Daily Blend: Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Ex-Rep. Allen West (R-FL)

Sober Transgender Day of Remembrance, everyone.

Alex Knapp at Forbes thoroughly decorticates Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) for claiming the age of the Earth (which he doesn’t know) isn’t related to our economic and general welfare.
(via @BadAstronomer)

Now-former-Rep. Allen West (R-FL) ^[pictured] finally concedes.

PZ Myers shines some contextual light on the current kerfuffle over Sam Harris’s 2006-era comments about how “[i]f [he] could wave a magic wand to get rid of either rape or religion, [he] would not hesitate to get rid of religion”.

And finally, more awesomeness about the promise of stem cell research: Dogs with paralyzing spinal injuries learn to walk again.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Sarcastic Rover on funding and elections

The Mars Curiosity rover’s sardonic sibling speaks its mind:

6 BILLION DOLLARS spent on 2012 political campaigns, and they think NASA and PBS are the problems here? GTFO.

— SarcasticRover (@SarcasticRover) November 5, 2012

To be clear, NASA’s annual budget is estimated at $17.77 billion for 2012, while the Congress-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting devoted a comparatively paltry $26.65 million to PBS. But while the astute reader may note how the combined $17.8 billion is nearly three times higher than the $6 billion spent on electioneering, the facts remain that A) NASA and PBS’s combined funding amounts to less than 0.5% of the U.S.’s 2012 federal budget expenditures (and cutting it would only reduce the deficit by 1.3%), and B) there is absolutely no sane reason why U.S. elections have become so ludicrously costly, while every penny sent to space exploration and public broadcasting is crucial if the nation wants to retain its scientific and educational credibility (already suffering as it may be in the global eye).

“Cutting PBS support […] is like deleting text files to make room on your 500Gig hard drive”

— Neil deGrasse Tyson

Calls to cut funding to programs like NASA and PBS in order to reduce the deficit aren’t only logically and mathematically ridiculous, they’re outright harmful to the country’s scientific future. But then, that’s something that the sort of people who decry NASA and PBS as examples of “wasteful spending” don’t appear particularly concerned with in the first place.

(RT: @BadAstronomer)

Daily Blend: Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Dinesh D’Souza

It’s hilarious infighting time as one misogynistic cesspit attacks another! I’ll get the popcorn.

Daily Caller writer really doesn’t like all we humorless, egomaniacal atheists and our civilization-saving ways.

The Illinois Family Institute is aghast that a local school district wants to help makes things better for “perverse”, “anarchist” trans students.

Today’s “family values” sex scandal: Obama conspiracy-monger Dinesh D’Souza ^[pictured] caught trying to divorce his wife in favor of his much-younger “fiancée”.
(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Anti-gay lunatic Rep. Michele Bachmann’s (R-MN) lesbian sister speaks out.
(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

And finally, we at last get the details on the Romney/Ryan tax plan.
(via Joe. My. God.)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Daily Blend: Monday, October 15, 2012

My new baby

I’m finally the owner of a laptop that isn’t brought to its knees by launching MS Paint. Goodbye, Acer Aspire One – hello, Lenovo ThinkPad T410 ^[pictured]!

The enemy of Romney’s enemy is his friend, until they become his enemy, before they re-become his friend.

How good is your color vision? Take this test to find out. (I got a 7 – relatively sure my monitor screwed me …)
(via @jennifurret)

In which Cracked.com points out that snipers are math prodigies and submarine fights are won by boring the enemy to death (contra what Hollywood would have you believe).

And finally, how could anyone possibly think the far-Right is a refuge for bigoted assholes? Just ask anti-abortion crackpot Randall Terry:

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Headline of the Day: Aurora shooting is Obama’s fault

Hey, you know who’s really to blame for today’s shooting in a Colorado movie theater? That’s right:

’Course! Obama’s the President → inherited a shitty economy → pissy Republicans continually throw sticks in his wheels → recovery slows down → economy remains bad → unemployment remains high → many people can’t find a job → some dude chooses to kill time in between jobs by killing a bunch of innocent people instead. Makes sense, see?

Really, if you’re planning a race to the very bottom, just trawl around wingnut sites and throw your catch into a barrel. They’ll be clawing their way through the bottom before lunchtime.

(via Joe. My. God.)

