Dust from the Sahara blows minerals from fish fossils across
the Atlantic and helps plants grow in the Amazon rainforest.
Monday, September 29, 2014
Ancient Stone Tool-Making Sprung Up Many Times
New evidence suggests that refined stone weapons were developed in Armenia about 325,000 years ago.
Birds Evolved From Dinosaurs Slowly—Then Took Off
These fossils found in northeastern
China show the diversity and small sizes of some of the feathered
dinosaurs. Many avian traits evolved in dinosaurs long before birds
themselves appeared.
An 80-million-year transition was capped with a burst of feathered diversity.
Birds are defined by a plethora of traits that are unique
to them, such as feathers, hollow bones, a wishbone, and beaks.
Paleontologists once supposed that the earliest bird,
150-million-year-old Archaeopteryx,
represented a great evolutionary leap from dinosaurs. But over the past
two decades, new discoveries have revealed that many of its avian
traits had evolved in dinosaurs long before.
The Current Biology journal report
released on Thursday confirms this new picture, finding that the
dinosaur forebears of birds began gradually evolving avian traits almost
as soon as dinosaurs appeared on Earth some 230 million years ago.
The new study also supports a view proposed by the American Museum of Natural History paleontologist George Gaylord Simpson
in 1944. He suggested that evolutionary novelty, flight in this case,
can lead to rapid diversification among species exploiting new
environmental niches.
Epidexipteryx is the first example in the fossil record of a dinosaur flaunting feathers for display.
The Current Biology paper shows that about 80 million years of gradual evolution culminated in a burst of bird diversity after Archeopteryx
took off, albeit clumsily. "Once the whole body plan finally came
together, then something was unlocked and they started evolving really
fast," says paleontologist Stephen Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, lead author on the study.
"This is statistical confirmation of a view about bird
evolution that paleontologists have described for a while," says
paleontologist Roger Benson
of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. "Scientifically, it
would have been crazier if they had shown birds appearing from dinosaurs
all of a sudden out of nowhere."
Dinosaur Database
In the study, Brusatte and colleagues looked at a database
of 152 carnivorous, two-legged dinosaur species in the family that led
to both Tyrannosaurus rex and birds. The records allowed
statistical comparison among 853 traits on the creatures, looking at
everything from the presence or absence of feathers to the size of the
gap between their wrist bones.
Feathered dinosaur discoveries have come at "astounding"
rates in the past two decades, according to Benson, making such close
looks at the ancient roots of birds possible. "We really do have a
strong fossil record for birds now," he says.
In August, a research team led by Michael Lee of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide reported in Science magazine
that bird ancestors decreased in weight from about 359 pounds (163
kilograms) to 1.8 pounds (0.8 kilograms) over 50 million years to reach
the size of Archaeopteryx.
This illustration of a Guanlong, an ancestor of Tyrannosaurus rex
that lived 160 million years ago in present-day China, shows the
feathered crest that gave it its name, which means "crowned dragon" in
Chinese. A primitive form of feathers probably covered its body, and the
head crest may have been used for species recognition or courtship
displays.
That miniaturization was accompanied, according to the new
study, by the steady acquisition of traits that are characteristic of
birds today. After Archaeopteryx, which may only have been able
to glide, the variety of birds expanded much more quickly in just a few
million years, and the new species included some proficient fliers.
"Birds became more and more 'birdy' gradually," Brusatte
says. "There was no big jump from non-bird to bird among dinosaurs, just
a seamless transition."
Unlocking fight as an evolutionary niche in a new way may
also have been what allowed birds to escape the extinction of other
dinosaurs some 66 million years ago, Brusatte suggests. "Small dinosaurs
that flew had a lot of advantages over other ones," he says.
No Single Missing Link Between Birds and Dinosaurs
Birds didn't evolve in one fell swoop from their dinosaur
ancestors, suggests a newly constructed dinosaur family tree.
Sunday, September 28, 2014
The Daily Drift
Carolina Naturally is read in 200 countries around the world daily.
Neighbors ... !
