CAROLINA NATURALLY

Thursday, August 18, 2011

The Daily Drift

The Daily Drift

Today's horoscope says:

As you walk along some familiar territory today, you might suddenly feel a shift in the ground beneath your feet.

It's not an earthquake.

It's the universe letting you know that the stability you have been taking for granted is not a sure thing.

Some support that you thought would always be there for you is not there right now, so it's time to stand firmly on your own feet again.

This is a good thing that will empower you and get you strolling along happily again.

Some of our readers today have been in:

Metz, Lorraine, France
Kuantan, Pahang, Malaysia
Newbury, England, United Kingdom
Bath, England, United Kingdom
Milton Keynes, England, United Kingdom
London, England, United Kingdom
Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland
Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Albury, New South Wales, Australia
Berlin, Berlin, Germany
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Paris, Ile-De-France, France
Ratingen, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany
Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
London, Ontario, Canada
Minden, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

as well as Slovakia, Malta, Bulgaria, Israel, Finland, Austria, Norway, Georgia, Mexico, Peru, Kuwait, Serbia, Bangladesh, Latvia, Greece, Scotland, Hong Kong, Denmark, Wales, Iran, Singapore, Poland, Taiwan, Sweden, Afghanistan, Belgium, Tibet, Croatia, Pakistan, Romania, Paraguay, Sudan, Vietnam, Argentina, Cambodia, Egypt, France, Estonia, Puerto Rico, Maldives, Qatar, Brazil, New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, Slovenia, China, Iraq, Ecuador, Nigeria, Colombia, Chile, Honduras, Paupa New Guinea, Moldova, Venezuela, Germany, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Ireland, Czech Republic, Vietnam, Norway, Finland

and in cities across the United States such as Kailua, Hana, Mililani, Honolulu and more.

Today is:

Today is Thursday, August 18, the 230th day of 2011.

There are 135 days left in the year.

Today's unusual holidays or celebrations are:

Bad Poetry Day
and
Cupcake Day.

Don't forget to visit our sister blog!

America's most beautiful place

The most beautiful place in America

Ten dreamy spots from Rhode Island to Hawaii make the final list from which a winner is chosen.

No household name

Also:

Healthy Living

7 myths about caffeine

China buzzes over backpack

China buzzes over diplomat's backpack

A photo of the new U.S. ambassador buying coffee causes a social media frenzy.

'This is unbelievable'

Also:

Non Sequitur

http://media.zenfs.com/en_us/News/ucomics.com/nq110818.gif

Teabaggers more disliked than Muslims, atheists

In America, it takes a lot to be more disliked than a Muslim, or even, heaven forbid, an atheist.

From the NYT:

[I]n data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

And here's a surprise - the Tea Party is actually conservative Republicans.

Our analysis casts doubt on the Tea Party’s “origin story.” Early on, Tea Partiers were often described as nonpartisan political neophytes. Actually, the Tea Party’s supporters today were highly partisan Republicans long before the Tea Party was born, and were more likely than others to have contacted government officials. In fact, past Republican affiliation is the single strongest predictor of Tea Party support today.

And the other factor that defines Teabaggers is the desire to see religion (their religion) play a prominent role in the politics.

Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics.

Interestingly, and surprisingly I'd argue, the public has swung against mixing religion with politics.

While over the last five years Americans have become slightly more conservative economically, they have swung even further in opposition to mingling religion and politics. It thus makes sense that the Tea Party ranks alongside the Christian Right in unpopularity.

This is quite interesting. We'd need more details as to what's motivating people to be less interested in religion in the public square, but it might provide a nice line of attack for Democrats, if they have the courage to take on religion, even batty religions like Bachmann's and Perry's.

Do Bachmann and Perry think non-believers should be put to death?

Bachmann and Perry both have ties to Dominionism, a fringe far-right Christian movement. Since they both believe that they have the right to impose their religion on the rest of us via legislative fiat, perhaps it's time we learned more about their rather odd, and extreme, version of "Christianity."

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:

I didn't take Christian Reconstruction as a political philosophy seriously until I met an actual Theonomist (follower of God's Law) in the real world.

"Oscar" was in his early 20s, as was I, when we met. He was a Jewish convert to Christianity, so he was always on the defensive. As a young believer, he fell in with a mob of Theonomists in San Diego before moving to Pennsylvania for college. The primacy of the Old Testament in Christian Reconstructionist thought appealed to his sense of cultural identification.

Since I knew he was from a family of Holocaust survivors, I asked him what he thought of the mandate that all non-Christians would have to convert or die. Oscar said that if his relatives refused to become Christians or submit to forced exile, then they would suffer the civil penalty for practicing idolatry. He would carry out the execution himself if called upon to do so by the Christian state.

