Yeah, it's kinda like that today
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Monday, June 3, 2013
Today in History
1098
Christian Crusaders of the First Crusade seize Antioch, Turkey.
1539 Hernando De Soto claims Florida for Spain.
1861 Union troops defeat Confederate forces at Philippi, in western Virginia
1864 Some 7,000 Union troops are killed within 30 minutes during the Battle of Cold Harbor in Virginia. 1888 The classic baseball poem "Casey at the Bat," written by Ernest L. Thayer, is published in the San Francisco Examiner.
1918 The Finnish Parliament ratifies a treaty with Germany.
1923 In Italy, dictator Benito Mussolini grants women the right to vote.
1928 Manchurian warlord Chian Tso-Lin dies as a result of a bomb blast set off by the Japanese.
1938 The German Third Reich votes to confiscate so-called "degenerate art."
1940 The German Luftwaffe hits Paris with 1,100 bombs.
1942 Japanese carrier-based planes strafe Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands as a diversion of the attack on Midway Island.
1952 A rebellion by North Korean prisoners in the Koje prison camp in South Korea is put down by American troops.
1965 Astronaut Edward White becomes the first American to walk in space when he exits the Gemini 4 space capsule.
1969 74 American sailors died when the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans was cut in two by an Australian aircraft carrier in the South China Sea.
1974 Charles Colson, an aide to President Richard Nixon, pleads guilty to obstruction of justice.
1989 The Chinese government begins its crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Hundreds are killed and thousands are arrested.
1539 Hernando De Soto claims Florida for Spain.
1861 Union troops defeat Confederate forces at Philippi, in western Virginia
1864 Some 7,000 Union troops are killed within 30 minutes during the Battle of Cold Harbor in Virginia. 1888 The classic baseball poem "Casey at the Bat," written by Ernest L. Thayer, is published in the San Francisco Examiner.
1918 The Finnish Parliament ratifies a treaty with Germany.
1923 In Italy, dictator Benito Mussolini grants women the right to vote.
1928 Manchurian warlord Chian Tso-Lin dies as a result of a bomb blast set off by the Japanese.
1938 The German Third Reich votes to confiscate so-called "degenerate art."
1940 The German Luftwaffe hits Paris with 1,100 bombs.
1942 Japanese carrier-based planes strafe Dutch Harbor in the Aleutian Islands as a diversion of the attack on Midway Island.
1952 A rebellion by North Korean prisoners in the Koje prison camp in South Korea is put down by American troops.
1965 Astronaut Edward White becomes the first American to walk in space when he exits the Gemini 4 space capsule.
1969 74 American sailors died when the destroyer USS Frank E. Evans was cut in two by an Australian aircraft carrier in the South China Sea.
1974 Charles Colson, an aide to President Richard Nixon, pleads guilty to obstruction of justice.
1989 The Chinese government begins its crackdown on pro-democracy activists in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. Hundreds are killed and thousands are arrested.
Former presidential yacht to dock on NC coast
A former presidential yacht dating to the 1930s is stopping in North Carolina to go on display.
The Friends of the North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort is
scheduled to host dockside tours of the Honey Fitz on Saturday. Proceeds
from the tours benefit the Friends of the Museum.
The 92-foot Honey Fitz was christened in 1931, passed from private hands to the U.S. Coast Guard in 1942. It saw service during World War II. President Dwight Eisenhower renamed it the Barbara Anne.
When John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, he renamed the presidential yacht Honey Fitz. It was the nickname of his maternal grandfather. It was sold during the Nixon administration and has been in private hands ever since
The 92-foot Honey Fitz was christened in 1931, passed from private hands to the U.S. Coast Guard in 1942. It saw service during World War II. President Dwight Eisenhower renamed it the Barbara Anne.
When John F. Kennedy took office in 1961, he renamed the presidential yacht Honey Fitz. It was the nickname of his maternal grandfather. It was sold during the Nixon administration and has been in private hands ever since
Did you know ...
About the high school student suspended for criticizing school administration on twitter
About why people are addicted to conspiracy theories
About the outrageous attacks on supporters of church-state separation
"Grover Norquist is a Muslim because he has a beard"
So says the former chair of the Texas repugican cabal
Cathie Adams, president of the Texas Eagle Forum (a religio-wingnut group), and former chairwoman of the Texas repugican cabal, said in a presentation at a tea party meeting that repugican cabal anti-tax activist Grover Norquist is a secret muslim because, among other things, he sports a beard.Grover Norquist is trouble with a capital T. As you can see, he has a beard. And he’s showing signs of converting to islam himself, he’s married a muslim woman. But he denies that he’s converted himself.