Today is - National Good Neighbor Day
Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is
Some of our readers today have been in:
The Americas
Bogota, Colombia
Montreal, Quebec, Youngs Crossing and Toronto, Canada
Luquillo, Puerto Rico
Mexico City, Mexico
Sao Paulo, Rio De Janeiro and Duque De Caxias, Brazil
Buenos Aires, Argentina
San Salvador, El Salvador
Europe
Lulea and Kista, Sweden
Ivrea, Naples, Padova, Milan, Terlizzi and Rome, Italy
Magenta, Lyon, Rouen, Salon-De-Provence, Paris and Velizy-Villacoublay, France
Oxford Street and London, England
Madrid, Spain
Ryazan and Kransnoobsk, Russia
Lisbon, Portugal
Nuremberg, Germany
Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina
Vantaa, Finland
Vlissingen and Amsterdam, Netherlands
Waterford and Dublin, Ireland
Kongens Lyngby, Denmark
Baar, Switzerland
Oslo, Norway
Asia
Amman, Jordan
Pontianak and Bengkulu, Indonesia
Tel Aviv, Israel
Shahr Sultan, Pakistan
Kolkata, Mumbai, Patna, Bangalore, Coimbatore, Jamshedpur, Bokaro and Pune, India
Mirzapur, Bangladesh
Yilan, Taiwan
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Bangkok, Thailand
Colombo, Sri Lanka
Rangoon, Burma
Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Africa
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Nairobi, Kenya
Lusaka, Zambia
Carthage, Tunisia
The Pacific
Cebu City, Paranaque, San Fernando and Manila, Philippines
Homebush, Melbourne and Boronia, Australia
Today in History
| 48 BC | On landing in Egypt, Pompey is murdered on the orders of Ptolemy. | |
| 855 | The Emperor Lothar dies in Gaul, and his kingdom is divided between his three sons. | |
| 1066 | William, Duke of Normandy, soon to be known as William the Conqueror invades England. | |
| 1106 | King Henry of England defeats his brother Robert at the Battle of Tinchebrai and reunites England and Normandy. | |
| 1238 | James of Aragon retakes Valencia, Spain, from the Arabs. | |
| 1607 | Samuel de Champlain and his colonists return to France from Port Royal Nova Scotia. | |
| 1794 | The Anglo-Russian-Austrian Alliance of St. Petersburg, which is directed against France, is signed. | |
| 1864 | Union General William Rosecrans blames his defeat at Chickamauga on two of his subordinate generals. They are later exonerated by a court of inquiry. | |
| 1874 | Colonel Ronald Mackenzie raids a war camp of Comanche and Kiowa at the Battle of Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, slaughtering 2,000 of their horses. | |
| 1904 | A woman is placed under arrest for smoking a cigarette on New York's Fifth Avenue. | |
| 1912 | W.C. Handy's "Memphis Blues" is published. | |
| 1913 | Race riots in Harriston, Mississippi, kill 10 people. | |
| 1924 | Three U.S. Army aircraft arrive in Seattle, Washington after completing a 22-day round-the-world flight. | |
| 1928 | Sir Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin when he notices a bacteria-killing mold growing in his laboratory; it remained for Howard Florey and Ernst Chain to isolate the active ingredient, allowing the "miracle drug" to be developed in the 1940s. | |
| 1939 | Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agree on a division of Poland; Warsaw surrenders to German troops. | |
| 1958 | France ratifies a new constitution. | |
| 1959 | Explorer VI, the U.S. satellite, takes the first video pictures of earth. | |
| 1961 | Military coup in Damacus ends the Egypt-Syria union known as the United Arab Republic that was formed Feb. 1, 1958. | |
| 1963 | Roy Lichtenstein's pop art work Whaam!, depicting in comic-book style a US jet shooting down an enemy fighter, is exhibited for the first time; it will become one of the best known examples of pop art. | |
| 1995 | Israel's Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) leader Yasser Arafat sign an interim agreement concerning settlement on the Gaza Strip. | |
| 1996 | Afghanistan's former president (1986-92) Mohammad Najibullah tortured and murdered by the Taliban. | |
| 2008 | SpaceX launches the first private spacecraft, Falcon 1. |
Man used jackhammer to destroy two-billion-year-old rock formation in order to have sea view
The unnamed resident decided that enough was enough last Thursday after
years of a sea-less view in his home in Locquirec in the Finistère
department of Brittany.
Seemingly without any regard for the town’s priceless heritage the man got hold of a jackhammer and began drilling into the priceless rocks.
On Monday the man stopped his demolition after being ordered to do so by authorities.
It turns out this isn’t the first time the man has been caught trying to clear his view.
The man had already made an attempt to budge one of the rocks in 2013,
before being stopped by Dour ha Douar, an association specializing in
the respect and protection of the environment.
