- Hey, would you look at that? It's also still Confederate History Month, as hosted by Frederick Douglass.
- Courtesy the BBC, a first-time voters' guide and some commentary on the state of the UK elections: "A lot of students and members of the public see [politicians] as comedy figures rather than to be taken seriously."
- Shorter, this discussion about frivolous female consumption: Someday, it would be interesting to see the reaction to an article about how silly men are for buying dozens of pricey video games when they play, like, three on a consistent basis, how selfish they are for not using their shopping time to buy clothes for their kids or hunting down a perfect interview suit for their female partner, or how irresponsible they are for spending so much of their food dollar on snacks and beer. But that article isn't going to appear in a major paper, not being nearly as entertaining to the masses as mocking women for doing the majority of household shopping.
- Seventeen years worth of data says that corn is more energy efficient as human food than as animal feed or processed biofuel. This is Natasha's complete lack of surprise.
- It's damn hard to get by in the US, when a $50,300 yearly household income leaves a family with $100-200 in discretionary spending per month, based on the following assumptions and average expenses:
1) Didn't overpay for his house
2) Made a 20% down-payment of $45K on his home purchase
3) Has no debt aside from his mortgage (so no credit card debt, student loans, etc)
4) Only has one car in the family and drives 15,000 miles per year
5) Keeps his energy bill reasonable
6) Does not eat out at restaurants ever/ keeps food expenses moderate
7) Has no pets
8) Pays for health insurance but has no monthly medical expenses (unlikely with two kids)
9) Keeps his personal budget under control regarding cable TV, Internet, and the like
10) Doesn't spoil his kids with toys, gadgets, trips to the movies, etc.
11) Doesn't take vacations.
- You can click here to read about and donate to a fund supporting abortions for low-income women. The organization doesn't always have enough money to help out, and these are some of the brainstorming questions they ask women to help them think of alternate funding sources:
- If you're having to think about checking your coat pockets, pawning your possessions, lying about unexpected utility bills, borrowing money or taking up babysitting to cover the costs of a one-time medical procedure, maybe it's a bad time to be forced to have a child you don't think you can care for. On the other hand, it's also moderately evil to suggest that sex and parenthood is only for the wealthy. Though social reactionaries never seem to quite get that consent is an important aspect of sexuality and reproduction, unless they just don't care. And in a just society, we should be embarrassed to deny meaningful consent to anyone because of poverty.
- It's Confederate History Month in the great State of Virginia, so here's a bit about Mississippi's failure to ratify the constitutional amendment repealing slavery.
- What does a company get after an explosion at one of their unsafe facilities kills 29 people? Upgraded from 'hold' to 'buy.' Market. Failure.
- Young people in Greece and Ireland are starting to emigrate in larger numbers, after several years in which growing economies had been keeping them home or luring them back from careers abroad.
- The Pakistani national government is starting to pay attention to acid attacks on women, but local officials often ignore them and for some reason, it seems to be ridiculously easy to get strong acid.
- There are no working 'clean' coal prototypes as yet, nothing that could be cost-effectively deployed, and yet there are governments who think it's a great thing to build a deregulated industry around.
- Good news out of President Obama's nuclear summit, as Ukraine has agreed to get rid of their weapons grade uranium by 2012, as well as change over their reactors so they won't need to be producing it anymore.
- Apple has moved to ban development for the iPhone using Adobe products, not by name, but worded in such a way that Flash applications can't be directly ported to the iPhone. This news actually makes me glad I don't have one, and ensures I won't get one.
- Eeriest thing about the Polish presidential plane crash: "It was carrying a delegation to a ceremony to commemorate the Soviet massacre of more than 20,000 members of Poland's elite officer corps 70 years ago."
- Massey Energy, parent company of the Upper Big Branch mine where an explosion killed 29 miners last week, deliberately undercuts union coal producers and keeps unions out of its facilities, recently with CEO Don Blankenship personally leading the drive to bust a union that 70 percent of the UBB workers had wanted as recently as three years ago: "By 1988, Massey had sold or closed 18 of 23 Massey facilities with unions, Smith said. The company ended up with five facilities where the UMWA represented the workers. Of the five, the UMWA now represents workers in only two, which are coal processing plants, [Phil Smith, a United Mine Workers spokesman,] said."
