Faux News Won’t Tell Their Viewers That A repugican Was Behind IRS Targeting

Faux News is playing editing clips of Rep. Elijah Cummings, and refusing to tell their viewers that a repugican was behind the IRS targeting of tea party groups.
On America’s Newsroom, Bill Hemmer played the last part of Rep. Cummings interview on CNN where he expresses his opinion that the case is solved without showing their viewers why he feels that way. Earlier in the interview, Rep. Cummings said, “Listen up now. He was a 21-year veteran of the IRS. And he was — he described himself in the interviews in response to a repugican attorney’s question as a wingnut repugican. Very significant. He is a wingnut repugican working for the IRS. I think this interview and these statements go a long way to what’s showing that the White House was not involved in this. We knew that — and this is the guy by the way, this wingnut 21-year veteran of IRS is the same one who sent the initial case, the tea party case, up to the Washington technical office.”
Hemmer brought in Stephen Hayes from the Weekly Standard, so that they could engage in three minutes of IRS scandal mongering. Hayes tried to invalidate the evidence that a repugican started the review of wingnut groups. Hayes said, “This one person that Congressman Cummings suggests as somebody who tells a little bit of a different story. Now, that person’s story is interesting too. I mean it’s worth hearing all of these things, but to take that one account that suggests that this is not that big of a deal, and declare the entire episode over is somebody who’s looking first to solve the political problems, and not interested in the substantive questions…What Cummings is doing is trying to take one answer from one individual, and declare the whole thing over.”
Hayes then predicted that Rep. Cummings’ remarks will look like a pathetic attempt to deflect political concerns.
What is really pathetic is the obvious spin that Faux News is trying to put on this. Faux News has played the edited Cummings clip repeatedly, but they won’t tell their audience that the person who made this statements that Rep. Cummings is referring to is a repugican. That little piece of information is critical to the story. Since it was a repugican who first raised the red flag and started the targeting process, the wingnut claim that this was a partisan operation run from the White House is completely discredited.
If this is just “one person’s account,” why won’t Faux News give their viewers the specifics of the conservative IRS employee’s claims?
Faux is refusing to their viewers the truth. This is why Faux News isn’t news, and it is certainly not journalism. It is a propaganda network that is intentionally leaving out facts.

The repugican Deficit Hawks Go Silent After S&P Upgrades America’s Credit Outlook

Remember back when every wingnut ran to their mother hen media outlet, Faux News to attack President Obama and progressives when the United States’ credit rating was downgraded. Well, S  P (Standard and Poor’s) issued their latest outlook for America and stated they are upgrading America’s credit outlook from negative to stable. So where are the wingnuts applauding this? Nowhere! You would think that being the patriotic politicians and people they are they would view this would be great news for our country.
According to the report by Reuters,

Standard & Poor’s on Monday revised its credit outlook on the United States government to stable from negative, citing Congress’s avoidance of the year-end 2012 “fiscal cliff” and the higher-than-expected tax receipts that followed.
Additionally, the ratings agency, the only one to have cut the United States from the coveted AAA status, said it does not expect the debate later in 2013 regarding a raising of the debt ceiling to result in “a sudden unplanned contraction in current spending – which could be disruptive – let along debt service.”

The latter part of the paragraph above regarding contraction of spending is particularly interesting, and may be why wingnuts don’t want to talk about this news. S&P doesn’t want austerity spending contraction because it would have a negative effect of the economy which is steadily growing and in turn increasing tax revenue.
America’s deficit has been steadily declining, the treasury is reporting multiple months of surpluses this year already because the economy is substantially stronger, more people are working, and taxes on income above 400,000 dollars are up.
The bottom line is this disrupts the wingnut narrative about out of control spending that repugicans used as the reason for the downgrade in the first place.

Delaware Becomes the 15th State to Reject Citizens United

A bipartisan majority of the Delaware state legislature has come together to call on Congress to overturn Citizens United. Delaware is the 15th state to reject Citizens United.
The bipartisan letter sent to Democrats Sens. Tom Carper, Chris Coons and Rep. John Carney read in part, “There is no more critical foundation to our government than citizens’ confidence in fair and free elections. The Citizens United decision directly undermines this confidence, and was issued in the absence of any evidence or searching inquiry to refute the fair assumption that unbridled and opaque spending in politics harms American democracy. … The United States of America’s elections should not be permitted to go to the highest bidder, and yet this is the risk that rises from the ashes of the Citizens United decision.”
Delaware joined Maine, West Virginia and Illinois to become the fourth state in the last two months to reject Citizens United. Connecticut, Maryland, Colorado, Montana, California, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, Rhode Island, and Vermont have also rejected Citizens United.
The movement to overturn Citizens United has been championed at the federal level by Sen. Bernie Sanders, but real change has to start in the states. After a majority of states reject Citizens United, the pressure will be on the federal government to act.
It took one Supreme Court decision to open the doors to the theft of our representation through dark money, but it will take years to reverse the damage that is being done. This is why it is important for citizens in every state to demand that their legislature reject Citizens United. Sign the petition supporting Sen. Sanders’ Saving American Democracy Amendment. Most of all, people need to make their voices heard. The only way that our government will ever return to listening to the will of the people is if we get the special interest money out of their ears.
Red states are joining with blue states, because this isn’t about partisan politics. It’s about creating a government that works for the people, not the highest special interest dollar.

America’s Wealth-Making Machine Is Upside Down

By BRUCE BARTLETT

Many well-meaning people mistakenly believe that the ultra-wealthy are the source of American prosperity. They do the saving and investment that creates jobs; they are the entrepreneurs who start new businesses and implement economic innovations; and the well-being of everyone in the working and middle classes is ultimately dependent on the health and prosperity of the ultra-rich, it is widely thought.

This belief is largely bipartisan, although obviously more widely shared among repugicans. Since at least the Clinton administration, Democrats have also worked to implement wealth-friendly policies, often called the “neoliberal consensus,” such as free trade, low taxes on capital income, low inflation and deficit reduction.
The fact that repugicans want these things even more should not obscure the fact that both parties generally share the same economic philosophy, differing only in degree. Thus, despite high unemployment, the federal government has done virtually nothing to create jobs; despite the obvious failure of “austerity” programs in Europe, both parties believe that deficit reduction is the principal fiscal priority; and the obsession with minuscule levels of inflation continues to constrain Federal Reserve policy.
There are, however, a few creative thinkers out there saying that our national priorities are all wrong and that the basic premise of where growth comes from is upside down. One of these is Nick Hanauer, an entrepreneur from Seattle, Washington, who argues that strengthening the middle class is the key to wealth creation. And the key to middle class prosperity is good-paying jobs.
In testimony before the Senate Banking Committee on June 6, Mr. Hanauer argued that consumption is what drives investment, not the other way around.
But consumption is constrained by the continuing impoverishment of the middle class due to wage stagnation and high unemployment, which has reduced labor’s share of the income pie drastically over the last 13 years, as illustrated in the chart.