Ironically, the association came across the resident in the midst of his renovation work during a guided tour of the town’s natural heritage. By Sunday a sign had appeared saying "Here the destruction of heritage". The rocks, which are formed from an extremely rare type of granite that no longer exists in Brittany, date back more than two billion years.
Ironically, the association came across the resident in the midst of his renovation work during a guided tour of the town’s natural heritage. By Sunday a sign had appeared saying "Here the destruction of heritage". The rocks, which are formed from an extremely rare type of granite that no longer exists in Brittany, date back more than two billion years.
Waitress Gives Lush Dimbulb’s $2000 Tip To Abortion Charity
A
waitress-turned-author has a confession that might make wingnut hate
speech radio hack Lush Dimbilb a bit uncomfortable: The two thousand
dollars he gave her as a tip? She immediately gave it to charities which
fund abortions.Lush Dimbulb has stolen millions off of his particular brand of knee-jerk anti-liberalism, over the years becoming one of the most despised radio hacks on the air. With all of that hate-profit, Dimbulb was apparently feeling generous when he went out twice with his friend, sportscaster Al Michaels, to an upscale Dallas steakhouse where award-winning author, Merritt Tierce, was working as a waitress. After he got his bills, he reportedly left Tierce a total of $2,000 in the tip line.
Given the pretty awful treatment workers in the food and service industries often experience, most waiters and waitresses would be forgiven for taking the money and running, but not Tierce. Little did Dimbulb know, but his waitress also happened to be the executive director of the Texas Equal Abortion Fund. I wonder if he would still have felt so generous had he known?
Tierce said the thought didn’t even cross her mind to keep the money. She said it felt “like blood money to me.” Instead, she took the money and gave it to her charity — which provides financial assistance to poor women who need abortions but can’t afford the costs. “It felt like laundering the money in a good way,” she recalled. “He’s such an obvious target for any feminist or sane person. It was really bizarre to me that he gave me $2,000, and he’s evil incarnate in some ways.”
She may not have kept the money, but Tierce wound up just fine. After a few years, she decided to take some of her experiences as a waitress and turn it into a fictional re-imagining of that Dallas steakhouse in her debut novel Love Me Back.
Lush on the other hand? Poor, poor Lush. While he was publicly ranting about how college women who want birth control were “sluts” and “prostitutes,” the money he was making with all that anger was being dumped directly back into the very things he opposed. How’s that for karma?
If you’ve managed to avoid Limbulb’s bloviating and aren’t aware (in which case, bravo!), the hate speech hack is fiercely opposed to abortion. To make that opposition explicitly clear, in a broadcast a few years ago, he went so far as to call abortion and the pro-choice movement the “root of our cultural decay.”
Make that: cultural decay sponsored by Lush Dimbulb.
Tom Cotton and the era of post-truth politics
A couple of years ago, Mitt Romney developed a bad habit.
As part of his national campaign, the repugican nominee would attack
President Obama over some perceived failing. Then the attack would be
fact-checked and be proven wrong. Romney, confronted with proof that he
was lying, would repeat the claim anyway, convinced that it didn’t
matter whether he told the truth or not. It happened over and over and over again.
It underscored a dangerous development: the era of post-truth politics.
Two years later, the phenomenon hasn’t gone away. In Arkansas
last week, Tom Cotton (r), his cabal’s nominee, was
caught in one of the most brazen lies
of the 2014 campaign season. The right-wing congressman claimed he
voted against this year’s Farm Bill because President Obama “hijacked”
it, “turned it into a food-stamp bill,” and added “billions more in
spending.”
As a factual matter, literally none of this is even remotely true, and fact-checkers came down hard on such shameless dishonesty – all of which might matter if Cotton gave a darn. But as Peter Urban reported the other day, the repugican just doesn’t care about getting caught.
Rejecting criticism of its latest TV ad, repugican Tom Cotton plans to keep running the “Farm Bill” message beyond its current ad buy.“We’ve gotten such great feedback from farmers, taxpayers, and supporters that we’re actually going to increase the size of the ad buy,” said David Ray, a spokes-liar for the Cotton campaign.
In a local interview this week, Cotton said he’s “proud” of
his demonstrably dishonest commercial, adding that the fact-checkers
didn’t spend time “growing up on a farm,” so he knows “a little bill
more about farming than they do.”