Tags: Jim Hoft • Gateway Pundit • James Holmes • Aurora, CO • Aurora shooting • wingnuts • Barack Obama • recession

Fail Quote: Limbaugh blames Obama for 2008 job losses

Rush Limbaugh

I don’t usually take note whenever Rush Limbaugh lets loose some more verbal vomit over the airwaves these days, but it’s always amusing to note when he takes his characteristic Obama Derangement Syndrome to distinctly supernatural levels:

LIMBAUGH: The vast, vast majority of problems we have in this country are directly traceable to liberals, Democrats. And I know that that sounds simplistic and it probably is not persuasive, but I'm sorry, I don't know how else to say it. I really don't. And it isn't complicated. It isn't complicated to explain why these things are happening. And here's Henry Waxman -- well, you know, he inherited a horrible economy, hemorrhaging jobs in 2008 -- they started hemorrhaging jobs in this economy after Obama was elected in 2008. Go back and look at the monthly unemployment numbers and then take a look at November and December and then Jan-- the bottom fell out, the Wall Street bottom fell out, and it hasn't recovered. But these people had all the answers. Hope and change. Everything was going to be better now. They had miracles waiting to enact. Everything they have done has brought great damage to this economy under the guise of fixing it.

You read that right (assuming you could make it through all that swill): President Obama is so impossibly catastrophic (literally!) for the U.S. economy that he began crippling it several months before he even took office in January of 2009! Obviously, the man’s developed the ability to travel through time, bringing his job-killing, America-hating unemployment wreaking ball of Marxism with him to obliterate Wall Street in the half-a-year preceding his election and inauguration, all so that the country could pin the blame on George Bush while Obama installed anti-capitalism measures that garnered Wall Street record-breaking profits in the years since and … um … commi-socialism … something …

Crap, now my brain hurts. All this treasonous scheming is hard to follow. It’s almost as if the far-Right’s ceaseless Obama-bashing didn’t make any goddamn sense at all.

Tags: Rush Limbaugh • Barack Obama • Obama administration • United States • USA • Wall Street • employment

Report: Tax-exempt churches cost over $70 billion/year

It’s long been argued that churches don’t deserve any special tax-exempt status, and not only because of the occasional obligatory tithing and mandatory membership fees, or because so many pastors secretly encourage partisan political activism, both of which are blatant violations of tax exemption requirements. The fact is that allowing religious organizations off the taxation hook practically screams violation of the Establishment Clause, and so many of them are so corrupt and wasteful that they barely even meet the definition of charity, either.

But for all the complaints, no-one’s ever taken the time to tally up just how much income is lost every year to these government subsidies of religious belief. Until now, as the Council for Secular Humanism has a lengthy report that lays it all out – and it’s even worse than expected:

To put this into perspective, the combined total of government subsidies to agriculture in the United States in 2009 was estimated to be $180.8 billion.³⁸ Religions receive at least 40 percent of the subsidy that agriculture does in the United States. Another way to illustrate the size of the subsidy may be to illustrate how much tax revenue would increase at the state level if religious institutions had to pay property taxes. In Florida, where the state government’s budget was $69.1 billion in 2011, the amount of tax revenue lost from subsidizing religious property was $2.2 billion or 3 percent of the state budget. The additional revenue would have mostly prevented the $1.1 billion cut to firefighter and police retirement plans and the $1.3 billion cut to public schools.³⁹

Religion: Not just a massive drain on society, but on the economy as well.

(via Pharyngula)

Tags: churches • tax exemption • United States • USA • Council for Secular Humanism

Daily Blend: Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Ontario, CA top appeals court legalizes brothels to protect prostitutes. More of this, please.
(via @BreakingNews)

Baltimore, MD cop suspended after grabbing a woman’s cellphone to stop her recording him. More of this too, please.
(via The Agitator)

More Cracked awesomeness: Five ways modern men are trained to resent women. A perfect explanation for MRAs.

Today in WTF?: Herman Cain (redux). ^[pictured]

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Ontario, CA • prostitution • brothels • Court of Appeal for Ontario • Baltimore, MD • Paul Southard • Cracked.com • misogyny • Herman Cain • Sick of Stimulus

Daily Blend: Saturday, February 25, 2012

So Derpy has been killed, her body reanimated into a nameless, generic template. Seriously, fuck the whiners. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about … good, I guess.)

Ohio’s latest Drug War craze: $5,000 fine and 1½ years in jail for any car with “hidden compartment(s)”, even in the complete absence of any illegal material.
(via @radleybalko)

Is YouTube ^[pictured] now cracking down on any videos (unjustly) flagged as “religiously offensive”?

