And what's the absolute worst case scenario for Fukushima? Pretty goddam bad. According to one expert, it's possible that the area around the plant could become uninhabitable and that an area "as large as several northeastern states" would be affected. That last estimate would include sea area, obviously.
Missiles away! Obama commits US to third war.
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"In God We Trust" Bill Advances
I've been snarkily repeating the idea that the CBO should score the American military action in Libya -- asking if it's "deficit neutral" and all that. But I'm deadly serious. If Washington can execute an air war in North Africa at the drop of a hat without even mentioning the deficit, or where the money will come from, then we shouldn't have been so frantically and exhaustively scoring the healthcare reform legislation for its fiscal responsibility, etc...
Put another way: How are the Libyan people more important than the health care of the American people?
I understand the "Why We Fight" system, but it doesn't make it any more digestible -- especially coming from this administration, which is prepared to meet the Republicans halfway on their austerity cuts while also leaping into a No Fly Zone situation without even pretending to care about how it will be financed. Of course, double shame on the Republicans who can't wait to screw everyone with massive cuts, while also enthusiastically cheerleading an all out war in Libya.
So I write again: When will the CBO score the No Fly Zone for its impact on the deficit? We deserve to know why Libya is more worthy of deficit spending than is just about every social program in America, including the National Parks, NIH, CDC, Planned Parenthood, WIC, tsunami warning stations, NOAA and all the rest of it.
###Early signs show an unusually big turnout, with lines forming in the hours before polls opened. They snaked along the streets in Cairo and other Egyptian cities, with men and women standing in separate lines as is customary in the conservative and mainly Muslim nation.
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Now it's added an official state firearm -- the John M. Browning-designed M1911 pistol, becoming the first state in the nation to have one, according to the state legislator who sponsored the law.
Utah Gov. Gary Herbert signed the new symbol into law this week.
They tried to tell the people of this state that the teacher-to-administrator ratio in Texas has swelled to nearly 1-to-1 (almost one administrator for each classroom teacher). Here's a link to the PR release of this ridiculous right-wing disinformation.
Many people realize that their jobs are at stake as the Legislature considers $9.8 billion in education budget cuts. So, the snot-nosed, trust-fund-suckled Young Republicans should have realized that somebody was going to check up on their "facts."
None other than the Texas Education Agency did just that. Here's the link to that story.
The Young Piss Ants claimed that the teacher-administrator ratio had gone from about 4-to-1, favoring classroom teachers, in Texas in the 1970s to nearly 1-to-1 now. But TEA data show that the actual ratio is now nearly 13-to-1, weighted to the classroom.
Here's how the Young Rethuglicans explained their data:
Kristy Moore, chairwoman of the federation, said the group's statistic includes all nonteaching staffers -- including superintendents, bus drivers and counselors -- who fill "administrative" roles.
So, janitors and bus drivers are now "administrators?" What about crossing guards?
Here's more from that story:
Among those saying the ratio is misleading is Moak, Casey & Associates, an Austin-based school finance consulting firm. The firm notes that the second-largest group of school employees is auxiliary staff, which can include bus drivers and nurses aides. "I'm not sure why this keeps getting repeated, other than folks trying to beat the drum that schools are overstaffed," said Dan Casey, a partner in the firm.
None of this is shocking, just foolishly predictable. Right-wingers have a nasty habit of "cooking the books" when it comes to their "factual" data.
I recall getting into a strange exchange with some bozo clerking in a cigar store back in the 1990s. He claimed to me that the U.S. had spent "$6 trillion" on welfare in 30 years (since 1965). I told the man that he was misinformed. He went looking for some book, probably by Rush Lardbaugh, to back up his claim. He had a hard time finding the passage -- I think he hadn't actually finished the book and was afraid of losing his place in it. Anyway, I just paid for my smokes and left. The problem with trying to argue with fools is that you may be mistaken for one yourself.
Later, I realized what his bogus "argument" was, because I ran across it again. What his "book" was putting forth was the notion that any and all spending on anything that could be construed as "social welfare spending" at all by the federal government, which would include Social Security and Medicare, would come under the category of "welfare." When I hear someone say "welfare," I think of the specific program called Aid to Families With Dependent Children. He and his "source" were including anything that could be even remotely called "social welfare spending."
The 19th-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill once said something to the effect that, while not all conservatives are stupid people, most stupid people are conservatives. This is how so many common slobs, who have no common interests with the trust-fund babies comprising the Young Republicans, are pathetically demagogued. They read some initial "claim," then don't bother to check the facts in any detail.
What this boils down to is that there are some people who can be believed, and others who can't. The common word for them is liar.
And when they're stupid liars, it seems even worse.
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