As defenses go, Cotton’s argument is gibberish. One need not
grow up on a farm to recognize the basic tenets of reality. The
congressman told a lie, he knew it was a lie, he got caught telling a
lie, and instead of doing the honorable thing, Cotton has decided he likes this lie.
The public discourse isn’t supposed to work this way. Under
traditional American norms, politicians could be expected to spin,
dodge, and slice the truth awfully thin, but there was an expectation
that a candidate who got caught telling a bald-faced lie to the public
was likely to end up in real trouble.
Cotton seems to believe those norms no longer apply – he can get caught lying and pay no real price at all.
In other words, Tom Cotton sees American politics in a
post-truth era. He can say what he pleases, without regard for honesty,
because there won’t be any meaningful consequences for deceiving the
public on purpose.
Is he right? This didn’t work out too well for Romney, but Cotton’s in a much better position to prevail in Arkansas.
Once the standard is set that lying will be rewarded, what incentive will politicians have to be honest?
After Doing Nothing for Six Years, repugicans Claim We Need More … Wait For It - repugicans
We are supposed to believe that "repugicans are working to create
jobs for Americans. Democrats are working to save their own."…
The midterms are fast approaching and repugicans are scrambling to blame the Democrats for having done nothing at all to move the country forward since the day Barack Obama took office in 2009.
In a CNN op-ed, John Thune (r-SD) and Cathy McMorris Rodgers (r-WA) claim –
and you wonder if they didn’t giggle helpless over their keyboards as
they wrote –
Our cabal has heard Americans’ concerns, and that’s why we’ve put forward hundreds of bills to help grow the economy, create jobs, expand opportunity and give American families hope for tomorrow.
The repugican cabal has, of course, done nothing of
the sort. But according to Thune and Rodgers, “The House repugican
majority has passed one jobs bill after another.”
Right.
John Boehner keeps claiming that repugicans have
produced 40+ jobs bills, and Nancy Pelosi’s office finally had to put
together a fact sheet to disprove the scurrilous allegations that the repugican cabal had tried to create even a single job for Americans:
Speaker Boehner’s list of 43 so-called “jobs” bills includes:
- 33 partisan, special interest bills, which are message bills to nowhere and are not “jobs” bills; and
- 10 mostly modest bills with bipartisan support still being considered in the Senate; not significant “jobs” bills.
That’s how much repugicans love Americans’ concerns. As just one example of these mythical jobs bills,
* The repugican cabal’s Budget to Give More Tax Breaks to Millionaires, As Well As To Destroy 3 Million Jobs (Path to Prosperity Budget, H.Con.Res. 96) – Instead of creating jobs, this House repugican cabal budget is estimated to destroy 3 million jobs and decrease economic growth by 2.5 percent in 2016. The repugican cabal budget guts investment in America’s highways, railways, transit systems, and ports and slashes education funding. In addition, the repugican cabal budget raises taxes on middle class families with children by an average of at least $2,000, while giving a $200,000 tax break to millionaires.
Yeah, sorry Thune and Rodgers. Those just
don’t sound all that helpful to the bulk of us who are NOT rich. Which
is most Americans. You know, the ones you pretend to care about.
Since none of “Mythical 40 actually create jobs,
what do they do? As explained earlier , “The list
of “jobs bills” reveals that the legislation falls into three
categories.”
- The largest category is tax breaks and gifts for the oil, coal, and natural gas industries.
- he second category is regulatory repeal, which is also another gift for big business.
- The last category is attacks on Obamacare. Boehner’s jobs bills for veterans increased fees for services to vets.
But we’re supposed to believe “While Democrats stand
in the way of 21st-century solutions that will move our economy
forward, repugicans continue to advance them… We want to make it
better.”
For whom? Not for you and me, that is for certain. The Koch brothers might feel differently.
If that isn’t fantasy enough for one op-ed, Thune and Rodgers want you to believe that,
Unfortunately, once these bills go to the Democrat-led Senate, their progress comes to an abrupt halt. Scores of jobs bills and other important legislation are currently gathering dust on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s desk.
The same thing has happened to Senate repugicans.
“Americans need solutions. But as long as Reid
continues to obstruct meaningful legislation in the Senate, they’re not
going to get them.”
