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Paul of Tarsus Prophesies On The Gift Of Love

November 23, 2014, 6:46 am
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"Love Your Enemies. Do Good To Those Who Hate You," Luke 6: 27-42

"Do You Know What You're Doing To Me?"
Jesus of Nazareth
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/12/do-you-know-what-youre-doing-to-me.html

Yeshua Excoriates Fellow Pharisees: "The Woe Passages"

1 Corinthians 13 

New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition

The Gift of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast,[a] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. 7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. 9 For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; 10 but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly,[b] but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Paul the Apostle
Wikipedia

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Alan: I am ambivalent about Paul, a Tarsus tent maker who, prior to conversion, participated in the killing of Christians. 

The passage above is the work of genius.


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According To Seasonal Fluctuation, Modern Crops Produce Up To 25% Of CO2

November 23, 2014, 6:59 am
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Could revelation that crops contribute to global warming improve climate models?

A recent study found that as much as 25 percent of the seasonal increase in CO2 is due to modern crops.

Could revelation that crops contribute to global warming improve climate models?


By Dan Taylor, Daily Digest News

November 23, 2014

Recent findings that suggest modern farm production could be having a major impact on global carbon cycles could greatly improve today’s climate models and improve forecasting.


A recent study showed that a big jump in food production to meet rising food demands from a burgeoning global population is responsible for as much as 25 percent of the seasonal increase in carbon dioxide (CO2), according to Economic Times.

Carbon dioxide is absorbed in the spring and summer as plants produce lots of solar-hungry leaves. Once the energy has been converted to food, it is released into the atmosphere as the leaves die off in the autumn and winter, producing big fluctuations in CO2 levels.

The Economic Times described the crops as a giant “sponge” for CO2, a sponge that is getting bigger and can release much more carbon dioxide than in the past. As global food productivity doubles in the coming decades, scientists may be better able to create accurate climate models with this new knowledge of the effects farms have on the environment

Chris Kucharik, a co-author of the study who works at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said the research findings are “another piece of evidence” suggesting that things humans do on a large scale can have big effects on the planet as a whole.

The biggest crops — maize, wheat, soybeans, and rice — have jumped 240 percent in production since the 1960s in the Northern Hemisphere, especially in the U.S. Midwest and China where the crops are most commonly found.

Up until now scientists hadn’t realized the impact farms had on CO2 levels — specifically, CO2 spikes during the seasons. Kucharik and his team, including researchers at Boston University, determined the connection by counting how much carbon absorbed by plants had changed over time.

Their findings indicated that total farmed land wasn’t growing much, but technology had allowed farmers to dramatically boost efficiency in their land thanks to better fertilizer, improved breeding, more efficient irrigation, and other factors which were implemented after World War II.

The study’s results were posted in the journal Nature.



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"Food Chain$: The Revolution In America's Fields," By The Producer Of "Food Inc."

November 23, 2014, 7:55 am
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Alan: American conservatives should watch this movie and then ask themselves: "Can I imagine myself -- or any of my friends -- doing this work for 40 hours a week?" Accustomed as they are to manipulation and mendacity, American right-wingers will not be able to dodge this bullet, shot straight from the muzzle of Truth.

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"American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"

"Are Republicans Insane?"

"The Republican Party Is A Satanic Cult"

Jindal Criticizes The Stupid Party: "Simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"

"The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

"A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

"People Who Watch Only Fox News 
Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

"Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

"Why The Bible Belt Is Its Own Worst Enemy"
  1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/why-bible-belt-is-christianitys-enemy.html

"The Guardian: John Oliver's Viral Video Is The Best Climate Debate You'll Ever See"

  1. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/05/the-guardian-john-olivers-viral-video.html

George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"



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If You Wish To Boycott Koch Industries, Here's A List Of Their Products