Hanauer makes a simple and obvious point, but one with profound implications for policy. If growth is essentially demand-driven, the wealthy cannot be the drivers of growth because they simply don’t consume enough and raise their spending very little in response to increases in income. How could they? The number of rich people is small and they can already afford whatever they want.

It’s not only the income of the middle class that is ultimately essential for growth. It’s the wealth of that class, which has been decimated by the fall in home prices and increasing indebtedness, as middle class families struggle to maintain living standards, put their children through college and cope with downward income mobility.
A recent report from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis says that the median household has only regained about half the wealth it lost during the recession from recently-rising stock market and home prices. (New data just released yesterday shows further improvement in rebuilding wealth from the recession.)
It’s easy to say that middle class families shouldn’t have locked so much of their wealth into a single asset, housing, that is a highly fickle investment, regularly rising spectacularly and then crashing just as spectacularly. One can also fault the middle class for investing insufficiently in stocks and continuing to stand by the sidelines as stock prices have risen.
The real question is what can be done now, given the straights that middle class families have fallen into. Simply cutting taxes, the repugican one-size-fits-all solution to every problem, isn’t viable as long as both parties insist that deficit reduction is the first priority of fiscal policy. Also, there is zero evidence that the tax cuts of the shrub junta did anything to stimulate growth.
Progressives believe that the decline of labor unions is a key. Unions now represent just 6.6 percent of private sector workers, down from more than 20 percent in the 1970s. Unions used to be able to raise wages and improve benefits in the continuing competition between capital and labor.

But unions declined because of deep economic forces, such as globalization and the shift from manufacturing to services. That will not be reversed by making it easier for workers to organize. The proof is that unions have declined just as much in countries with much stronger protection for unions than the U.S. has.
Mr. Hanauer believes that the rich should pay more taxes. He believes that if all rich people had to pay more it would have little if any economic effect because rich people are motivated more by status and their relative positions in society vis-à-vis other rich people than by the absolute level of their wealth or income. If they all took the same tax hit, their relative position would be unchanged and there would be no economic harm, Hanauer believes.
But unless the higher revenues from taxing the wealthy are somehow channeled into spending programs that benefit the middle class, it is hard to see this move as more than a half step toward middle class-driven, consumption-driven growth.
Mr. Hanauer favors a big increase in the minimum wage to improve the income of the middle class. He thinks the higher incomes of those who get higher wages will raise spending and, ultimately, economic growth and profits for businesses. But unless businesses can raise their prices to pay for a higher minimum wage, I don’t see how this can possibly work. And unless the Federal Reserve permits inflation to rise, it simply won’t happen. The result will be higher unemployment, not faster growth.
The important thing, at this point, is to have at least a dialogue on creative solutions to the nation’s core problem – the continuing impoverishment of the middle class due to high unemployment, wage stagnation, rising health costs, and the collapse of housing prices.
It should be obvious by now that further governmental austerity measures will only make matters worse, but there appears to be no support for an expansionary fiscal policy, a federal jobs program, or a more stimulative monetary policy. Sadly, this means there is no end in sight to middle class malaise, which means that economic growth likely will be stuck where it is for the foreseeable future.

Random Celebrity Photos

Ava Gardner stuns at the beach

Sober Man Arrested for DUI

The city of Surprise, Arizona, has an unwelcome surprise for 64-year-old retired firefighter Jessie Thornton: its police officers can tell whether a person is drunk simply by looking in his eyes, breathalyzer test be damned!
Christopher Sign of ABC15 has the scoop:

"He (the officer) walked up and he said 'I can tell you're driving DUI by looking in your eyes,'" said Thornton. [...]

According to documents provided to ABC15 from the City of Surprise, Thornton was taken to police headquarters where he took a breathalyzer test.
The test, according to the police documents came back with a blood alcohol level of 0.000.
"Yes, I do the breathalyzer and it comes back zero, zero, zero," said Thornton.
While in custody, a "DRE" or drug recognition expert is called to test Thornton.
"After he did all the tests, he says, 'I would never have arrested you, you show no signs of impairment,'" said Thornton.

More

Woman bitten by daughter during fried chicken fracas

An 18-year-old woman was arrested after reportedly biting her mother during a domestic dispute in Bethlehem, Barrow County, Georgia. Deputies arrived at the residence and found a "visibly upset" woman in the carport.

The woman, according to the incident report, had a "severe bite wound" on her shoulder that was bleeding. The bitten woman said she was trying to determine who had eaten some fried chicken. The woman explained that when she tried to ask her daughter, Laura Wun Ngai Fong, about the chicken, Fong turned up the music and ignored her.

The woman said she yelled for Fong to turn the music down, but Fong continued to ignore her. At that point, the woman "went close to her daughter to yell at her about the music and the chicken." Fong, according to the report, then grabbed a dumbbell and threatened to hit her mother with it. A physical altercation ensued during which Fong allegedly bit her mother on the shoulder. Another daughter separated the two until authorities arrived.

Based on statements from the parties involved and witness accounts, the deputy determined Fong was the primary aggressor for having picked up the dumbbell and turning a verbal argument into a physical confrontation. Fong was placed under arrest on charges of family violence aggravated assault and family violence battery.

How to Earn $333,000 Without Working a Day

No, it's not a get-rich-quick scam. It's quite real.
Apparently the secret to a lucrative payoff is to work as a public employee for the Bay Area Rapid Transit, the San Francisco bay area's rapid transit sytem:

With a gross salary of more than $333,000, BART's highest-paid employee last year wasn't its general manager, police chief or a worker who racked up gobs of overtime scrubbing grime from filthy train seats.
It was someone who did no work at all for BART in 2012: Dorothy Dugger, the agency's former general manager who resigned under pressure more than two years ago.
Under a lucrative retirement scheme, Dugger, 57, quietly stayed on the books, burning off nearly 80 weeks of unused vacation time, drawing paychecks and full benefits for more than 19 months after she agreed to quit in May 2011, according to an analysis by this newspaper. By remaining on BART's payroll, she accrued almost two extra months of vacation, while sitting at home drawing a six-figure salary for unused time off.