In a classic example of blaming the other guy for your own deeds, the dynamically dishonest duo write,
While Democrats stand in the way of 21st-century solutions that will move our economy forward, repugicans continue to advance them.The contrast between the two parties couldn’t be more clear: repugicans are working to create jobs for Americans. Democrats are working to save their own.
Really? How about when, back in July, you repugicans voted against American jobs by blocking a bill to end tax breaks for companies outsourcing jobs? I might be missing something, but sending American jobs overseas is a peculiar way to benefit Americans.
And what about that unfortunate little fact from just last week? You know, when, House repugicans screwed the American people by canceling jobs votes and leaving until November?
After a nearly a year of having done nothing, House repugicans have rewarded themselves by canceling all of their remaining votes and leaving town until after November’s midterm election.
DCCC Chairman Rep. Steve Israel said in response,
House repugicans are now abandoning any pretense of doing actual work for the American people, skipping town one day after doing the bare minimum required to keep the government functioning but blocking any progress for the middle class. House repugicans have proved yet again that they are only interested in doing their jobs long enough to stack the deck for special interests and launch political stunts. Democrats are committed to jumpstarting our middle class, not setting the government on autopilot and then heading for vacation.
In fact, far from moving the country forward, repugicans have plotted to hold the country back. As Robert Draper’s 2012 book,
‘Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the US House of Representatives’
explained, 15 repugicans, “House members Eric Cantor, Jeb Hensarling,
Pete Hoekstra, Dan Lungren, Kevin McCarthy, Paul Ryan and Pete Sessions.
From the Senate were Tom Coburn, Bob Corker, Jim DeMint, John Ensign
and Jon Kyl…gathered at the Caucus Room in Washington” and came up with a
strategy to make the Obama presidency a failure.
They planned to do this by obstructing the
president. Not to move America forward. Not to create jobs. But to
oppose everything Obama did so that he would not get re-elected in 2012.
That was it, their grand strategy for America in a
time of crisis. A plan that – given we were in two wars the repugicans
themselves had started and struggling with an economy they themselves
had destroyed – was nothing short of treason.
David Axelrod tweeted at the time, and really, “appalling” just doesn’t seem a strong enough term,
“This is sad, appalling but not terribly surprising. A repugican cabal plan to obstruct from day one.”
It is not Democrats who have refused to work with repugicans, but repugicans who, on Day 1 back in 2009, decided that
they would never ever agree with anything the president wanted, even if
it meant exposing themselves as buffoons by opposing their own bills
should Democrats ever agree with them.
As Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote over at HuffPo in January, “the repugican cabal’s biggest foe in 2014 will remain the repugican cabal.”
Reading Thune’s and Rodgers’ op-ed, I can only think that Lewis Carroll could not have indulged in a more bizarre wonderland of the imagination.
You want to help Americans, Thune and Rodgers? If you want to help, don’t come back. Stay on vacation.
The repugicans Disrespect The Marines While Trying To Raise Money Off Obama’s Latte Salute
The repugicans have turned their faux outrage over Obama’s
“latte salute” into a crass fundraising ploy that is disrespectful to
all Marines who have served, fought, and bled for their country.
Badly trailing in fundraising the national repugican senatorial coven is trying to raise money off of Obama’s latte salute:
The repugican fundraising pitch is that Obama has
disrespected the troops, “Our Commander-in-Chief should take the time to
properly salute our nation’s heroes in uniform. They do it for him.
Unfortunately, his disregard is part of a larger pattern. If you want to
send a message to this White House that you’ve had enough, fill out
this form and get your free bumper sticker.”
The bumper sticker tells Obama to put the latte down
and features the hashtag semperlatte. Semper Latte is an abuse of the
Marine motto Semper fidelis, which means always faithful or always
loyal. Hundreds of thousands of Marines have bled and died for our country
with that motto in their hearts. It is the height of disrespect for repugicans to warp the motto into a crass political gimmick that they
are trying to use to raise money for their struggling senate campaigns.
This behavior is nothing new for the repugican cabal. The repugican cabal wrapped themselves around the flag while raising money
off of the troops that they sent to die during the Iraq war. Exploiting
the troops for financial gain is normal behavior for repugicans, and
the irony of repugicans claiming that President Obama disrespected the
Marines while they disrespect the Marines to raise money should not be
lost on anyone.