November 23, 2014, 10:15 am
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Common brands owned by Koch or with heavy Koch investment.
Koch industries and its subsidiaries are expansive—their holdings include everything from gas stations to pipelines, paper products for everyday use, greeting cards, chemicals used to make materials, and the fabric that makes your clothing.
With an interest in almost everything and status as the number two privately held company in the country–behind Cargill—Koch industries is a behemoth that is hard to avoid.
But knowledge is power and your dollar is your vote. We can become informed purchasers and refuse to support their political agenda by refusing to purchase their wares.
The internet is a wonderful place, full of handy resources. Start by memorizing and avoiding the brand logos listed, which are commonly found throughout our daily lives. Download the Buycott app on your phone and use it while you shop. Buycott has an interesting connection to the netroots you can read about here.
Do some research. Visit Koch industries, Invista, and Georgia-Pacific to see their broad range of products for home, business, construction, clothing manufacturing, farming materials, and chemical additives. They are into almost everything—including fiber optics!
If you are in charge of ordering office supplies for your business, construction materials for your job site, or products for events, catering, or restaurants—avoid buying from Georgia-Pacific and its smaller subsidiaries.
Use your purchasing power to stop adding to the Koch empire, avoid the following products as much as you can. Please sign the pledge to not buy commonly available Koch products.
List of familiar Koch products and brands:
-American Greetings** (took heavy Koch investment, upwards of $200 million)
-Angel Soft
-Angel Soft Ultra
-Brawny paper towels
-Dixie products
-Insulair cups
-Mardis Gras napkins
-Perfect Touch cups, paper products
-Quilted Northern
-Sparkle paper towels
-Vanity Fair napkins & paper towels
-Zee Napkins
-Georgia-Pacific Office products
-Spectrum paper
-Georgia-Pacific's enMotion paper towel dispenser
-Georgia-Pacific's engineered lumber
INVISTA Brands
-INVISTA’s PET polymer is used in oxygen-sensitive packaging for food and beverages.
-ADI-PURE® Adipic Acid
-ANTRON® Carpet Fiber
-C12™ Intermediates
-COMFOREL® Fiber
-COOLMAX® Fabric
-CORDURA® Fabric
-DACRON® Fiberfill
-DYTEK® Idea Intermediates
-FLEXISOLV® Solvent Solutions
-LYCRA® Fiber
-LYCRA HyFit® Fiber
-OXYCLEAR® Barrier Resin
-POLYCLEAR® PET
-POLYSHIELD® Resin
-SENZAA™ Additive
-STAINMASTER® Carpet
-SUPPLEX® Fabric
-SUPRIVA™ Fiber
-TACTEL® Fiber
-TECGEN® Garments
-TERATE® Polyols
-TERATHANE® Polyether Glycol
-TERRIN™ Polyols
-THERMOLITE® Fabric
-TORZEN® PA66 Resin
Koch Fertilizer Company's AGROTAIN® nitrogen stabilizer fertilizer products are used around the world to improve nitrogen efficiency and enhance crop productions.
If you use building materials, be sure to check out the extensive list of Georgia-Pacific building products—including their product app.  
*Disclaimer: The list is a work in progress, we are striving to keep it updated and accurate, please post corrections or additions with citations in the comments.
**Disclaimer: Note that some of these products are made in union facilities by union members. We are working to determine which those are, so you can make your best informed decisions.*
H/T to users kathybbb, ATexican, PeteInTX, BDA in VA, Melanie in IA, TheNewDeal00,Truth Told Here, workinguy, and geebeebee who've all posted similar information.
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San Francisco's Native People - The Ohlone Tribe - Want Their Land Back

November 23, 2014, 3:42 pm
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The Ohlone People Were Forced Out of San Francisco. 

Now They Want Part of Their Land Back.


By 

- Sat Nov. 22, 2014
"There are only three ways to get land," said Tony Cerda, chairman of the Costanoan Rumsen Carmel Tribe, in 2010. "You can buy it, have it given to you, or steal it." It's clear which one of those applies to his people, the Ohlone, who lived in the central California coastal region for thousands of years prior to the arrival of Spanish missionaries in the 1700s. The Ohlone once numbered as many as 15,000 on lands stretching from the San Francisco Bay to Big Sur. But following years of enslavement under the Spanish mission system and, later, persecution by settlers, they are now largely a people in exile.
Cerda's tribe—about 2,000 people living in the Pomona area east of Los Angeles—are now the largest contemporary Ohlone group in the state. They're leading the push for cultural recognition in the city of San Francisco. Specifically, they're asking the city for land to build a cultural center as part of a proposed shoreline redevelopment project in the Hunters Point Shipyard area. The area was once the location of a historic Ohlone village and burial site—one of over 425 in the San Francisco Bay region.
Ohlone leaders say a cultural center would highlight the oft-overlooked history of California's native people while serving as a permanent place for today's tribes to continue their song, dance, language, and art traditions. And they're also hoping to rebuild their cultural presence through community events like the annual Big Time Gathering, which took place in October in San Francisco's Presidio National Park. This year's gathering was the biggest yet, drawing more than 100 Native Californians from seven different tribes. Their goal is to honor their roots, says Neil Maclean, one of the event's organizers: "Through hearing them sing, seeing them dance, and joining with them in ceremony, the Ohlone will tell their side about what it is like to survive."