- Obama may indeed be an economic corporatist, just like his predecessors, but hey, at least he isn't running the place like Columbia, the country the Tea Partiers may be thinking of when they talk about the US: "During Uribe's tenure, 2.5 million Colombians became refugees in their own country, displaced either by the guerrillas or paramilitarism. ... As of last year, 48,000 government officials, including 800 mayors and 30 governors, were being investigated for corruption."
- The Dawn Johnsen nomination, a whodunit: "So, it was not Ben Nelson who killed the nomination of Dawn Johnsen, nor was it Arlen Specter or Senate Republicans."
- With this Sarah Palin quote, I can't decide if it should get made into an ad for Democrats or if it would actually have the effect she thinks it will: "... what's wrong with being the party of no? We're the party of hell no!''
- Shorter, the Tea Party: "Seriously, if the shiftless welfare queens would just stop stealing all this money from hardworking white people, we wouldn't have all these problems. I don't see why all everyone always jumps to the conclusion that it has anything to do with race."
- Least surprising thing you'll read all day: "Glenn Beck is engaged in a carefully orchestrated performance that, if taken to its logical end, can only end up in tragedy."
- Earthworms form herds: "A modelling study then showed that, by using touch alone, up to 40 earthworms could follow each other in a similar way, explaining how herds of the animals preferred to move together into one chamber in the initial experiments."
- This mine explosion disaster and the confirmed deaths of at least 25 people brought to you by Massey Energy and JPMorgan Chase, who will also be involved in the writing of any energy bill we get out of the Senate this year. It's revolting. But hey, look, medical procedures only women get are icky! Icky, I say! Icky!
- The man arrested for making threatening phone calls to Speaker Pelosi and her husband's office lived in subsidized housing. Words sort of fail.
- No matter what the wingnuts and moral children in the press say, you're not allowed to kill civilians. It's actually the law. For everybody. For very good reason.
- Robert Rubin finally agrees that there are banks that are too big, and that derivatives need to be regulated.
- CNN helps promote the lies of the ex-gay movement, because they can apparently be fooled by a suit and a tidy haircut into allowing a seriously disturbed individual to say appalling things on television.
- Ben Bernanke says the deficit has reached the point where Social Security, Medicare and education cuts may be necessary. He allowed that defense cuts might also be needed, but as you may remember, his boss has already indicated he's not very interested in that.
- A gay student and the date she wanted to take to her high school prom in Mississippi were sent to a fake prom along with a handful of learning disabled students (learning disabilities obviously a lifestyle choice) while the rest of their classmates went to another event put together by a pack of parents suffering from severely arrested development.
- In the next few weeks, rain may cut off access to parts of southern Sudan, which the UN has declared to be the hungriest place on earth.
- Margaret Atwood is now a Twitter fan. Better late than never ;)
- The Monsanto corporation is under investigation in seven states for anti-competitive practices in marketing their seed to farmers. Elsewhere in the world, the international peasant farmer organization, La Via Campesina, has declared promotion of open field trials of Monsanto's genetically modified crops to be an act of aggression.
- "McDonnell's Confederate History Month proclamation irks civil rights leaders." Okay, I guess that's an accurate title, but totally insufficient, particularly considering that the announcement skipped anti-slavery language included in previous such declarations by Virginia's previous Republican governor. So let me fix that for you: 'Confederate History Month proclamation offends everyone who isn't an @sshole.'
- A seriously unhinged man who suspected that his wife might have had an abortion filed a restraining order against police so he could use deadly force at a local reproductive health clinic.
- Even school district administrators have to be more concerned with money than with children's health. Language arts teacher Mendy Heaps, of Elizabeth Middle School in Denver, CO, has been told in no uncertain terms that she is to stop bringing fresh fruit to school and lobbying for removal of the school's highly profitable fast food offerings.