Open letter to Bill O’Reilly: “Your economics is wrong and your ethics convenient.”
(via The Agitator)

So, how’d that work out for ya?
(via The Agitator)

What to do when cold-loving artists have too much time on their hands.
(via The Agitator)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Derpy • My Little Pony • My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic • Hasbro • ableism • Ohio • cars • John Kasich • thunderf00t • YouTube • Bill O'Reilly • oil • Lou Dobbs • ethics • Don Boudreaux • War on Drugs • Richard Nixon • Nixon administration • Simon Beck • snow

Homeless in a houseful land

From Daily Kos (for what it’s worth):

Ah, the marvels of red tape.

(via Uzza)

Tags: homelessness • USA • United States

Daily Blend: Monday, January 30, 2012

Excellent essay by Radley Balko on the chilling effect of the war over prescription painkillers on pain patients and the medical community.
(via @radleybalko)

Also, another excellent essay by Adam Gopnik on the U.S.’s vast prison state. (And meanwhile in the Netherlands …)
(via @ggreenwald)

Ed Brayton on the battle of government regulation vs. deregulation (and why the Libertarian idea of a self-correcting “free market” is folly).

Phil Plait rips into climate-change-denying articles in the Wall Street Journal and The Daily Mail.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: prescription painkillers • chronic pain • doctors • opioids • Oxycontin • Percocet • DEA • Drug Enforcement Administration • USA • United States • prison system • Netherlands • Ed Brayton • externalities • Libertarians • free market • regulation • deregulation • The Wall Street Journal • The Daily Mail • David Rose • Phil Plait

Daily Blend: Friday, October 28, 2011

James O’Keefe

Do our beliefs shape our values, or do our values bring about our beliefs?

• Fundy Christians beat adopted daughter to death following teachings of fundy child-rearing book, then claim girl committed suicide. More info here.

• Lawsuit: New York woman allegedly struck by stray bullet, arrested and detained by distrustful and abusive NYPD for five days before being released without ever being charged.
  (via @radleybalko)

• Professional jizzstain James O’Keefe’s ^[pictured] latest scoop (amended): Lefty journalism professor tries refuses to discredit the Tea Party by passing along sensational footage to [the New York Times].
  (via @Frauenfelder)

• Jen McCreight explains the obvious: An evidence-based worldview is not the same (read: the polar opposite of) dogmatism.

• Am I the only one who finds amusement at Vox Day’s ongoing and bizarre attempts to debunk evolution using economic theory? (And his claim that evolutionary science should be able to predict what new species will evolve next – as if speciation were just some fancy equation scientists could plug into a computer – is just crank gold.)

• Can you make it through a month on minimum wage? Find out. (A bit simplistic and limited, but interesting nonetheless.)
  (via @PersonalFailure)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Edit (10/29/11 4:10 PM ET) – Fixed some minor grammatical errors.

Tags: Hanna Williams • Larry Williams • Carri Williams • Christians • fundies • Takesha Griffin • NYPD • James O'Keefe • Jay Rosen • Clay Shirky • The New York Times • Tea Party • Jennifer McCreight • dogmatism • evidence • Vox Day • Theory of Evolution • speciation • SPENT • working poor • poverty

Daily Blend: Friday, October 07, 2011

Pictured: Nigerian prince(ess)

I don’t have much to say about Steve Jobs’s passing, not being an Apple user, though I would note that the fact that millions learned of his passing on a device he invented attests to his momentous legacy.

• Federal judge refuses to punish CIA for destroying interrogation tapes because the CIA says it won’t do it again. Wait, why are you laughing?
  (via @ggreenwald)

• Man’s desperate last-ditch attempt to overturn 145-year prison sentence for sex crime that “victim” now says never happened.
  (via The Agitator)

• Topeka, Kansas considers decriminalizing domestic violence to save money.

• Sarah Palin finally drops the pretense and preemptively quits the U.S. presidency. Ed Brayton summarizes my sentiments perfectly. This leaves us with only 15 more clowns on the Republican roster.
  (via @BreakingNews)

• Speaking of which, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart reveals how Palin took fundraising into “Nigerian prince territory” with some help from Bristol.
  (via @todayspolitics)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Steve Jobs • Apple • CIA • Alvin Hellerstein • Charles Farrar • Sacha Farrar • Topeka, KS • domestic violence • domestic abuse • austerity measures • Sarah Palin • Ed Brayton • SarahPAC • Bristol Palin • scams • fraud • Jon Stewart • The Daily Show

More wealthy Europeans want higher taxes for the rich

Liliane Bettencourt

Like the French before them, a number of other European entities are now considering sensible measures economic self-flagellation:

First it was Warren Buffett announcing that he and his chums had been "coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress".