Thomas Peele and Daniel J. Willis of Bay Area News Group reports in this Mercury News article: Here.

Twelve Amazing Earth Scars

Our planet is covered in pockmarks so deep that they can be seen from space. Some were caused by asteroid strikes, but most are the result of human meddling. Here are some of the most incredible examples of the scarred Earth.

Daily Comic Relief

The case for flowers on the farm

South African mango farms that added patches of native, flowering plants not only attracted more pollinators than traditional, monoculture mango farms — they also produced more mangoes.

Deer get themselves in a bit of a pickle

Well, this deer found by the side No Name Road in the Port Pine Heights, Florida Keys, is breathing more easily after a police officer removed a Doritos bag from its head.

While this deer, which had had a plastic jar stuck on its head for at least four days, was saved by Janet Murphy in Hermantown, Minnesota.

How to Make Apple Roses

To make these cute snacks from Kouzino Mageieremata, core apples and slice them thinly. Boil the apple slices to make them soft. Then place layers of puff pastry in the bottoms of muffin cups and arrange the soft apple slices on the pastry dough like rose petals. After you add sugar and spices and bake them, you'll have an eye-catching and mouth-watering treat.

More

Blood Is Their Argument: anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon

I majored in anthropology in college, I was fascinated by the work of Napoleon A. Chagnon and his seminal 1968 text Yanomamo: The Fierce People. Chagnon's time as a field scientist in the Amazon had a profound impact on the field of anthropology even as his methods (and misunderstandings of his methods) resulted in an academic war on his research and his character. To further explore Chagnon's legacy, and what he really found in the rainforest, BB pal John Brockman of EDGE convened a meeting between Chagnon and big thinkers Steven Pinker, Richard Wrangham, Daniel C. Dennett, and David Haig. The result is 30,00 words of conversation and hours of video that John says is "one of the most significant events in (Edge's) sixteen year history." From an intro to the materials by Richard Dawkins:

Chagnon committed the unforgivable sin, cardinal heresy in the eyes of a certain kind of social scientist: he took Darwin seriously. Along with a few friends and colleagues, Chagnon studied the up-to-date literature on natural selection theory, and with brilliant success he applied the ideas of Fisher, Hamilton, Trivers and other heirs of Darwin to a human tribe which probably ran as close to the cutting edge of natural selection as any in the world. It is sobering to reflect on how unconventional a step this was: science bursting into the quasi-literary world of the anthropology in which the young Chagnon was trained. Still today, in many American departments of social science, for a young researcher to announce a serious interest in Darwin's dangerous idea--even an inclination towards scientific thinking at all--can come close to career suicide.

Napolean Chagnon: Blood Is Their Argument

What Your Doughnut Selection Says About You

You already know what your morning eggs say about you, but what about your choice of donut?  As a jelly-filled donut fan, I find the description pretty accurate because I am a big softie, especially when it comes to kitten videos. Do these descriptions fit you?

More

Grandma's Experiences Leave a Mark on Your Genes

Your ancestors' lousy childhoods or excellent adventures might change your personality, bequeathing anxiety or resilience by altering the epigenetic expressions of genes in the brain.

Darwin and Freud walk into a bar. Two alcoholic mice — a mother and her son — sit on two bar stools, lapping gin from two thimbles.

The mother mouse looks up and says, “Hey, geniuses, tell me how my son got into this sorry state.”

“Bad inheritance,” says Darwin.

“Bad mothering,” says Freud.

More

Lost Egyptian City Found Underwater

The ancient Egyptian city of Heracleion disappeared beneath the Mediterranean 1,200 years ago. Founded around 8th century BC, it is believed Heracleion served as the obligatory port of entry to Egypt for all ships coming from the Greek world.

Prior to its discovery in 2000 by archaeologist Franck Goddio and the European Institute for Underwater Archaeology, no trace of Thonis-Heracleion had been found (the city was known to the Greeks as Thonis). Its name was almost razed from the memory of mankind, only preserved in ancient classic texts and rare inscriptions found on land by archaeologists.

Prehistoric henge unearthed in Kent

An “incredible” prehistoric henge has been unearthed during an archeological dig in Sittingbourne. The Bronze Age find at the Meads in Sonora Fields is the first of its kind to be confirmed and excavated in Swale.

An aerial view of the site [Credit: Canterbury Archaeological Trust]

Experts said the Neolithic monument “would have been a significant feature on the landscape”, and its discovery centuries later at the centre of a busy housing estate could turn into a future mecca for historians.

Dr John Hammond, a specialist in prehistory at Canterbury Archeological Trust, which carried out the work, said: “This is an incredibly important site. It’s the second confirmed henge monument to be found in Kent [the first was in Ringlemere near Sandwich] and dates back to the period of Stone Henge. It’s incredibly exciting and we look forward to finding out more about how our ancestors lived 5,000 years ago. At the moment it’s a site of regional importance, but in two years’ time we could be talking about one of national importance.”

The trust began investigating the site - part of Meads housing estate - last November.

It was organised ahead of a proposed housing development by Abbey New Homes and followed a dig in 2008 at a neighbouring site which uncovered an Anglo-Saxon cemetery as well as Neolithic, Bronze Age burials.

A horse's skeleton was among the finds [Credit: Canterbury Archaeological Trust]

During the latest exploration, archaeologists realised they were dealing with a henge when two circles of identical post-holes were revealed inside the large outer ditch. Finds included broken pottery, flint implements, a piece of unworked amber, a human cremation in an urn and the remains of a crouched human burial, where the body is laid on its side.

A group of four Anglo-Saxon graves were also discovered. These were thought to be “outliers” from the cemetery found during the 2008 dig. The graves contained a few personal items but the bodies they were buried with did not survive.

Dr Hammond, who also teaches archaeology at the University of Kent, said: “As our research continues, we hope to be able to build up a good picture of life in the Murston and Iwade areas during the early Bronze Age, which at this time is something we only have a very limited understanding about.

“To find a monument of this kind is very rare.”

For more information, visit the Canterbury Archaeological Trust's website

More rare ancient finds uncovered in Fukuoka

Lacquered bows and farm tools from at least 14 centuries ago were uncovered in a site here that amazed archaeology buffs earlier this spring with the discovery of a complete set of trappings and ornaments from a war horse.