- Law school clinics across the country offering pro bono services to unpopular clients have had their school funding threatened by Republican politicians, putting a chill on clients that law clinics across the country are willing to accept, depriving law students of valuable experiences. Affected cases include those where non-profit citizens' groups sue to enforce environmental regulations that local officials refuse to enforce themselves.
- Fruit and vegetable consumption seem to have only a limited relation to cancer rates, though the recommended five daily servings appear to have other health protective effects. While it seems like bad news that you can't rabbit your way out of cancer, it does seem like a good defense against food processors blaming personal habits when people get sick after eating their lousy products because the can't afford fresh produce.
- I'm declaring the following They Might Be Giants song mandatory listening for all political types. You're welcome.
- Phoebe Prince, a 15 year old girl, was harassed by classmates until she killed herself. States are now talking about strengthening bullying laws, but there are already perfectly good laws on the books forbidding stalking, harassment, vandalism and abuse. School administrators have zero tolerance policies for taking aspirin in school and talking back, maybe they should think about taking abuse and harassment seriously.
- Obama will open 130 million acres of the US coast to drilling. How's that hopey changey stuff working out? I don't know about for me, but I think there are going to be some drill happy Alaskans who feel better about it. (Via Hopeful in NJ in Quick Hits.)
- If you follow environmental issues, you probably know that ExxonMobil has been a huge funder of climate science denial. Though as it turns out, Koch industries is the biggest supporter of climate misinformation, outspending Exxon Mobil by close to 3:1. If you don't follow environmental politics though, Koch's funding of Heritage, Cato and the Manhattan Institute probably puts a wrench in your day now and again, anyhow.
- KBR will finally have to face Jamie Leigh Jones in court after she was raped by several fellow KBR employees, locked in a shipping container and then told by the company that her contract barred her from suing them over it.
- Here's the lowdown on government housing support programs, along with the bad news that not only might the market not be coming back, it might be headed for another dive.
- Sarah Palin defends advice to teabaggers to "reload" as a use of hunting terminology. Hunting terminology? Okay, so now she's telling her unhinged wingnut followers that they're supposed to be hunting us. I don't see how that's better.
- The CERN Large Hadron Collider has smashed its first high-energy beams together. While it's too early to get meaningful results, researchers are excited by the data they're collecting, and also over a successful test that pushed the limits of what they'd previously been able to observe.
- Sometimes, even Bill McKibben gets a little low over our environmental prospects, but he's getting right back to work.
- Wow, you actually can get fired as a Republican. First there was Frum, who committed the grave offense of saying something true. Now there's bondage strip club guy. So anyone thinking of joining the other side for the money, just be aware that while you can keep your job if you get caught wearing diapers with hookers and high on blow, while you can keep your job if you obstruct justice, while you can keep your job if you mishandle classified information, remember that the entertainment of your fellow freaks and perverts needs to go on your own credit card.
- Influential members of UK foreign policy circles are beginning to think that the US-UK 'special relationship' may have outlived its use. Why they couldn't figure this out before the latest Iraq war, who knows.
- A bomb in Athens, Greece killed a 15 year old bystander, the latest in a series of bombings and other violent incidents, including riots, in the economically distressed country.
- Peak oil is back for discussion, though well out of the spotlight, for now.
- Today is the 30th anniversary of Archbishop Oscar Romero's assassination, and I have a feeling that the previous sentence would have made the liberation theologian cry.
- Reminder: conservatives don't actually believe in bank regulation and Wall Street threats to quit en masseare toothless. So let's not have a repeat of the time-wasting Baucanalia that was the pointless attempt to get a bipartisan solution for health reform out of the Senate.
- When even David Brooks has noticed that the country is broken, the free market revolution didn't bring paradise and that there might be something to a communitarian approach more like that of the UK, maybe it's time to really change a few things. Though I wouldn't listen too carefully to Brooks' prescriptions, the man is slow to catch on.
- Beauty is a performance, or, why women's partners might see them naked before they see them without makeup.