And these people wonder why they can’t win elections.
Behind Their 'Patriotic' Disguise The tea party Behaves Like The American Taliban They Are
The concept of threatening, calling for, and inciting violence against the government has never been part of being a patriotic American, but there has been no dearth of violent threats from conservative malcontents that make up the majority of teabaggers. Recently, another instance of a teabagger calling for gun violence was reported over a repugican senator’s vote for immigration reform, and it is becoming an all too common occurrence unique to the so-called patriot group that throughout its existence threatened violence and armed insurrection to control the direction of the government. Threatening to use force to impose their will is not limited to disaffected racists, and has been embraced by teabag leaders since the anti-American group came into existence.
Whether it was Sarah Palin telling her sycophants to “don’t retreat, reload,” Michelle Bachmann calling for Minnesotans to be “armed and dangerous,” or Sharon Angle citing “second Amendment remedies” against Congress for not acquiescing to teabagger demands, it is always and only teabaggers calling for violence against their “enemies” in government. Throughout their short existence, repugicans were on the sidelines inciting teabaggers with time-tested tactics of fear-mongering with outright lies. Throughout the healthcare reform debate, John Boehner led repugican assertions that the Affordable Care Act was “government takeover of your healthcare,” and in January Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell sent out a frightening email to gun owners warning that “You and I are literally surrounded. The gun-grabbers in the Senate are about to launch an all-out-assault on the Second Amendment, on your rights, on your freedom; they’re coming for your guns.”
These so-called patriots, the teabaggers, justify their outrage and threats of violence with claims that President Obama is destroying America and it is the greatest proof they are as stupid as they are un-American. During the healthcare reform debate and during their rallies, teabaggers claimed they were “taxed enough already” and “came unarmed this time” despite the President just gave them a tax cut in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (stimulus). After shrub-repugicans assisted the banking industry to tank the economy and destroy Americans’ jobs, retirement accounts, and thousands of small businesses, the President righted the economy, created millions of jobs, saved the American automobile industry, increased gas production, and presided over record corporate and Wall Street profits only to be accused of destroying the economy and giving teabags justification to threaten violence to take the country back to economic devastation under repugican rule
For the past two-and-a-half years, teabaggers in Congress openly touted shutting down the government, letting the economy “fall off the fiscal cliff and see what it’s like,” and default on the nation’s debt despite their un-American policies would send the nation into a depression. One of teabaggers’ claims of patriotism is adhering closely to the framers’ intent in writing the Constitution and opposing everything President Obama supports as unconstitutional with no basis in fact, and yet the only part of the Constitution they recognize as valid is the 2nd and 10th Amendments that incite them to pass nullification laws and threaten civil, race, or revolutionary war. Calls for insurrection against the government pre-dated attempts to enact gun safety measures, and as part of their lunacy to revisit the American Revolutionary War, teabaggers decried President Obama’s policies as tyranny that repugicans in Congress are too happy to endorse as truth. Teabaggers have cited the IRS investigation into their perjury on “social welfare” applications and illegal campaign donations as Obama tyranny, but their cries of tyranny are little more than criminals playing the victim card when their dubious practices are revealed.
Teabaggers are not patriots; they are the tea party Taliban. No other group in America openly threatens violent insurrection against the legally elected government of the United States, passes nullifications laws, supports theocracy, and no patriot calls for assassinating elected representatives for their votes. The repugicans are just as culpable for not tamping down threats and calls for revolution or civil war, and openly advocating for armed revolution “if President Obama won re-election.” There is a reason teabag leaders advocate for armed resistance against the federal government and it is because they know their followers are bound to take them seriously and begin an uprising to overthrow the government evident in gun zealots stockpiling weapons and ammunition to defend themselves against government tyranny they never claimed during the shrub junta, and it exposes their real anti-American bent is racial animus. Teabaggers were content with millions of jobs lost, a decimated economy, and unnecessary wars so long as a white man was president, but they became uber-patriots fighting tyranny when an African American was elected President.
The tea party is no more patriotic to America than Osama bin Laden was, and their desire to see this government fail is only matched by their incessant threats to “take America back” to the 1770s when the country was under tyrannical English rule. Teabaggers feel strong support for America, but it is an America that never existed and unrelated to 2008 when their worst nightmare came true; the people elected an African American President. After he saved the economy, cut spending, created jobs, and cut taxes that most Americans believed earned him a second term, the tea party Taliban threatened more violence, stocked their armories, and prepare for revolutionary war.