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Cleveland Police Shoot And Kill 12 Year Old With Toy Gun

November 23, 2014, 4:42 pm
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Alan: Conservative gun evangelists are cruel, increasingly unhinged people.
The most hair-raising horror in all this is that the nation's "Official Story" normalizes the carnage; assumes that this blood must be spilled; supposes that people are fools if they do not arm themselves to the teeth; if they do not shoot-to-kill. 
And shoot-to-kill simply on suspicion.


If the above cartoon is invisible, it can be accessed at: 
http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2013/07/16/russia-self-defence-and-trayvon-martin/00-zimmerman-cartoon-stand-your-ground-silence-16-07-13/

***

A few years ago, New York City police fired more bullets in a single shootout with a lone suspect than were shot by all police officers in the nation of Germany over the course of the year.

12-year-old brandishing fake gun is shot and killed by Cleveland police officer

year-old boy was shot and killed by a Cleveland, Ohio, police officer Saturday afternoon after he ignored orders to raise his hands, and, instead, pulled a plastic gun from his waistband.

According to Cleveland.com, officers were responding to 911 calls about a person waving a gun in a city park when they came upon the boy.

He was told to raise his hands, according to the deputy chief of police, but, instead, pulled the gun from his waistband. An officer fired twice hitting the boy.

The boy had not pointed the weapon nor made any verbal threats toward officers, according to reports.

The gun did not have an orange safety indicator on the muzzle, signifying that it was a fake, police say.

According to an Associated Press story, a 911 caller said the boy was pulling the gun in and out of his pants. "I don't know if it's real or not," the caller said.

For the full story, see Cleveland.com.
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Great Snow Storm Photo

November 23, 2014, 4:57 pm
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A vehicle drives along Route 20 after digging out from a massive snowfall in Lancaster, N.Y., on Wednesday. 
The storm was blamed for at least seven deaths in western New York alone.


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New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, November 24, 2014

November 23, 2014, 5:09 pm
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Well... He's not exactly off the wall.



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Sen. Lindsey Graham: GOP-Led Benghazi Report Is "Full Of Crap"

November 24, 2014, 4:38 am
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Alan: In the following article, watch Graham make a mountain out of a mole hill. 

To glimpse a real mountain, familiarize yourself with:
"Obama's Benghazi And Reagan's Beirut"
Washington (CNN) -- Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, has some harsh words for the recently released Benghazi report, led by his own party.
"I think the report is full of crap," Graham told Gloria Borger on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.
"I don't believe that the report is accurate, given the role that Mike Morell (deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency at the time) played in misleading the Congress on two different occasions. Why didn't the report say that?"
The investigative report Graham is referring to was released Friday by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Michigan, and Ranking Member Rep. Dutch Ruppersberger, D-Maryland.
The report finds little to support the questions that have been raised about CIA actions on the ground in Benghazi the night of the deadly attack on September 11, 2012.
Graham, who has maintained a critical voice in the Benghazi controversy over the past two years, says it's "garbage" that the report finds no members of the Obama administration lied to cover up what happened in Benghazi.
"That's a bunch of garbage," Graham said. "That's a complete bunch of garbage."
The investigation also found the security at the diplomatic outpost was weak and also described a "flawed" process used to create talking points for House members and for then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, whose public statements after the attack incensed critics who said the administration was trying to avoid calling the attack terrorism.
"When Susan Rice was on television after the attack, she said on three different occasions the consulate was strongly, and significantly secure," Graham said. "Nothing could be further than that from the truth, and there's nothing in the talking points about the level of security."
To conclude, Graham says the findings of the report prove the House Intelligence Committee "is doing a lousy job policing their own."
"Anybody who has followed Benghazi at all knows that the CIA deputy director did not come forward to tell Congress what role he played in changing the talking points and the only way we knew he was involved is when he told a representative at the White House," Graham said.
Asked why the Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee would be "buying a bunch of garbage," Graham simply replied, "good question."
Graham said he is going to take another look at the findings of the report.
"I'm going to do a hard review of this."