The fact is that Obama
didn’t disrespect the Marines. There is no rule or protocol for
saluting the troops. It is a bit of political theater that Ronald Reagan
invented in 1981. The basis for the repugican faux outrage over the
“latte salute” has been debunked. The wingnut tizzy over Obama’s
salute is another distraction that is hiding the reality that the 2014
election isn’t going well for the repugican cabal.
The repugicans are facing another defeat in
November, so they are inventing a new Obama scandal to distract the
voters from figuring out what a terrible job their cabal is doing. What
is disrespectful the troops has nothing to do with a latte, and
everything to do with repugicans exploiting phony patriotism for
political gain.
Sam Brownback Insults Kansas Voters By Treating Them Like They Are Gullible and Stupid
It is beyond dispute that repugicans take advantage of their
supporters' stupidity, and Brownback must believe Kansas voters are the
stupidest people in the nation …
It is beyond dispute that repugicans take advantage
of their supporters’ stupidity, and Brownback must believe Kansas
voters are the stupidest people in the nation according to his campaign website.
Brownback has the temerity to boast that his nonexistent economic
achievements have elevated Kansas’ economy to nation-leading heights and
promised that his “junta has accomplished this and so much more
in my first term as Governor.” He ended by appealing to voters to “Help
me stand up for Kansas against an over-reaching federal government.
Join Lt. Governor Colyer and I (sic) today.”
It is unlikely there are many Kansans who are unaware of the “fiscal catastrophe”
the state is experiencing due to Brownback’s tax cuts. They are so
severe the state’s school system is in a severe crisis, ratings agencies
have issued several credit downgrades, and the healthcare system is in
tatters due to privatization. Interestingly, Brownback actually told
Kansas residents his brilliant “red state economic model” was founded on
principles that were not “the kind detectable by ratiocination.” He said in a speech in 2013 that his economic acumen is not based on “mental principles, but things that connect through the heart.”
Even gullible repugican voters cannot deny, whether
their hearts like it or not, that squandering a budget surplus on tax
cuts for the rich and corporations coupled with a billion-plus dollars
in more cuts has wreaked havoc on the people and put the Kansas’
financial status on the fast track to bankruptcy. Still, Brownback is
confident that despite the state’s nation-leading economic disaster, he
can simply tell voters that everything is wonderful if they will only
disregard mental principles of a thirty-year failed repugican economic
agenda and connect with Brownback through their hearts. That, and just
trust that Brownback’s economic policies are a raging success at
“growing the Kansas economy.”
That was one of the main headings on Brownback’s
campaign website and obviously he assumes people suffering under his
typically repugican economic agenda are unaware that Kansas’ economy is
not leading the nation. Part and parcel of Brownback’s storied “red
state model” economic agenda was following trickle-down champion Arthur
Laffer’s instructions to repugican legislators that if they slashed
taxes for the rich and reduced the state’s revenue, the state would be
awash in new revenue. Now that the state has suffered several credit
downgrades due to a lack of revenue, over a hundred current and former repugican leaders have endorsed Brownback’s Democratic opponent and
warned Kansas residents that Brownback’s tax cuts will bankrupt the
state within two years if not sooner. It is what Brownback’s campaign
calls growing the Kansas economy.
Brownback must believe Kansans are the most gullible
people in the nation because he claimed that because he “decreased
taxes for all Kansans, Kansans naturally have more money in their
pockets in 2014.” It is doubtful his assertion will ring true with
voters who know full well Brownback’s claim is a filthy lie. They may be
ignorant and likely very gullible, but Kansans who are not wealthy are
very aware they do not have more money to spend and it is due to the
disastrous tax cuts for the rich and corporations.
It is true Brownback cut taxes to the bone for the
wealthy and corporations, but for the great majority of Kansans there is
less money to spend because their tax liability increased. Why? Because
while the rich and corporations enjoy tax cuts, most Kansans across the
state are paying much higher local and property taxes to make up for the state’s revenue shortfalls starving schools, shutting down the courts, and forcing prisons to operate with woefully insufficient guards.
Brownback claims his tax cuts were solely to boost
state revenue, help corporations, and demonstrate to the rest of America
how the perfect “red state economic model” can be enacted successfully
at the federal level. However, as Kansas residents have experienced
firsthand, the goal was starving the government of revenue. One of
Brownback’s wingnut cohorts in the state’s legislature admitted
the only purpose of outrageous tax cuts was to enrich the wealthy and
reduce revenue to chop the government down to size; likely to drown it
in a bathtub. It is precisely why repugicans at the national level are
desperate to control Congress and enact Brownback’s government-killing
tax cuts at the federal level.