The excavation site where bows and other ornaments were discovered in Koga,
Fukuoka Prefecture

Koga municipal board of education officials said June 7 it is extremely rare for so many items to be buried close to a burial mound.

The latest discoveries, in the Taniyama district, are so well preserved that scholars can determine the shape of the bows, as well as how metal ornaments were attached.

The findings will likely help researchers in determining what rituals were involved in selecting burial accessories.

The bows were uncovered at a site about 5 meters from the Funabaru burial mound, which dates to the late sixth century to early seventh century. The lacquered bows were between 2.2 to 2.3 meters long. At least six bows were discovered buried in a row in the northern part of the site.

Metal ornaments used on the bows were also found at equal distances to each other. Parts attached to the tips of the bows to tie the bowstring were also found. The parts were made of metal and antlers.

It is apparently the first time that so many bows have been found in a single location during excavations of sites from the "burial mounds age," which ran from the third through seventh centuries. The set will likely exceed the bows found at the Doboyama burial mound in Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture.

Several dozen arrowhead were also found together in the southern part of the site. Among the farm tools found were a spade head and sickle made from iron.

Researchers also confirmed that there were at least four sets of horse armor at the site, which extended for about 5.3 meters in a north-south direction. A short extension was found at a right angle to the southern part of the site, forming a reverse L-shape.

First evidence that the genome can adapt to temperature changes

The researchers have been tracking the evolution of Drosophila subobscura, a small fly that is very common all over Europe, since 1976. They are focusing on a specific type of genomic variability known as chromosomal inversion polymorphism. The study has compared how the flies' genomes change from spring to summer, summer to autumn and autumn to spring, over the years.

According to the research, the gene patterns of Drosophila subobscura, a common fruit fly, are changing so as to adapt to climate change

In pre-2011 studies of one of D. subobscura's five chromosome pairs, performed in a population near the town of Santiago de Compostela, the researchers observed that this type of adaptation is related to changes in environmental temperature. Two types of genetic variation were identified: one that adapts to the cold, since its frequency always increases in winter, and another that adapts to heat, showing the opposite behaviour pattern. The relative frequency of both types of variation was seen to have evolved in consonance with climate changes. Present-day flies present more heat-tolerant varieties than those of the 70s.

In April, 2011, monitoring coincided with the intense heatwave that struck western Europe and other parts of the world. The study was widened to cover not only the original chromosome pair but all the species' five chromosome pairs, and fly samples were collected from another population, in Gordexola, near Bilbao. The conclusions could therefore be extrapolated on a genome-wide scale and on a geographical scale, to the northern third of Spain.

In an article in the journal Biology Letters, of the British Royal Society, the researchers show that the 2011 heatwave dramatically altered the genetic constitution of natural populations of Drosophila subobscura. In the middle of spring, and over a single generation, the populations acquired a genetic constitution typical of the summer, because of the heatwave.

According to the study's findings, the difference in reproductive success between genotypes that were sensitive to the heatwave and those that were resistant to it was extremely high: during the heatwave, flies carrying genomic variants tolerant to the temperature increase left on average five times more descendents than those with variants that were sensitive to these changes.

It was also observed that, after the heatwave, the populations recovered their previous genetic make-up. This shows that some organisms possess high genetic resilience to this type of environmental disturbance.

"Our results indicate that resistance to heat has a genetic origin. However, we are not suggesting there is a gene for cold or a gene for heat, but rather that genetic factors for heat resistance are distributed throughout the genome, in these organisms at least," points out Francisco Rodriguez-Trelles, the UAB researcher who coordinated the study. "Our findings are substantial proof that the rise in temperature is affecting the evolution of certain species."

Also taking part in the study were Rosa Tarrío and Mauro Santos, researchers from the Evolutionary Biology Group of the Department of Genetics and Microbiology at the UAB.

Extinct species revival raises hopes, fears

 The world’s last passenger pigeons perished a century ago. But a Santa Cruz, Calif.-based research project could send them flocking into the skies again, using genetic engineering to restore the once-abundant species and chart a revival for other long-gone creatures.

Taxidermied specimen, Bird Gallery, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

The promise and peril of “resurrection biology” — which could bring back other long-gone species such as the woolly mammoth and Tasmanian tiger but runs the risk of undermining conservation efforts — was the topic for experts who gathered this weekend at Stanford University’s Center for Law and the Biosciences.

“The grand goal is to bring the passenger pigeon back to life,” said researcher Ben Novak of Revive and Restore, supported by entrepreneur Stewart Brand’s Long Now Foundation of San Francisco and conducted at the University of California at Santa Cruz. “We’re at the baby step of stage one.”

After studying old and damaged gene fragments of 70 dead passenger pigeons in the lab of UCSC professor Beth Shapiro, the team will assemble — in computers — the genetic code of the bird once hunted to extinction. They hope to complete that within a year.

Within two years, they plan to synthesize the actual DNA code, using commercially available nucleotides. This material will be inserted into the embryo of the passenger pigeon’s closest living relative, a bandtailed pigeon.

Passenger pigeons once numbered in the billions, blackening the skies and inspiring naturalists like John James Audubon, John Muir and Aldo Leopold. They had vanished by the First World War, victims of hunting and habitat loss.

But resurrected flocks reintroduced into a modern environment could be an invasive species, noted Andrew Torrance of the University of Kansas Law School. They also would be genetically modified organisms, subject to federal regulation. “This could make reintroduction a challenge, under current law,” said Alex Camacho, director of UC Irvine’s Center for Land, Environment and Natural Resources. “The Endangered Species Act did not contemplate revival of extinct species.”

Some conservationists say bringing back lost species will distract from conservation of living species in danger of extinction.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

What he said ...

Carolina Naturally is read in 192 countries around the world daily.

Shuckin' Time! ...

Today is Corn On The Cob Day 

Don't forget to visit our sister blog!