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Solar And Wind Energy Now Competitive With Fossil Fuels. And Green Cost Is Falling!

November 24, 2014, 4:51 am
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By Diane Caldwell

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Alan: Solar energy will continue to get cheaper while the trendline of fossil fuel cost 
-- despite occasional price drops -- is forever upward. In the current "fuel mix," tar
 sand oil is almost priced out of the market. Fossil fuel advocates pump the prolongation of
dirty fuels because it's "what they know " and how they "make a buck." If gasoline were taxed 
as highly as in the rest of the world, per capita fossil fuel consumption would be half 
what it is now and America's solar energy contribution to the overall "energy mix" would be in 
line with Germany's 30%.








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E.J. Dionne: With Immigration Action, Obama Gets Upper Hand By Calling GOP Bluff

November 24, 2014, 5:17 am
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Alan: Republicans are committed to obstructionism because the party is in a state of civil war. With no positive agenda -- and unable to agree on one -- the GOP's quest (perhaps unconscious) is to destroy government. Remember Ronald Reagan's prime directive? "Government is The Problem." In keeping with the party's commitment to"procedural terrorism," Republicans finger the Democrats, project blame onto "the left side of the aisle," and then inherit the ruins they've created. 
At least temporarily. 
2016 will be another story.

Obama tells Republicans their free ride is over

No wonder the GOP is so angry with the president.

E.J. Dionne

Stay wide awake in the coming weeks. This is a historic moment when all of the divisions, misunderstandings and hatreds of President Obama’s time in office have come to a head. We are in a different place than we were. We are also in a place we were bound to get to eventually.
Obama’s decision to back away from our government’s policy of ripping apart the families of undocumented immigrants has called forth utterly contradictory responses from Republicans and Democrats, conservatives and progressives. It should now be clear that the two sides don’t see the facts, the law or history in the same way.
The Republican investigation of Benghazi?
Yet perhaps facts are now irrelevant. There was an enlightening moment of candor when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) visited MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on the morning of Obama’s immigration speech. “The president ought to walk into this a lot more slowly, especially after an election,” Coburn said. “This idea, the rule of law, is really concerning a lot of people where I come from. And whether it’s factual or perceptual, it really doesn’t matter.”Conservatives say the president’s executive actions on immigration are uniquely lawless and provocative. Progressives insist that Obama is acting in the same way that President Reagan and both presidents Bushdid. They recall that after the second President Bush’s immigration reform bill failed in the Senate in 2007 — it was very similar to the 2013 bill Obama supports — White House spokeswoman Dana Perino declared flatly of the administration’s willingness to use its executive powers: “We’re going as far as we possibly can without Congress acting.”
Yes, for many of the president’s foes, the distinction between the “factual” and the “perceptual” doesn’t matter anymore.
But mainstream Republicans seem as angry at Obama as the tea partyers. They argue repeatedly that by moving on his own, Obama has made it impossible for Congress to act.
You’d think that Republicans who genuinely support immigration reform would want to prove the president wrong in a different way: by passing a comprehensive bill. That only a few of them are saying this is an obvious sign to the president’s supporters that Obama is right in suspecting that the House GOP would continue to bob and weave to avoid the issue — as it did for the one year, four months and 24 days between the passage of the genuinely bipartisan immigration reform bill in the Senate and Obama’s announcement.
In a superb reconstruction of why the president decided to move on his own, Washington Post reporters Juliet Eilperin, Ed O’Keefe and David Nakamura note that the last straw for Obama was House Speaker John Boehner’s refusal to say after the election that he would bring up an immigration bill if the president agreed to postpone executive action. In the absence of concrete pledges that something would get done, there was no point in waiting any longer.
All this explains the jubilation among progressives. They not only agree with the substance of what Obama did but also see him as finally calling his opponents’ bluff. He has forced the contradictions of the Republican establishmentarians into the sunlight.
Such Republicans were counting on Obama to be an enabler. He’d once more accept their quiet (and now obviously hollow) promises of goodwill and thus allow them to avoid a straight up confrontation with the right wing of their party.
Now, they can no longer have it both ways. Many of them claim they agree with the substance of what Obama did and also that Congress should pass a broader immigration bill. If this is true, then why should they spend all their energy trying to undo the constructive steps he has just taken? If they punt and simply join the rancid attacks on Obama as an “emperor” and a “monarch,” they will demonstrate for all to see that the GOP really is dominated by its right wing and that those of more measured views are simply too timid to take on their internal adversaries.
No wonder they’re so angry with the president.
For the six years since Obama’s election to the presidency, the Republican right has been on offense, continually blurring those distinctions between the “factual” and the “perceptual.” They keep charging that Obama is a dangerous radical even when he pursues middle-of-the-road policies. Their supposedly more temperate colleagues go along because they don’t have to pay a price.
Obama has just told them their free ride is over. The stakes in American politics will be much clearer because he did.
Read more from E.J. Dionne’s archive