Astonishingly, national repugicans are not even
concealing their intent to follow Brownback’s “red state model” anymore.
It was blatantly evident in statements from Mitch McConnell and Paul
Ryan that stealing control of Congress means repugicans can “go after
the federal government, all of it;” including as Ryan says putting a
“stop to Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid,” and anything remotely
considered “an entitlement.” Even more astonishingly, there are millions
of gullible Americans who will vote for repugicans despite having a
clear vision of precisely what that Kansas red state model means for the
American people and the economic future of the United States.
It is going to be interesting to see how the people
of Kansas react to their governor’s assumption that they are so
gullible, and in fact stupid, to believe that his fiscal catastrophe is
really a brilliant economic achievement. Although reports reveal that
Kansas voters are paying attention and are not happy with the governor,
he does still have a secret campaign weapon in his arsenal; the fetus.
Brownback made a name for himself as a champion of the 'christian'
morality crowd and regardless of how bad a state’s economy or people
suffer, they will rush to support even a walking economic disaster if he
invokes the religion that depends on gullibility nearly as much as repugican politicians.
Moron repugican Denies Making Controversial Comments About Gays, Forgets The Entire Thing Is On Tape
At a town hall event in Ballantyne, North Carolina, Pittenger was asked: “Do you think businesses should be able to fire someone because they are gay or lesbian?” He replied that businesses should have the “autonomy” to fire workers for being LGBT, and asked rhetorically: “Why should government be there to impose on the freedoms we enjoy?”
The Charlotte Observer picked up the story, and reported that when they called Pittenger to confirm the quotes, the congressman “stood by his comments.”
But after local and national human rights groups began organizing around the comments and protesting at Pittenger’s office in Charlotte, he stood by them no longer.
Local channel WSOC-TV reported: “The congressman’s office insists he never made the divisive statement…Pittinger told [ThinkProgress] he does not support the employment non-discrimination act and the blogger ran with it.”
The office repeated the denial to MSNBC: “His opposition to ENDA was ‘translated’ into ‘firing gays’ by that blogger,” the director, Jamie Bowers, wrote in an email to MSNBC on Friday.”
Below is the unedited recording of the remarks, which confirms the quotes originally ran by ThinkProgress.
Pittenger begins by saying, “I believe people are already protected.”
This is false. There are no national protections for LGBT workers, and Congress is unlikely to pass them any time soon. While some states have passed protections, North Carolina is not one of them.
He then says: “We don’t want to micromanage people’s lives and businesses. If you have a business, do you want the government to come in and tell you you need to hire somebody?”
Despite this characterization, the Employment Non-Discrimination Act would not involve the government forcing businesses to hire LGBT workers. Rather, it would bar employers from using sexual orientation or gender identity as a reason to fire, refuse to hire or refuse to promote a worker.
In the remarks he now denies, Pittenger compares the right to discriminate in hiring to the right to smoke on private property: “It’s like smoking bans,” he said “Do you ban smoking or do people have the right to private property? I think people have the right to private property.”
Roca Labs Sues Customer For Posting A Negative Review To Better Business Bureau
Roca Labs makes the "Non Surgical Gastric Bypass" (which one expert says is mostly industrial food thickeners) with terms-of-sale that prohibit complaining if you get sick, or don't like the product, or feel like you were ripped off.
The customer they're suing lodged a complaint with the Better Business Bureau; Roca asserts "breach of contract" and "defamation per se," because under the terms of the company's fine-print, any customer complaint is automatically defamatory.
That's not how defamation law works. At all. Even if this woman's comments to the BBB are defamatory (and I'm not saying they are), you can't just have someone sign a contract saying that if they do something, they'll be guilty of defamation.
Either way, all of this should make you wonder just what sort of company Roca Labs is - in that it seems to not just sue its own customers for negative reviews, but to work so hard to stop negative reviews and to threaten and intimidate those who make complaints about their experience with the company.
Here's Where Criminals Go to Buy Guns Online
You don't need
Tor. You don't need super-secret encryption. And you definitely don't
need a background check. Getting firearms online, fast, without any
legal fuss, is pretty easy. In fact, a new report concludes plenty of
domestic abusers and violent felons are getting guns that way.Titled
"Online and Off the Record," the report by Everytown.-.the Mike
Bloomberg-affiliated pro-regulation gun group - suggests that hundreds
of thousands, probably millions, of guns nationwide are now being sold
online sans paperwork or background checks, and as many as 10 percent of
them are going straight to convicted criminals who are legally barred
from owning firearms.