Today in History

1346   Charles IV of Luxembourg is elected Holy Roman Emperor.  
1509   Henry VIII of England marries Catherine of Aragon. 1770   Captain James Cook runs aground on the Great Barrier Reef.  
1798   Napoleon Bonaparte takes the island of Malta.  
1861   Union forces under General George B. McClellen repulse a Confederate force at Rich Mountain in western Virginia.  
1865   Major General Henry W. Halleck finds documents and archives of the Confederate government in Richmond, Virginia. This discovery will lead to the publication of the official war records.  
1895   Charles E. Duryea receives the first U.S. patent granted to an American inventor for a gasoline-driven automobile.  
1903   King Alexander and Queen Draga of Belgrade are assassinated by members of the Serbia army. 1915   British troops take Cameroon in Africa.  
1930   William Beebe, of the New York Zoological Society, dives to a record-setting depth of 1,426 feet off the coast of Bermuda, in a diving chamber called a bathysphere.  
1934   The Disarmament Conference in Geneva ends in failure.  
1940   The Italian Air Force bombs the British fortress at Malta in the Mediterranean.  
1943   The Italian island of Pantelleria surrenders after a heavy air bombardment.  
1944   U.S. carrier-based planes attack Japanese airfields on Guam , Rota, Saipan and Tinian islands, preparing for the invasion of Saipan.  
1963   Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is arrested in Florida for trying to integrate restaurants.  
1967   Israel and Syria accept a U. N. cease-fire.  
1987   Margaret Thatcher wins her third consecutive term as Prime Minister. 

Non Sequitur

Chewbacca vs TSA

It's not wise to upset a wookiee, as the TSA learned the hard way.
Peter Mayhew, the actor who played Chewbacca in Star Wars, was upset that the TSA detained his lightsaber-shaped cane while traveling after attending Denver Comic Con. But instead of using the Force, Mayhew used something even more effective: Twitter.

The 69-year-old actor tweeted about the incident through his account @TheWookieRoars, posting the picture you see above.
"Won't allow me through the airport with me cane!" he said. "Giant man need giant cane. Small cane snap like toothpick. Besides, my lightsaber is just cool. I'd miss it."

More

Did you know ...

That Monsanto concedes defeat to Europe's opposition to GMO

That immigrants put more into the health care system than they take out, study finds

About attacking the social safety net

Aboutt the world's oldest torah found in Italy

Colonoscopy, A Justification For Obamacare But Single Payer Is Still Best

Last week I read the New York Times article “The $2.7 Trillion Medical Bill” by Elisabeth Rosenthal. The article started with the following chart.

Suffice it to say that anyone reading the above chart should be appalled. The chart above shows that Americans are paying much more for the same procedures, at times by several orders of magnitude higher. Sadly within the US, pricing from one hospital to the next can have even larger variations.
A Colonoscopy is a case in point. It is a perfect illustration of what is wrong with the American form of administering healthcare. First let me relay a short form of my personal story.
As a small business owner I purchased health insurance for the family after my wife stopped working. She stopped while pregnant with my 22 year old daughter. I have had continuous health insurance for the family for those 22 years through an engineer’s group plan. After the cost reached near $20,000 per year a few years back, I bailed into a catastrophic health plan for my daughter and me, and a high risk plan for my wife (she has Lupus and could not be insured otherwise). When my daughter started college, I added the college’s health insurance policy for my daughter. Yes, I have three policies.
In those 22 years I have never had a colonoscopy for screening. I knew it was time but since no one in my family that I knew had colon cancer, I figured it was a calculated risk. Because under the old health insurance paradigm, I knew if I had polyps, health insurance going forward could be rescinded or denied in the future. With the advent of Obamacare (Affordable Care Act), those fears were no longer there.
First, the cost of the colonoscopy was covered by my insurance policy, and no matter what was found, I would still maintain my policy and going forward I could still shop for any other policy like anyone else. Suffice it to say, two polyps were removed and it was the type that over the years could have turned cancerous. I think it is safe to say Obamacare saved me at least money and maybe my life.
Decisions like mine are made by millions of Americans every year because of a failed healthcare system. The major culprit is treating the entire healthcare system like a market where goods and services are traded and priced based on supply and demand. That has been one of the most immoral practices of our country. If one doubts this the following excerpt from the above mentioned article is probative.

Colonoscopies offer a compelling case study. They are the most expensive screening test that healthy Americans routinely undergo — and often cost more than childbirth or an appendectomy in most other developed countries. Their numbers have increased many fold over the last 15 years, with data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggesting that more than 10 million people get them each year, adding up to more than $10 billion in annual costs.
Largely an office procedure when widespread screening was first recommended, colonoscopies have moved into surgery centers — which were created as a step down from costly hospital care but are now often a lucrative step up from doctors’ examining rooms — where they are billed like a quasi-operation. They are often prescribed and performed more frequently than medical just guidelines recommend.
The high price paid for colonoscopies mostly results not from top-notch patient care, according to interviews with health care experts and economists, but from business plans seeking to maximize revenue; haggling between hospitals and insurers that have no relation to the actual costs of performing the procedure; and lobbying, marketing and turf battles among specialists that increase patient fees. [source].

The same colonoscopy procedures can range from just over $1,000.00 to over $9,000.00 dollars. If you are self-employed with no insurance you pay the higher rate. If you have the muscle of an insurance group you may pay much less. If you have the muscle of ‘we the people’, your government, you would pay a price where theoretically gouging would not be allowed.
Markets are good in some areas and immoral in others. The identity of a nation should be defined by the education, upward mobility, and health of its citizens. The acceleration towards privatization is increasingly putting the vast majority of the nation on the losing side of all three. It is reflected in citizens’ aggregate education slippage relative to the rest of the world, diminished upward mobility, and aggregate poor healthcare outcomes.
Obamacare is a fair compromise in a misinformed country where socialized medicine is still a feared and bad word. A single payer system with cost controls is best. Notwithstanding all countries with better health outcome that follow that sensible model, Americans will eventually be forced to grow up. Americans will be forced to disregard the misinformation from the American Plutocracy that profits from their ignorance.

