Our lives teach us who we are.
– Salman Rushdie
– Salman Rushdie
Recent Posts
- Day 14: Louisiana Senator Approvingly Compares Trump to Stalin
- Day 13: Elon Musk Flexes His Muscles
- Day 12: While Elon Musk Takes Over, We Podcast With Driftglass and Blue Gal
- Day 11: Harm of Fascist Regime’s Foreign Aid Freeze Comes Into View
- Day 10: The Fascist Regime Blames a Plane Crash on Nonwhite People
but they can try to ram through an unborn pain bill for their anti-choice followers: CBS News
Like so many other things, this legislation is not backed up by science. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco last year reviewed dozens of studies and medical reports and said that fetuses likely are incapable of feeling pain until around the seventh month of pregnancy, when they are about 28 weeks old.
Is it January yet?
levitate small critters: Live Science
The link even has pictures…
And I thought that levitating sensation at the Grateful Dead concert was chemically induced – silly me!
Even in Iran..
Iranian Soap Star Swept up in Video Scandal
From China to Iran, Web Diarists Are Challenging Censors
Clueleass Hadley: That leaked Hadley memo at the center of last evening’s cancelled 3-way dinner -Bush, Al-Maliki and King Abdullah – has been summarised by experts as proposals that would be throwing gasoline on fire.
FBI forced to settle with Mr. Brandon Mayfield: U.S. Pays $2 Mil to Settle Oregon Terror Arrest Suit
The US Supreme Court appeared split Wednesday as it took up the debate over global warming. Despite its symbolic importance, the case is limited to whether the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has the authority to regulate vehicle emissions of four greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide. The Supreme Court’s conservative members seemed to recoil at the idea of government regulation, while their liberal colleagues openly embraced it. Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia insisted that the greenhouse gases in question represent “only” six percent of the world total and that they pose no “imminent harm,” agreeing with Deputy Attorney General Gregory Garre, who represented the EPA. Liberal Justice David Souter slammed the government’s contention that cutting greenhouse gas emissions on new US-made cars would only have a very marginal effect on global warming. “Let’s assume the rest of the world doesn’t do anything about it, which I think is not very reasonable … the question is not to stop global warming but to reduce it,” Souter said. It appears the Supreme Court’s decision will once again depend on Justice Anthony Kennedy, who holds the moderate-conservative swing vote and who did not voice an opinion Wednesday. At this website a transcript of the proceedings has been posted, and a recording of the oral arguments should be posted there sometime in the next couple of weeks.
Justice Scalia would probably have been interested in this report, even if it’s from the UN: The livestock industry contributes more to the greenhouse effect than cars, the UN food and farming agency said in a report Wednesday which also slammed this sector as a major source of soil and water degradation. “The livestock sector generates more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalent than transport,” said the report by the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
A new study has strengthened the idea that a weakening Gulf Stream could trigger a colder climate in Europe. During the “Little Ice Age,” about 500 years ago, the Gulf Stream’s flow was 10 percent lower in volume than today’s, according to the most current data.
A new study provides compelling evidence that “one and only one impact” caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and most other animal life 65 million years ago, according to a University of Missouri-Columbia researcher. Some scientists have said that the impact of a large meteorite in the Yucatan Peninsula, in what is today Mexico, caused the mass extinction, while others argue that there must have been additional meteorite impacts or other stresses around the same time.
A geologist at Rutgers University has come up with evidence our planet practices recycling on a grand scale. New evidence shows that parts of the Earth’s crust that long ago dove hundreds or thousands of kilometers into the Earth’s interior have resurfaced in the hot lava flow of Hawaiian volcanoes.
They hate us for our lemurs: A new law that comes into force this week gives federal authorities expanded powers to prosecute animal rights militants — as the State Department is warning that their activities eclipse terrorism as a day-to-day security problem for U.S. companies in Western Europe. Bush signed S 3880, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, without fanfare at the White House Monday morning, before flying to the Baltic for a NATO summit.
An international team of scientists has observed, for the first time, the bizarre deep-sea communities living around methane seeps off New Zealand’s east coast. This is the first time cold seeps have been viewed and sampled in the southwest Pacific.
As Ahnold might say: “Pollution causes girly men” – Researchers have found evidence that high blood levels of TCDD, a type of dioxin commonly found in the general male population, are associated with decreased testosterone levels and a not necessarily beneficial inhibition of prostate growth. The researchers measured levels of the dioxin TCDD in 964 U.S. veterans of Operation Ranch Hand, the Vietnam War project to spray the herbicide Agent Orange. They compared them over a 20-year period ending in 2002 to 1,259 veterans who were not involved in the spraying program. A second study from Belgium indicates PCBs and dioxin in foods can have the same effect. And a report studying Chinese workers shows that exposure to the common plasticizers called phthalates, compounds used in the manufacture of household, consumer, and medical products, can cause lowered serum levels of testosterone. …And that might even give Justice Scalia pause for thought … Nah…
EXCLUSIVE: Iranian Weapons Arm Iraqi Militia
ABC is also reporting in another EXCLUSIVE that the Titanic is indeed under water.
That is totally not funny, but I laughed anyway. To keep from crying, I guess…
It isn’t over, YET:
TPM cites analysis of state tests on electronic voting machines in FL 13th, the evidence mounts that whatever it was that intervened in the count, Democrats were affected more than Republicans. 18,000 undervotes. Repub. Buchanan was certified as winning by less than 400 votes. Dem. Jennings lawsuit filed.
Testers re-enact Election Day — results differ
Interesting that while Congress will be investigating the election, the Democrats are steering clear of Jennings’ lawsuit. The Sarasota Herald Tribune reported probably hearings when Feinstein becomes chair, as expected in January, of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which has jurisdiction over federal elections. Pelosi is avoiding seating Jennings over Buchanan, mindful of a lingering disruption of bipartisanship caused in the 1980’s when a Democrat was seated over a Republican.
I am interested in the age and gender profile of the voters among those 18,000 undervotes. Sarasota County is home to many, many elderly people. My frail octogenarian mother, who lives in Sarasota, doesn’t like the screen-touch voting machines; she finds them confusing.
I read there’s a proposal being floated to discontinue use of the touch screen machines.