We don't need no stinkin' guber'mint!
Yeah, baby, 'cause those big corporations are lookin' out for us every day.
From "In These Times"
Mississippi Lavishes $1.3 Billion in Subsidies on Nissan as Workers Get the Shaft
Thirteen years after Japan-based automaker Nissan chose the small, impoverished community of Canton, Miss., as the site of a new auto-assembly plant, a just-released study shows that the company is failing to deliver on its promise of high-wage job creation in Mississippi-while at the same time draining the state of revenue used to pay for a massive package of subsidies.
According to a study released on Friday by the Washington, D.C.-based research group Good Jobs First, the citizens of Mississippi-which ranks dead last among U.S. states in median household income-are bestowing an estimated $1.33 billion in subsidies on Nissan over a 30-year period for the privilege of hosting the factory.
----
According to the incentive package to which Mississippi and Nissan agreed in 2000 and modified as Nissan added more jobs, Nissan jobs were to start at a minimum of 125 percent of the state or county average-whichever was lower-before rising to 150 percent of the average in the surrounding county.
But "[s]tate auditor reports did not address the issue of wage rates," the Good Job First report notes critically. With no monitoring, Nissan's wages initially started at $13.25 an hour for the first two years of employment as preliminary work at the plant began in 2001, only slightly above the state average of $12.64 or the Madison county average of $12.88.
Pay for full-time workers has stagnated at around $22 an hour over the past five years, although Nissan is promising an increase later this year. However, the overall wage average is pulled down by the large contingent of part-timers making $9.25 to $12 an hour. These workers, hired from temporary agencies rather than Nissan itself, now comprise 35 percent to 40 percent of the Canton workforce, according to worker estimates.
Oh, The stupid - it hurts
From Think Progress
At Wednesday's meeting for ExxonMobil shareholders in Dallas, CEO Rex Tillerson told those assembled that an economy that runs on oil is here to stay, and cutting carbon emissions would do no good.
He asked, "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?"
One good would be that humanity has a habitable place to live. And in acting to stop the increasingly dangerous effects of climate change, we could avoid a great deal of suffering. Tillerson missed the billions of dollars in damages, thousands of lives lost, millions displaced, and rampant ecological destruction due to the carbon emissions that cause climate change.
Exxon CEO: 'What Good Is It To Save The Planet If Humanity Suffers?'
At Wednesday's meeting for ExxonMobil shareholders in Dallas, CEO Rex Tillerson told those assembled that an economy that runs on oil is here to stay, and cutting carbon emissions would do no good.
He asked, "What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?"
One good would be that humanity has a habitable place to live. And in acting to stop the increasingly dangerous effects of climate change, we could avoid a great deal of suffering. Tillerson missed the billions of dollars in damages, thousands of lives lost, millions displaced, and rampant ecological destruction due to the carbon emissions that cause climate change.
US embassy warns about visiting Egypt’s pyramids of Giza
A stern warning from the US embassy in Cairo about visiting Egypt’s
famed pyramids of Giza is not good news for the Egyptian economy, which
depends on foreign tourism. Giza is the site of the Great Sphinx and
the Great Pyramid.
The US embassy has issued a warning for American tourists to avoid the pyramids of Giza at night, and only go if they’re with a “recommended or trusted guide,” because large crowds of people are surrounding and terrorizing cars of tourists, possibly to extort money out of them.
In short, if you visit Egypt in the near future, don’t even think of going to the Pyramids unless you’re on a large organized bus tour. Anything else is a big risk, for now. And the World Economic Forum recently ranked Egypt last among travel destinations in terms of safety.
The US embassy has issued a warning for American tourists to avoid the pyramids of Giza at night, and only go if they’re with a “recommended or trusted guide,” because large crowds of people are surrounding and terrorizing cars of tourists, possibly to extort money out of them.