The truth be told

Darrell Issa Won’t Release IRS Transcripts Because They Prove Him Wrong

Darrell Issa (r-CA) is going to ignore facts once again, and forge ahead, even though he was called out Sunday by Representative Elijah Cummings (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
Cummings released a partial official interview transcript to Candy Crowley on CNN’s State of the Union Sunday, and it was revealed that the IRS manager behind the extra review of Tea Party groups described himself as a wingnut repugican during the interviews.
This fact kills Darrell Issa’s entire premise that there was a political agenda behind the reviews. But Issa said in a statement released to the press that the IRS manager’s comments “did not provide anything enlightening or contradict other witness accounts.” No? They sure contradict Issa’s accounts to the press.
Issa’s office released a statement in which Issa danced quickly to avoid commenting on the actual fact that a wingnut repugican was behind the “targeting”, “I strongly disagree with Ranking Member Cummings’ assertion that we know everything we need to know about inappropriate targeting of tea party groups by the IRS and the case is, in his word, ‘solved,’. His extreme and reckless assertions are a signal that his true motivation is stopping needed Congressional oversight and he has no genuine interest in working, on a bipartisan basis, to expose the full truth.
“The American public wants to know why targeting occurred and who was involved. The testimony excerpts Ranking Member Cummings revealed today did not provide anything enlightening or contradict other witness accounts. The only thing Ranking Member Cummings left clear in his comments today is that if it were up to him the investigation would be closed. Fortunately, the decision to close the investigation is not his to make. Both House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp and I are committed to leading a fact based investigation that fully exposes all relevant facts about IRS efforts to target Americans for their political beliefs.”
Issa does not say that the IRS manager is not a wingnut repugican.
Darrell Issa is great at spin, but here’s the thing. If he really is committed to exposing all of the facts, why doesn’t he release the full transcripts for the public? This is very similar to his insistence that testimony that contradicted the repugican version of Benghazi gate be relegated to behind closed doors, when the cameras were no longer rolling.
Cummings demanded that Darrell Issa release all of the transcripts from the IRS hearings, and was so confident that the full transcripts would prove his point that he threatened to release them himself if Issa won’t by the end of this week.
Cummings got to the bottom of Issa’s giant fib on Sunday:

Cummings: Listen up now. He was a 21-year veteran of the IRS. And he was — he described himself in the interviews in response to a repugican attorney’s question as a wingnut repugican. Very significant. He is a wingnut repugican working for the IRS. I think this interview and these statements go a long way to what’s showing that the White House was not involved in this. We knew that — and this is the guy by the way, this wingnut 21-year veteran of IRS is the same one who sent the initial case, the Tea Party case, up to the Washington technical office.

Darrell Issa should be forced to release the full transcripts, instead of only the pieces that reinforce his Heritage-induced 2014 politicking for the repugican cabal on our dime. If the manager did not identify himself as a wingnut repugican, let us all hear the truth.
Let the public decide for themselves, based on all of the facts. But if it turns out that Issa knew he was wrong when he accused the White House of being behind the IRS review of tea party groups, perhaps the press might consider no longer taking Darrell Issa’s clown show so seriously. It’s not as if he has any credibility to carry him through his inability to back up his claims.
Darrell Issa won’t release the full transcripts because they prove him wrong. If they had an ounce of White House scandal in them, they’d have been gussied up, exaggerated, sold and devoured by the Issa-fawning press by now. Issa just can’t bear to see yet another scandal die due to reality not coinciding with his claims.

When Fascism Comes to America, It Will Be Cloaked In Patriotism

There is a quote (often misattributed to Sinclair Lewis) that states, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.” While the actual quote seems to be a condensed meme of a collection of prognostications from the 1930′s as Hitler came to power, it is very true of where  we find ourselves headed in the 21st century here in the United States.
The word “fascist” is thrown around a lot these days and it’s usually by people who have no clue what it really means. They bleat about “Big Brother” and an authoritarian government, even as they ironically vote for the politicians who support the very same things. Even though we won the war against fascism in Germany, it seems as if we brought that back with us like a parasite that would lay dormant for a few decades.
In a nutshell, fascism is basically an authoritarian government for corporations, by corporations. Extreme nationalism, the loss of individual liberties, and collectivism that benefits corporations rather than people. Basically, corporate protection and welfare. This is where the dollar is placed above the individual, where human beings are just cogs in the wheel. Have you ever heard your boss say “you’re an asset to the company”? That’s it, you are an asset just like the office printer — and just like that printer, you’ll be thrown away once your usefulness has run its course.
Working class people have been voting against their own self-interests for a long time now, especially here in the South since the beginning of Nixon’s “Southern Strategy.” They’ve been convinced that minorities and liberals will take their rights and jobs away, so they turn around and vote for the people who actually do take their rights and jobs away.
Fascism draws strength through the public’s need for patriotism and religion, hence the flag and cross reference in the misattributed Sinclair Lewis quote. Wrapped in a flag and carrying a cross, many of us have been duped by “patriotic” legislation like “Right To Work,” “Citizens United” and ”The Patriot Act” which has received a lot of attention lately with the NSA leak.
We see it everywhere when politicians try to peddle their snake oil — they just wrap it in the flag and give it a pretty name designed to lull the public into buying it. Just look at Bush’s “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” Or look through some of the details of Paul Ryan’s “Path to Prosperity” budget, which would have cut billions from social safety net programs in favor of tax cuts for millionaires, while adding a trillion dollars to the deficit by 2023. But it’s the “Path to Prosperity,” so it must be good for us, right?
It’s the “Patriot Act,” and I’m a patriot — it must be good for me!
It’s the “Right To Work,” and I want to work — it must be good for me!
It’s “Citizens United” and I want unity among my fellow patriots — it must be good for me!
Patriotism! Freedom! Prosperity for all!
Fascism depends on a “my country, right or wrong” mentality. It thrives on a twisted version of the words of a Jewish rebel 2 millenniums ago. Finally, fascism relies on the very people it suppresses to continue to support it and to be the storm troopers in the fight for the “Evil Empire” of corporate interests. As long as a good portion of the country continues to let the wool be pulled over their eyes, this strategy isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face — forever.” – 1984

The truth hurts

Bernie Sanders Proposes Youth Jobs Act That Would Create Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs

Sen. Bernie Sanders announced today that he will be proposing a youth jobs bill in the Senate that will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs for the nation’s young unemployed.
In a statement Sen. Sanders said, “At a time when the youth unemployment rate is over 16 percent, and the teen unemployment rate is over 24 percent, we have got to do everything we can to make sure that young Americans have the jobs they need to pay for a college education and to move up the economic ladder.”
Sanders’ bill is modeled after the stimulus, and President Obama’s American Jobs Act. The Youth Jobs Act would provide $3 billion to create hundreds of thousands of jobs for the country’s low income and economically disadvantaged young people. The legislation would also provide skills and job training. The Department of Labor would provide $1.5 billion in grants to states to provide job opportunities. States could also use the money to identify employment opportunities in emerging occupations, or occupations that will help their own communities through the public or non-profit sector. Another $1.5 billion in grants would be given to state and local communities to provide job training and apprenticeship programs. All states would receive a minimum of $15 million for summer and year round jobs. The rest of the funding would be used to target areas of high youth unemployment and poverty.
By making the program a grant instead of a mandate, Sen. Sanders’ plan should appeal to some red states, because they can use the funding as they wish to create programs that will lower youth unemployment. The problem will be the wingnut extremists in the Senate who will do their best to kill the legislation with claims that the nation can’t afford it. (The same repugicans who killed a jobs program for veterans that was already paid for will likely oppose the Youth Jobs Act for the exact same reason.)
Unlike the repugican plan of growing the economy through tax cuts, Sen. Sanders’ plan is based on things that have been proven to work. Sanders isn’t giving unemployed young people a government job, or a check. He is handing the states the resources that they need to innovate and create new opportunities for the future.
His plan is a great idea, but repugicans have made killing great ideas their top priority.
Congressional repugicans don’t want to do anything to help the economy, and the people suffering through it. Any program that would create jobs is viewed through the partisan prism of giving President Obama a victory, and Obama success is something that repugicans have sworn to block at every turn. Sen. Sanders has given Democrats and the left something to fight for. A weapon to use against the mindless automated obstruction championed by the repugican cabal.
Bernie Sanders is providing a ray of hope that there are still people in Washington who want to do the right thing for us. Sen. Sanders is fighting for the nation’s tomorrow. He is giving a voice to our hope for the future, and battling those who rejoice in the economic darkness of the recent past.

