops into biofuels (a process actually subsidized by your tax dollars so you can pay more to fill both your tank and your tummy!), nor the challenges of worldwide water stress.

Until now the trends have supported the self-indulgent skeptics (those fortunate enough to live in the developed world at least) who have blithely scoffed the warnings of the food-security crowd.  However we're looking at a 'perfect storm' of factors that will throw ever larger populations of folks in various regions into the food have-not category much earlier than that in the UN 40-year time frame.

*Update* Just to put this in perspective, UN says 1 in 6 people are facing famine today as developed countries both cut food aid and increase biofuel subsidies. 

### 

CNN: death penalty is breaking the budget in many states.  

Is it possible we spend too much money killing people here and around the world?

###

We met through this same Internet site

Bernard Kerik, Bush's pick to head Homeland Security, just went to jail.  

###
 
Thanks, Max: 
Fewer middle-income families would qualify for tax credits to purchase health insurance, under a little-noticed change to the Senate Finance Committee health bill made just before the markup began in late September.

Under the bill, eligible individuals and families with annual incomes of between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line would receive tax credits to cover the cost of insurance purchased through state exchanges. As part of a package of managers' modifications, Finance Chairman Max Baucus changed the definition of income from "modified adjusted gross income," or AGI plus investment interest, to simply "modified gross income."

That is a departure from the way all other federal tax credits are calculated, and it means when determining eligibility for the credit, the IRS would have to disregard a household's usual above-the-line deductions, such as for individual retirement account contributions and college tuition.

It really is awesome how these guys think- make everything more complicated, save very little, and screw the folks who need the help while mandating they buy insurance. About the only thing missing is mandating they give up their first born. Well played, President Baucus!

There seriously are days I think half the Democrats in the Senate are Republican moles.

###
 
Bill Maher on ridiculous Republicans.
 
###
 
Break up the banks.
 
###
 
"Ten House pages were treated over the weekend for 'flu-like symptoms' in a potential outbreak of swine flu, the House Office of the Clerk announced Monday." Those wretched rugrats, never washing their hands, coughing all over their Play-Do! Well, whichever members of Congress get sick first, we'll know they've been schtupping the pages. The Hill
 
Update: Now we have a weiner! His name is Greg Walden (R-OR) and you can see him growing marijuana, on Twitter. Oops! Twitter, The Hill
 
 
###
 
Oh the spin we are in

The party of Grand Poopbah Lush Limpballs is dwindling in size like their leader's tiny dysfunctional........ well, you know

And, perhaps most troubling for GOP hopes is the fact that just 20 percent of the Post sample identified themselves as Republicans, the lowest that number has been in Post polling since 1983. (No, that is not a typo.)
But wait......predictably this is seen as good news for Rushthuglibots!!

That's not to say that 2009 hasn't been a good year for Republicans. By and large, it has been.

Well, of course it's been. No reason to let silly facts and poll numbers get in the way of a good "liberal" media theme.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
###
 
Your daily dose of batshit crazy

Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, foams at the mouth all over the pages of the Washington Post (or is it on the website only?) about the threat from "secular saboteurs" and the gays and "moral anarchists" and the gays and "sexual libertines" and the gays and Hollywood and the gays and the ACLU and the gays and Democrats and the gays. It must be read to be believed. Last paragraph:
The culture war is up for grabs. The good news is that religious conservatives continue to breed like rabbits, while secular saboteurs have shut down: they're too busy walking their dogs, going to bathhouses and aborting their kids. Time, it seems, is on the side of the angels.
I don't know: every time you walk your dog, an angel dies.