In recent weeks, the U.S. Embassy has become aware of an increasing number of incidents at or near the Giza Pyramids. The majority of these incidents are attributed to over-aggressive vendors, though the degree of aggressiveness in some cases is closer to criminal conduct. Other more serious incidents have been reported involving vehicles nearing the Pyramids, with angry groups of individuals surrounding and pounding on the vehicles – and in some cases attempting to open the vehicle’s doors. While the motive is less clear (possibly related to carriage operators wanting fares), it has severely frightened several visitors. A common theme from many of these reports is the lack of visible security or police in the vicinity of the Pyramids. U.S. citizens should elevate their situational awareness when traveling to the Pyramids, avoid any late evening or night travel, utilize a recommended or trusted guide, and closely guard valuables.While expats in the region say that the US embassy often “overblows” the threat, in this case, the associate provost at the American University in Cairo, said the threat was warranted, and he issued an even sterner warning on his blog:
It’s getting really bad out there. I’ve been going off and on for 13 years, whenever a visitor is in town. So I’m pretty tough when it comes to dealing with the normal scams to which my tourist friends are subjected at the Pyramids. I’ve dealt with corrupt police, and I’ve dealt with a jerk Bedouin pretending to become very angry when I told him $100 for my friend to ride a camel for 15 minutes was ridiculous (he grabbed my shirt and screamed theatrically in my face as a police officer laughed nearby).So, it’s not like I’m easily scared by anything that happens at the Pyramids, that repository for all of Egypt’s most villainous swindlers (every nation has some). But in recent months it has become almost unbearable. It feels almost like an openly criminal environment now. The problem is not only “lack of visible security,” but in some cases the security are either working with the vendors on their scams, or are sexually harassing female foreigners quite openly, even those who are obviously accompanied by their husbands.
The Great Sphinx’s face with a set of pyramids in the background and a beautiful purple sunset sky day in Giza, Cairo, Egypt
In short, if you visit Egypt in the near future, don’t even think of going to the Pyramids unless you’re on a large organized bus tour. Anything else is a big risk, for now. And the World Economic Forum recently ranked Egypt last among travel destinations in terms of safety.
[T]he evaluation of the safety and security environment has dropped to the lowest position of all countries covered in the Report (140th).This is awful news for Egypt’s tourist industry, that’s suffered over the years, first from terrorism, then from the recent political unrest. All of this led to fewer tourists:
Tourist numbers have fallen, from 14 million in 2010 to 10.2 million in 2011, and 10.5 million for 2012. The good news is that, after a sluggish start, total numbers for 2012 picked up with a strong surge toward the end of the year.Tourism is a huge part of the Egyptian economy. CNN reports that the tourism industry employs 18 million people in Egypt, which is an insane number. And tourism brought in more than $10 billion in 2012. So the news of the pyramids becoming increasingly unsafe, and the guards being either in cahoots with the criminals, or simply not caring, isn’t going to help.
Father Found Guilty After Son Accidentally Shot, Killed Brother
A Minneapolis father whose
4-year-old son found a gun in the home and accidentally shot and killed
his 2-year-old brother with it has been found guilty on four criminal
counts, including two counts each of manslaughter and child
endangerment.
Before last December’s incident, 31-year-old Kao Xiong left one of
his semi-automatic hand guns under his pillow, which is where the
4-year-old found it. Xiong and his wife were apparently making lunch in
the lower level of the house when the accidental shooting happened.
Prosecutors said that the pistol was used in the shooting lacked a working safety and was one of several weapons police found improperly stored in the home.
On Friday, a jury acquitted Xiong of one count of gross misdemeanor child endangerment.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman called it a “tragic case” and recognized the struggle to balance the family’s grief over the loss of the young child and the violation of the law that resulted in his death.
There was an effort on both sides to work out a plea bargain, but they weren’t able to reach one.
Aside from the gun that killed the child, investigators found three handguns, three bolt-action rifles and a semi-automatic rifle in the home. Xiong told police he is an avid hunter.
Before last December’s incident, 31-year-old Kao Xiong left one of
his semi-automatic hand guns under his pillow, which is where the
4-year-old found it. Xiong and his wife were apparently making lunch in
the lower level of the house when the accidental shooting happened.Prosecutors said that the pistol was used in the shooting lacked a working safety and was one of several weapons police found improperly stored in the home.
On Friday, a jury acquitted Xiong of one count of gross misdemeanor child endangerment.
Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman called it a “tragic case” and recognized the struggle to balance the family’s grief over the loss of the young child and the violation of the law that resulted in his death.
There was an effort on both sides to work out a plea bargain, but they weren’t able to reach one.
Aside from the gun that killed the child, investigators found three handguns, three bolt-action rifles and a semi-automatic rifle in the home. Xiong told police he is an avid hunter.
Lost airport teddy bear 'seeks' owner
Bristol Airport is trying to find the
owner of an antique teddy bear left in a carrier bag within the departure lounge
over a year ago. Staff said the bear, who they believe is called Glyn, was found with an old
photograph dated 1918, and other items.
On the reverse of the photograph - sent to "our darling daddy" - it names the children and Glyn the bear. Airport police and security have tried to trace the passenger but to no avail, and are now asking the public for help.