The Wealthy Aren’t Job Creators, Middle-Class Workers Are

Nick Hanauer

On Thursday, entrepreneur and self-described one percenter Nick Hanauer warned Congress that rich people like him aren’t the engines of the economy. In a testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, he explained why, in fact, middle-class workers are the economy’s real job creators:

In the same way that it’s a fact that the sun, not earth is the center of the solar system, it’s also a fact that the middle class, not rich business people like me are the center of America’s economy. […]
As an entrepreneur and investor, I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all would have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated.

He described what he calls a “virtuous cycle” in which middle class consumers have money to buy goods, which increases demand and therefore hiring. The rich, on the other hand, don’t fuel the economy with their consumption in the same way. “I earn 1,000 times the median wage, but I do not buy 1,000 times as much stuff,” he noted.
But the country’s policies pretend otherwise. He included facts that display how skewed America’s policy priorities really are:

• Corporate profits and unemployment are simultaneously at 50-year highs.
• The share of income for the richest 1 percent has tripled since 1980 while their taxes have only risen by 50 percent.
• The rich enjoy a 15-20 percent tax rate on capital gains, dividends, and carried interest while the top marginal rate on middle class Americans is 39 percent.

He concludes, “Tax the wealthy and corporations – as we once did in this country – and invest that money in the middle class-as we once did in this country.”
Facts back up his proposal that taxing the rest and investing the revenues can spur economic growth. The years following the Bush tax cuts were the worst for job creation since record keeping began. Meanwhile, job growth in the post-war period has been stronger when the top income tax rate is higher.
Yet wages just fell to an all-time low. Corporate profits, on the other hand, have outpaced wages by 20 percent since 2008.

Daily Comic Relief

Rent-A-Tire

A new kind of enterprise has joined the long list of businesses that take advantage of the poor. Joining the cadre of payday lenders, pawn shops, unscrupulous used-car dealers is rent-a-tire places, from which consumers pay up to four times the cost of buying:

When the tires on their Dodge Caravan had worn so thin that the steel belts were showing through, Don and Florence Cherry couldn't afford to buy a new set.
So they decided to rent instead.
The Rich Square, N.C., couple last September agreed to pay Rent-N-Roll $54.60 a month for 18 months in exchange for four basic Hankook tires. Over the life of the deal, that works out to $982, almost triple what the radials would have cost at Wal-Mart.
"I know you have to pay a lot more this way," said Florence Cherry, a 57-year-old nurse who drives the 15-year-old van when her husband, a Vietnam veteran, isn't using it to get to his job as a prison guard. "But we didn't really have a choice."

Ken Bensinger of the Los Angeles Times reports: Here.

BBC slams conspiracy-monger Alex Jones

  “We have an idiot on the show”

American conspiracy-monger Alex Jones went on the BBC today, and ran into a problem a lot of Americans on the right (or in the crazy) have when they do British television: smart people.
You might remember we wrote about Jones a few weeks ago when he was  informing his viewers that the Moore, Oklahoma tornadoes might have been created by the US government.
In this case, Jones was allowed to rant for several minutes on Andrew Neil’s Sunday Politics Shows on the BBC, alongside Times columnist David Aaronovitch.  Ostensibly Jones was there to talk about the Bilderberg Group, but as you might expect from a conspiracy theorist, the conversation went a bit off-kilter.

Most of it is boring gibberish, but perhaps you should start watching at around the 8 minute mark, because shortly after that is when the fun begins.  Jones keeps interrupting Aaronovitch, and finally the host tells him to “stop it.”  That’s when Jones absolutely loses it.  And to his credit, the host, Neil, does a good job of putting Jones in his place.  At one point, Neil tells the audience, “we have an idiot on the show tonight.”  Then Neil turns to the camera and does the crazy sign by twirling his finger at the side of his head:

It’s funny, but it’s also sad.  I don’t know if Jones is considered left or right, but he’s a good example of the crazy shock jock style that infests much of right-wing talk radio and talk TV in this country. And it is embarrassing to have him go on a show abroad and “the American.”

Famous Frame-Ups

Famous Frame-Ups: People Falsely Accused

Being framed for a crime you didn't commit can be a nightmare that the whole world has to wake up from before you're free.

McDonald's vs. Public Library

There are 14,000 McDonald's and 11,000 Starbucks around the country, but you know who's got them trumped? Libraries. There are more public libraries (about 17,000) in the United States than the largest fast-food franchise.
It may surprise you, but libraries reach 96.4 percent of the US population, as evident in this map by Justin Grimes (@justgrimes) over at The Atlantic Cities:

“There’s always that joke that there’s a Starbucks on every corner," says Justin Grimes, a statistician with the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington. "But when you really think about it, there’s a public library wherever you go, whether it’s in New York City or some place in rural Montana. Very few communities are not touched by a public library.”

And to make things better, there are 35,000 museums, zoos, arboretums, historical societies, art galleries, and aquariums to feed your brain. So take heart, Americans, our society isn't going to hell in a handbasket just yet (though think of how much more popular libraries could be if we can just have Starbucks inside them!)
Emily Badger of The Atlantic Cities has more: Here | Interactive map over at CartoDB

Pendulum swings back on 350-year-old mathematical mystery

Pendulum swings back on 350-year-old mathematical mystery

A 350-year-old mathematical mystery could lead toward a better understanding of medical conditions like epilepsy or even the behavior of predator-prey systems in the wild, University of Pittsburgh researchers report. The mystery dates back to [...]