Oscar was the first self-consciously Christian fascist I ever met, but he wasn't the last. Eventually, the movement, which was scorned by many leaders of the Religious Right for being "too crazy," went underground as its leaders died or fought among themselves.

Today, two of the leading Republican presidential candidates, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, reportedly have ties to the Dominionist movement. The press has got to get up to speed on the movement's ideas before either a President Bachmann or a President Perry are in a position to drag Jesus feet first out of heaven.

It's time we stopped treating these nuts as just another religion. They're not. And what's worse, like the Mormons, and the religious right in general, they're trying to impose their religion on the rest of us by legislate fiat (or in the case of the Mormons, by creepily baptizing our dead against our will).

Public Service Announcement

http://www.bartcop.com/perry-10-things.jpg

It’s a record-breaking Congress

It's really, really hard to get 84% of Americans to agree on anything. But, Boehner, Cantor and the teabaggers have managed it.

From Gallup:

Americans' evaluation of the job Congress is doing is the worst Gallup has ever measured, with 13% approving, tying the all-time low measured in December 2010. Disapproval of Congress is at 84%, a percentage point higher than last December's previous high rating.

These results are based on an Aug. 11-14 Gallup poll, which includes the first update on Congress' job approval rating since the government reached agreement on a deal to raise the debt ceiling after contentious and protracted negotiations between President Obama and congressional leaders. Standard & Poor's subsequently downgraded the United States' credit rating, in part citing the current political environment in Washington. That sparked a week of intense volatility in the stock market, with days of sharp losses and large gains.

Great work! Now, this just has to translate into shifting control of the House back to the Democrats in 2012.

Daily Comic Relief

Ways to deal with bosses

Ways to deal with five types of bosses

Try these ideas if you work for someone suspicious, aggressive, wishy-washy, or tough.

How to handle a bully

Also:

Mean People Make More Money

Psst! Want to earn more money? The secret to earning more money in the workplace is ... to be mean.
That's right: a new study found that agreeable workers earn significantly less than their meaner counterparts.

The researchers examined "agreeableness" using self-reported survey data and found that men who measured below average on agreeableness earned about 18% more—or $9,772 more annually in their sample—than nicer guys. Ruder women, meanwhile, earned about 5% or $1,828 more than their agreeable counterparts.
"Nice guys are getting the shaft," says study co-author Beth A. Livingston, an assistant professor of human resource studies at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations.

Full Story

A Good One

I kinda want to default on our loans, just to see if China will repossess our wars.

~ Ron White

And I Quote

"People invest to make money, and potential taxes have never scared them off, I have worked with investors for 60 years and I have yet to see anyone -- not even when capital gains rates were 39.9 percent in 1976-77 -- shy away from a sensible investment because of the tax rate on the potential gain, I would note that a net of nearly 40 million jobs were added between 1980 and 2000.
You know what's happened since then: lower tax rates and far lower job creation,"

~ Warren Buffet,

More

Money Matters: $360M lost in Afghanistan

U.S. loses $360 million in Afghanistan

Tax dollars disappear into a vast and corrupt network of warlords, contractors, and insurgents.

What happened

Also:

Low Blow: 45K Striking Verizon Workers Lose Benefits

Tens of thousands of striking workers from Verizon Communications will lose their medical benefits if they're still picketing at the end of the month, the telephone service provider said Wednesday.

Full Story

Where ATM fees are highest

Where ATM fees are the steepest

Steer clear of these machines, which charge up to $5.50 to withdraw cash.

How to minimize costs

Also:

S&P downgraded as market embraces US treasury notes

A few people are looking a bit silly right now.

Bloomberg:

Eleven days after lowering the credit rating on the U.S. for the first time, Standard & Poor’s is suffering a downgrade among global investors as American bonds are proving world beaters -- undermining S&P’s mathematical assumptions -- and prompting disbelief among political scientists months after the company upgraded China because of the stability fostered by Communist Party rule.

Since S&P, the New York-based subsidiary of McGraw-Hill Cos., dropped the U.S. to AA+ from AAA on Aug. 5, the yield on the 10-year Treasury note, a benchmark for everything from home mortgages to car loans, has declined to as low as 2.03 percent from a high this year of 3.77 percent, with American debt on pace in August for the biggest monthly gain since December 2008. Interest rates on American bonds are lower today than on most of the countries with AAA ratings by S&P and the Treasury recently financed its outstanding debt at the lowest cost ever.

If anything, the decision from S&P, the largest ratings provider, resulted in an upgrade of U.S. securities as the American bond market outperformed world bond indexes during the period since the downgrade by S&P. Moody’s Investors Service and Fitch Ratings, the two next biggest rating companies, affirmed their AAA rankings on the U.S.