The report focused on web-based gun sales in Washington state, where voters will decide in November whether to require background checks on all weapons purchases and where "more than forty thousand guns are posted for sale by unlicensed sellers on just five websites" each year, without a background check requirement, Everytown estimates.
The report focused on web-based gun sales in Washington state, where voters will decide in November whether to require background checks on all weapons purchases and where "more than forty thousand guns are posted for sale by unlicensed sellers on just five websites" each year, without a background check requirement, Everytown estimates.
Man gambled away small fortune after bank accidentally transferred money into his account
A New Zealand man spent more than $100,000 (£49,000, $80,000) in a week
after his bank accidentally transferred the money into his account, a
court has heard.
Mehdi Soheili, whose name suppression lapsed on Tuesday, appeared in the
Auckland District Court after admitting a charge of theft.
The 32-year-old's lawyer Shannon Withers called it "an unfortunate crime
of opportunity" and told the court how his client gambled most of the
cash away.
On November 13, Soheili found that his bank, the name of which is
suppressed, had transferred $141,991 (£69,000, $113,000) into his
account in error.
Eight days later they froze his spending but not before he had spent a
significant chunk of it.
Soheili, a qualified chef, admitted stealing $106,217 (£52,000,
$84,500).
"It was his addiction to gambling and an unwise series of decisions," Mr
Withers said.
"This will impact upon his future for a considerable amount of time."
The lawyer said his client intended to pay the money back but his job
prospects would be diminished if his name was made public.
Judge David Wilson, QC, declined name suppression and said that at $150
(£73, $119) a week, it would take the defendant about 13 years to pay
off his debt.
In the interim, the bank added the debt to Soheili's account, meaning he now had a six-figure, maxed-out overdraft. The court heard how he had obtained a self-seclusion order from SkyCity to keep him away but the judge noted that had only been done in May, six months after the theft. Soheili was due to be sentenced on Tuesday but because he had refused to let probation assess his home, he could not be considered for a community-based sentence.
Rather than sentence him to imprisonment, Judge Wilson adjourned the hearing until November so he could rethink his position, which appeared to please the defendant. "Generally speaking a theft of this magnitude would lead to a jail sentence," the judge said. He called the offending "an act of some significant dishonesty" but said that among his seven previous convictions, which included unlawfully taking a vehicle, there was little to suggest the defendant was capable of repeating such serious acts. The case was not as bad as people defrauding others of their life savings, he said, but it was not a victimless crime. "I don't accept there's been no loss to the bank. Whether they get fully paid, that remains to be seen," the judge added.
In the interim, the bank added the debt to Soheili's account, meaning he now had a six-figure, maxed-out overdraft. The court heard how he had obtained a self-seclusion order from SkyCity to keep him away but the judge noted that had only been done in May, six months after the theft. Soheili was due to be sentenced on Tuesday but because he had refused to let probation assess his home, he could not be considered for a community-based sentence.
Rather than sentence him to imprisonment, Judge Wilson adjourned the hearing until November so he could rethink his position, which appeared to please the defendant. "Generally speaking a theft of this magnitude would lead to a jail sentence," the judge said. He called the offending "an act of some significant dishonesty" but said that among his seven previous convictions, which included unlawfully taking a vehicle, there was little to suggest the defendant was capable of repeating such serious acts. The case was not as bad as people defrauding others of their life savings, he said, but it was not a victimless crime. "I don't accept there's been no loss to the bank. Whether they get fully paid, that remains to be seen," the judge added.
Mickey and Minnie Mouse questioned by police after brawl with heckler in Spanish square
A street performer and his partner dressed as Mickey and Minnie Mouse
were questioned by Spanish police after a brawl with a heckler in a
square in the Spanish capital Madrid.
The punch-up happened when entertainers Fazzio and Ticiana Yanez lost
their temper at a persistent critic.
He added: "He'd been heckling their balloon bending magic act for some time and it seems they'd had enough." Police halted the brawl by separating the heckler - later identified as Vero Arreola - and Yanez, who by now had a bloody nose. Minnie performer Ticiana said: "We have a good children's show but he just wouldn't leave us alone."
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