Erin Brockovich arrested for drunk boating

 

Environmental activist Erin Brockovich, portrayed by Julia Roberts in a 2000 movie about her fight over the pollution of a California town, has been arrested on suspicion of boating while intoxicated at Lake Mead near Las Vegas.
Nevada Department of Wildlife spokesman Edwin Lyngar says Brockovich was arrested late Friday night after breath tests showed her blood-alcohol level was just over twice the legal limit of .08.
A game warden noticed she was struggling and needed assistance while trying to moor her motor boat at the Las Vegas Boat Harbor near Boulder City.
Lyngar says she had been out on the boat with a male companion but was alone when she tried to dock the boat.
The 52-year-old Brockovich didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. She was released from the Clark County jail after posting $1,000 bail.

***

We see this a lot here at CN - our front yard is a lake and the 'boaters' on it are soused year round.

The Japanese 'Invade' Califorina

Japanese troops head to Calif. beach for training

Japanese troops will converge on California's southern coast in the next two weeks as part of a military exercise with U.S. troops aimed at improving that country's amphibious attack abilities.

U.S. and Japanese military officials said the unprecedented training, led by U.S. Marines and sailors, will help Japan's Self-Defense Force operate in stronger coordination with the United States, its main ally, and better respond to crises such as natural disasters.

China may see it differently, however, given the tensions between Tokyo and Beijing over a long-running dispute concerning islands claimed by both in the East China Sea.

"It's another dot that the Chinese will connect to show this significant expanding military cooperation," said Tai Ming Cheung, an analyst of Chinese and East Asian security affairs and director of the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation at the University of California, San Diego.

China asked the United States and Japan to cancel the drill, scheduled to begin Tuesday, Japan's Kyodo News service reported, citing unnamed Japanese government sources. The Japanese Defense and Foreign Ministries would not confirm whether China had made any request but said they are going ahead with the exercises.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not respond to The Associated Press for comment on whether China requested a cancellation. In regard to the drill itself, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said: "We hope the relevant sides can focus on peace and stability in this region, and do more to contribute to mutual trust and regional peace and stability."

U.S. military officials said strengthening Japan's amphibious capabilities is vital as the U.S. focuses more attention on developing an Asia-Pacific strategy amid ongoing U.S. Defense Department budget cuts. The region has been roiled by tensions due to North Korean long-range rocket and nuclear tests and maritime territorial disputes between China and its neighbors.

"If the 20th century taught us anything, it is that when democracies are able and willing to defend themselves it preserves peace and stability," said Col. Grant Newsham, Marine liaison to the Japanese military. "Most Asian countries welcome — even if quietly stated — a more capable (Japanese force) that is also closely allied to U.S. forces."

The drill comes just days after Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit with President Barack Obama at an estate in the nearby California desert, at which the two discussed topics including the Pacific region's mounting tensions.

China recently asserted its dominance over what they call Diaoyutai, and Japan calls the Senkaku Islands, by sending government ships into Japanese territorial waters in April. China has said it is only safeguarding its sovereignty.

The uninhabited islands are controlled by Japan but also claimed by China. Japan's nationalization of the islands in September triggered violent protests across China. Beijing has increasingly patrolled the area, prompting Japan to dispatch fighter jets to monitor Chinese aircraft, raising the risk of missteps that could trigger a clash.

Japan's navy is among the world's best-equipped and best-trained, but its skills at storming beaches and other amphibious capabilities have been weak since its national defense force formed in the 1950s.

Largely in response to China's growing military might — including the acquisition of its first aircraft carrier last year — Japan has been buying amphibious landing craft and beefing up training for potential conflicts in or around small islands. Japan is also repositioning its troops to better monitor and defend its southern borders and sea lanes.

In September, a small group of Japanese soldiers practiced bombing maneuvers and joint command training with U.S. Marines and sailors in Guam.

The San Diego exercise marks the first time the country's troops will travel aboard warships so far from home, and members of Japanese air, sea and ground forces will train together with the U.S. military, said Cmdr. Takashi Inoue, spokesman for the Japanese Self-Defense Force.

The drill, which ends June 28, will train Japanese troops "on truly necessary" skills to help them deploy swiftly, whether to defend territory or provide disaster relief, Inoue said. With limited landing craft, Japan needed help from U.S. Marines to rescue people along its tsunami-devastated coast following the 2011 earthquake.

Japan is sending three warships, about 1,000 service members and about four combat helicopters to the so-called Dawn Blitz exercise, Inoue said. Forces from New Zealand and Canada also will take part.

The troops will practice an amphibious assault on San Clemente Island, a naval training ground off San Diego's coast, and also conduct a mock beach invasion at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton.

Tokyo's move to boost its amphibious training is "hugely significant" since the United States is obligated to defend Japanese territory under a post-World War II security pact, said Kerry Gershaneck of the Pacific Forum-Center for Strategic & International Studies.

"We cannot ask young American Marines to fight and die doing a job that Japanese forces cannot, or will not, do," he said. "The U.S. Marines will help, but they must have a capable partner."

The Shield Of Superman

The famous 'S' shield - the focal point of Supermans's costume - has evolved significantly since the Man of Steel made his first appearance 75 years ago. See how the emblem has transformed from Action Comics #1 to Man of Steel.

A Celtic Woman's Song

by Heather Rose Jones

My Mother’s Mother drew a sword,
My Mother bore a spear,
And I have learned to bend the bow.
But time brings changes, fast or slow
To all that we hold dear.

From far across the sea have come
Strange priests with stranger ways,
Who say we must be chaste and meek;
A man’s protection we must seek,
And serve him all our days.

I’ve served the Lady and my folk
And never known defeat,
And shall my freedom fall from place
Like weapons of a conquered race
To lie at some man’s feet?

No! First I’ll leave my folk behind
And seek the Lady’s glade;
I’ll drink her cauldron dregs and see
The secrets of eternity
And always stay a Maid.

Poullan-Sur-Mer

POULLAN-SUR-MER lies at the very western brink of Gaul, in the land of the Osismi tribe the hindmost and westernmost of the tribes of Gaul.

The House Built In The Middle Of A River

Have you ever dreamed of having a home in the middle of nowhere to escape to every now and then? I have. And this house built straight in the middle of the Drina River in Serbia fits the bill perfectly.

In Serbia, the precariously placed house has been a popular tourist destination for decades, and a symbol of the picturesque Basta region. It was even nominated as one of the Seven Wonders of Serbia.