Then Liliane Bettencourt, France's richest woman, who was at the centre of a tax scandal last year, signed a letter along with 15 other billionaires begging to make a special contribution to the treasury to help drag France out of the financial crisis.

Even an Italian got in the action, with the boss of Ferrari saying that as he was rich, it was only "right" that he stump up more cash.

Now, as both France and Spain consider introducing a wealth tax, a group of 50 rich Germans have joined the "tax me harder" movement by renewing their open call to Angela Merkel to "stop the gap between rich and poor getting even bigger".

The German group, Vermögende für eine Vermögensabgabe (The Wealthy for a Capital Levy) is the latest manifestation of a feeling among some well-off individuals that the spare cash in their bank accounts might be able to ease, if not solve, the financial crises threatening to cripple their countries.

"None of us are in Buffett's or Bettencourt's league," said the founder, Dieter Lehmkuhl, a retired doctor with assets of €1.5m (£1.3m). "We're a broad church – teachers, doctors, entrepreneurs. Most of our wealth is inherited. But we have more money than we need."

The group's manifesto claims Germany could raise €100bn (£88.5bn) if the richest paid a 5% wealth tax for two years.

[…]

"I would say to Merkel that the answer to sorting out Germany's financial problems, our public debt, is not to bring in cuts, which will disproportionately hit poorer people, but to tax the wealthy more," said Lehmkuhl. "We are always hearing about savings packages, but never tax rises. Yet tax increases are a way out of this mess. That's where the money is: rich people.

"Something needs to be done to stop the gap between rich and poor getting even bigger."

[…]

Last week in France Nicolas Sarkozy proposed a similar idea: a temporary tax on the very rich. This would arrive in the form of an "exceptional contribution" of 3% on taxable earnings for those earning above €500,000. It will probably only last until 2013.

Actual patriotism amongst the rich … in France

Liliane Bettencourt

In the US, you are considered a patriot (at least by some) if you go around clamoring for your own elected leader to fail and for your government to be overthrown and replaced by anti-reality theocrats. Elsewhere, you are considered a patriot if you actually do something to help your country, especially if no-one even asked you to in the first place. Cue France [original emphasis]:

The French government will add an extra tax of 3 percent on annual income above 500,000 euros ($721,000). Prime Minister said the increase will remain in place until France’s deficit is back under 3 percent of its GDP, and the tax increase comes after some of France’s wealthiest citizens asked for a tax increase in a spirit of “solidarity.”

More details from the BBC:

Sixteen executives, including Europe's richest woman, the L'Oreal heiress Liliane Bettencourt, had offered in an open letter to pay a "special contribution" in a spirit of "solidarity".

It appeared on the website of the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur.

It was signed by some of France's most high-profile chief executives, including Christophe de Margerie of oil firm Total, Frederic Oudea of bank Societe Generale, and Air France's Jean-Cyril Spinetta.

They said: "We, the presidents and leaders of industry, businessmen and women, bankers and wealthy citizens would like the richest people to have to pay a 'special contribution'."

They said they had benefited from the French system and that: "When the public finances deficit and the prospects of a worsening state debt threaten the future of France and Europe and when the government is asking everybody for solidarity, it seems necessary for us to contribute."

Traitors! Socialists! Marxists! Cheese-eating surrender monkeys!

Or – just maybe – they’re intelligent and reasonable people who realize that sharing a tiny fraction more of their considerable wealth to help their fellow countryfolk in a time of economic hardship may actually be the right thing to do. Such a radical theory, I know.

Tags: France • Liliane Bettencourt • taxes

Violating Republican principles

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH)

So it seems that less two days before the US was due to default on its massive levels of debt, President Obama and Congressional party leaders finally reached a tentative accord (which still has to pass larger Congressional approval). In my casual skimming, I came across this quote from House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) that I just had to share:

Mr. Boehner called the compromise “pretty much the framework we’ve been operating in” and that “there is nothing in this framework that violates our principles.”