Airport spokeswoman Jacqui Mills said it was obvious Glyn had been "well loved" for many years. "Glyn's temporary home is by my desk, but he needs to find his family," she added. "During the last 14 months we had been hopeful that the search would result in Glyn being reunited to his family.
"We have not been successful in this search and have drawn a blank, we would be delighted if anyone can help solve the mystery of Glyn." Anyone with information is asked to contact Bristol Airport.
On the reverse of the photograph - sent to "our darling daddy" - it names the children and Glyn the bear. Airport police and security have tried to trace the passenger but to no avail, and are now asking the public for help.
Airport spokeswoman Jacqui Mills said it was obvious Glyn had been "well loved" for many years. "Glyn's temporary home is by my desk, but he needs to find his family," she added. "During the last 14 months we had been hopeful that the search would result in Glyn being reunited to his family.
"We have not been successful in this search and have drawn a blank, we would be delighted if anyone can help solve the mystery of Glyn." Anyone with information is asked to contact Bristol Airport.
Legendary Atari cartridge dump to be excavated
After producing too many copies of its infamously terrible E.T. game, Atari dumped the unsold inventory in a remote New Mexico landfill. Thirty years on, the local authorities have greenlighted an excavation to see exactly what's down there.
The Best Way to Win an Argument?
Are
you having trouble persuading people to your point of view? Express
yourself more stridently. That's what researchers at Washington State
University discovered. Victoria Woollaston of the Daily Mail writes:They analysed more than a billion tweets posted during various American sporting events, including the 2013 Super Bowl, to the test whether being accurate or being confident made Twitter users more popular.
Despite professional pundits and amateur fans making a similar amount of correct and incorrect predictions, the tweeters who 'yelled' louder were seen as more trustworthy and had more followers.
To test the theory, two economic students from the university studied the language used by sports pundits who often 'yell' for attention.
Jadrien Wooten and Ben Smith compared the tweets of professional pundits - celebrities with verified Twitter accounts - with amateur tweeters that claimed to have some sports expertise in their bio. […]
Words like 'vanquish,' 'destroy' and 'annihilate' posted in Tweets were considered to be confident words.
The researchers used these confident words in place of being able to measure loudness online.
The research found that the professionals were correct with their predictions 47 per cent of the time.
Whereas the amateurs made accurate predictions in 45 per cent of cases.
However, the professionals were more confident, scoring a .480 confidence rating compared to the amateurs' .313.
If a professional pundit accurately predicted every game of the baseball playoffs and series, the authors estimated his or her Twitter following would increase 3.4 per centr
While an amateur would get 7.3 per cent more followers.
A confident professional would increase his or her following by nearly 17 per cent, whereas a 'loud' amateur would get 20 per cent more followers.
The Little Free Library
The Venezuelan design firm Stereotank brought their little library to the Nolita neighborhood of New York City. The cover protects books from the elements while holes provide illumination for patrons.
Canadian High School Creates All-Hockey Curriculum
Cole
Harbour, Nova Scotia loves its native son, Sidney Crosby, who is a
highly accomplished hockey player. The residents also love that sport so
much that their high school now teaches all subjects in reference to
it:
A Nova Scotia high school has created a curriculum where every subject — from physics to design technology to dance — centres on hockey.
Cole Harbour District High School, in Sidney Crosby's hometown, received special recognition from Hockey Canada this week for its special project, which encompasses all subjects in all grades.
An Atom Undressed
AN ATOM'S electrons are an ever-shifting quantum melee, but it turns out you can still take their photograph as if they were standing still. A quantum-style microscope has imaged the hydrogen atom's wave function, the equation that determines its electrons' positions – and in turn the atom's properties. [...]Lisa Grossman of New Scientist explains: Here.
how on earth do you make an image of such an object? Measuring the position of a single electron "collapses" the wave function, forcing it to pick a particular position, but that alone is not representative of its normal, quantum presence in the atom. "Wave functions are difficult to measure. They're exquisite quantum objects that change their appearance upon observation," says Aneta Stodolna of the FOM Institute AMOLF in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
Her team decided to make a picture using a technique dreamed up 30 years ago that can be thought of as a quantum microscope. Rather than taking an image of a single atom, they sampled a bunch of atoms. This removes the quantum nature of each individual atom's electron, forcing it to choose a particular location from those it is allowed to reside in. Do it with enough atoms and the number choosing each spot will reflect the quantum probabilities laid out by the wave function.
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