- The reproductive rights community may well have lost the healthcare fight over abortion due to preemptive, unilateral lobbying disarmament that kept pressure off early in the process and left them unable to counter the Stupak block. I think an argument could be made that losing this battle is going to take away from the activist community's other important fights, like preventing increasing numbers of pregnant women losing birth options and being forced into surgical deliveries that they don't want.
- The French government is facing widespread strikes over discontent about wage levels, unemployment, and the conservative government's plan to raise the retirement age and cut public pensions. Though French workers are merely among the most publicly agitated, The Economist is shocked to find that a recovery that benefited companies but not workers is really putting a fire under the kettle of public opinion.
- Hundreds of Yemeni women mobilized to demonstrate in favor of a stalled law that would raise the legal marriage age for girls to 17. The child marriage rate, with its resulting high illiteracy and maternal mortality problems, is thought to be a significant contributor to the country's dire poverty.
- Miley Cyrus is reported to have mentored 'American Idol' contestants, giving them advice on stage presence and dealing with nerves. It's unclear if she told any of them that what their careers really needed was to be the child of a pop star.
- The Nelson abortion provision in the Senate bill isn't status quo, goes beyond Hyde, and is very likely to end most abortion coverage in a few years, when at present, the vast majority of private plans cover it.
- The reason why the Nelson language is indeed such a big deal is that, like the Stupak language, any federal money is assumed to taint the entire plan, requiring that separate checks be written for abortion riders on plans that have even a single enrollee getting federal subsidies to purchase insurance. It's expensive to insurance companies in administrative costs and stigmatizing to individuals.
- Republicans are children, part the 374th. Bad tempered, grandstanding, overgrown children.
- Britain will open a new executive space agency that will direct separate efforts outside the European Space Agency.
- Google has shut down its Chinese website after refusing to cooperate any longer with government censorship laws following hacker attacks traced to Chinese universities that targeted the gmail accounts of Chinese dissidents and compromised proprietary source code.
- With retail not expected to come back until 2012, more mall stores are expected to close, which sounds likely to have a knock-on effect on sales in other stores as shops go empty.
- I heard this song the other day and it reminded me that, being varnish season again (you know, the season when you can leave the windows open so the air in your place doesn't become flammable,) it's coming time to drag out the sanity-saving hobbies. Bones in syndication only goes so far.
- Democrats finally managed to pass a health insurance reform bill. There's no public option and no abortion funding, which, as Jon Walker says, didn't stop Republicans calling them socialists, abortion funders, and baby killers. Democrats will stop trying to run away from getting called bad names by opponents who live to call them bad names on, approximately, the fifth of never. In the meantime, they'll keep doing stupid things that make even their friends want to call them bad names.
- Family court judges believe women less often than men in cases involving control and abuse issues, often awarding custody to abusers because they seem more friendly in court.
- Yesterday also featured a huge immigration reform rally on the Mall, which at least 200,000 people attended. And you know, if people want to live and work in the US that badly, hey, the more, the merrier. Welcome. It's not even possible to deport all the undocumented immigrants, which was Reagan's calculation the last time amnesty was granted, so the Brown Panic twits need to just give it up already.
- How Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) provides a cautionary tale of lying yourself crazy.
- Lastly, this song goes out to President Obama and Rep. Bart Stupak (D-USCCB), because I can't think of any other way to sum up my impression of their weekend misogyny creepshow that isn't either a) obscene even by the standards of this blog, b) disturbing to Chris, or c) a vile curse the likes of which have been sadly forgotten in these gray modern times.
- Because they won't do the sensible thing and let all of us buy into Medicare, Democrats are looking to pay for their crappy, corporate insurance bill by raising the excise taxes on middle class plans. Since Democrats campaigned promising unions and other constituents not to do this, it isn't like women have to feel alone under this health insurance reform bus.
- The worst of the downturn could be yet to come, because the banking sector is more concentrated than when it was already too big to fail and, also, it's riddled with fraud and excessive risk-taking.
- Dave Roberts runs across a bill that's bipartisan, and supported in both House and Senate, which would provide energy efficiency retrofits for rural homeowners at very little cost and the possible gain of rural buy-in to a clean energy economy. Let's pass it yesterday.
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