Let that last bit sink in for a moment. “[V]iolates our principles.” This, coming from the leader of the Republican Party, aka the Party of No; the Congressional clusterfuck that has done more in the last few years to tear the country apart than any terrorist organization could ever dream of; the conglomerate of clowns, asshats, liars and demagogues that’s done its utmost best to turn every single political act into partisan trickery; the motley crew of perpetually self-victimizing malcontents that insists on detouring every issue, every matter of importance, and redirecting it to somehow show how, despite now holding a majority in the House of Representatives and rallying up increasingly fervent (if not outright deranged) voter bases across the country to thwart virtually every sensible Democratic initiative, they are still the real victims in all this, forever persecuted by those all-pervasive “elites” (a group they are all a part of to begin with) while their every act inevitably ends up penalizing and oppressing various groups of people for being poor, or female, or gay, or of a different religious faith, or of different socio-political beliefs altogether …

… but at least, finally coming to an exceedingly belated agreement with their Congressional peers on the subject of not letting the country’s economic status get deliberately hurled down the tubes in a purely partisan ploy …

… doesn’t require them to violate their principles.

Republicans: The only people who can successfully pander about ideals, integrity and sound policy whilst simultaneously doing all in their power to tear down their country’s elected leader – and bragging about it.

Tags: John Boehner • Republicans • debt ceiling • Barack Obama • Democrats

Daily Blend: Friday, July 22, 2011

Rush Limbaugh

• US Senate Democrats successfully shelve House Republicans’ latest idiotic anti-spending, anti-tax bill.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Keep the gubmint outta my brane!: Half of US social program recipients think they “have not used a government social program”.
  (via Rob F)

• Rush Limbaugh [pictured]: Dangerous heat index is a government conspiracy!

• Information is Beautiful: How safe is the HPV vaccine? (Hint: Very.)

• Macy’s stores deliberately install changing room doors backwards, allowing anyone to peer in unseen.
  (via @anonymoose420)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: US Senate • US House of Representatives • US Congress • Democrats • Republicans • Cut, Cap and Balance bill • USA • welfare • Rush Limbaugh • heat index • HPV • Information is Beautiful • Florida • Macy's

Daily Blend: Thursday, July 07, 2011

Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN)

• Town of Alto, Texas forced to lay off its entire police force due to budget cuts.

• Florida police refuse to prosecute mortgage company that illegally ransacked and burglarized a man’s home while he was away.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Did Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) only get to where she is now by “being submissive to her husband”?

• Vox Day’s invaluable contribution to the ongoing “sexism in atheist movement” scandal: Atheists are all gammas!

• Holy (bird) shit.

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Tags: Alto, TX • Monty Collins • Rick Perry • Brooksville, FL • 21 Mortgage Corporation • Tom Altman • Michele Bachmann • Marcus Bachmann • Christianity • misogyny • Vox Day • Theodore Beale • atheists • Rebecca Watson • Game • Salvador Pachuca • Bryan Pachuca • Virgin Mary

The Truth About the Economy: What went wrong (in 2 minutes)

The experts and pundits may be bickering away about what happened to bring about the economic recession (and who’s to blame for it), but for the rest of us mortals, here’s Clinton-era Secretary of Labor Robert Reich explaining what went wrong in just over two minutes:

CliffsNotes version:

1. Economy doubles since 1980, but wages flat. (Where did the money go?)

2. All gains from the economy go to the super rich. (and …)

3. With money comes political power. (Taxes on super rich slashed, revenues evaporate. This leads to …)

4. Huge budget deficits. (Middle class agitated, fight for scraps.)

5. Middle class divided. (Buying and borrowing slow. Resulting in:)

6. Anemic recovery.

Last line: “The only way we can have a strong economy is with a strong middle class.”

But, of course, will anybody listen? And will anybody in power care?

And why am I asking such questions?

(via Political Irony)

Tags: Robert Reich • recession

Daily Blend: Thursday, June 02, 2011

Mayor Sam Adams

• Thought so. Phil Plait and PZ Myers both debunk the latest World Health Organization report about a “possible” link between cellphones and brain cancer.

• Portland, Oregon Mayor Sam Adams [pictured] proposes increased transgender healthcare benefits.
  (via @jakiking)

• Republicans scoff and deride the fact that taxes actually are lower now than they were under President Reagan.
  (via @todayspolitics)

• Several former world leaders calling for an overhaul of international drug policy. Incumbents unlikely to give a crap, of course.
  (via The Agitator)

• Aside from the obvious and typical church/state issue, why the hell is this Giles County, TN school giving a prayer at a kindergarten graduation?

• I, for one, am shocked to learn that Islamophobic whackjob Pam Geller hadn’t already been hired by the WND.
  (via Right Wing Watch)

• Awesome: Guy has MacBook stolen, uses secret tracking software to photograph the thief. Then blogs about it.
  (via The Agitator)

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

Supplemental tags: Kooks/Cranks • Computers • Cool