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Derivation Of The Word "Solon"

November 24, 2014, 5:59 am
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Solon
A bas-relief from the chamber of the US House of Representatives

Solon
Wikipedia

solon

PRONUNCIATION:
(SOH-luhn) 

MEANING:
noun:
1. A wise lawgiver.
2. A legislator.

ETYMOLOGY:
After Solon (c. 638-558 BCE), an Athenian lawmaker who introduced political, economic, and moral reforms and revised the harsh code of laws established by Draco. Earliest documented use: 1631.
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Republican-Controlled House Committee Exonerates Obama On Benghazi

November 24, 2014, 7:38 am
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"Obama's Benghazi And Reagan's Beirut"

"13 Benghazis Occurred On Bush's Watch. Not A Peep From Fox News"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/13-benghazis-occurred-on-george-bushs.html

The CIA and the military acted properly during the Benghazi attack, report finds. Nor did the Obama administration attempt to mislead the public. That's the conclusion reached by a House committee (controlled by Republicans) in a new report. Felicia Schwartz in The Wall Street Journal.


What will Republicans do with the Republican committee's exoneration?
Bill Maher has the answer!
Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

"American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"

Jindal Criticizes The Stupid Party: "Simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"

"Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

"Red State Moocher Links"

"Why The Bible Belt Is Its Own Worst Enemy"

"The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

"A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

"People Who Watch Only Fox News 
Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"

Benghazi Theorists Find Gaping Holes in Vindicating House Report

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Why Can't Congress Pass A Simple Correction To Obamacare? The GOP

November 24, 2014, 7:47 am
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Republican Party Is "Full Of Racists," Colin Powell's Chief Of Staff
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/10/republican-party-is-full-of-racists.html

"Non-Racist" Gringos Cheer Black Man Who Would "Ventilate Black Asses With M16s"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/09/non-racist-gringos-cheer-black-man-who.html

The Daily Show Interviews Republican Official Who Spills Beans On Deliberate Voter Suppression 
Masquerading As Prevention Of Voter Fraud

Why can't Congress pass a simple correction to Obamacare? A corrections bill of the type that used to be commonplace would prevent the Supreme Court from having to give the law another look. As the Republican Party has become more conservative, that kind of everyday legislative chore has become impossible. John Harwood in The New York Times.


Conservative Norm Ornstein: The Media Ignore Republican Lunacy

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/11/conservative-norm-ornstein-media-ignore.html


"Let's Just Say It. The Republicans Are The Problem"
Conservative Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

"It's Even Worse Than It Looks"
Conservaive Norm Ornstein and Liberal Thomas Mann

"When Extremism Goes Mainstream"
Conservative Norm Ornstein

"The Real Death Panels," Conservative Norm Ornstein
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There's Never Been A Safer Time For Cops Nor More Dangerous Time For Criminals

November 24, 2014, 3:11 pm
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Sympathy For The Devil
The Rolling Stones

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There’s never been a safer time to be a cop — or a more dangerous time to be a criminal

By Christopher Ingraham November 24, 2014  

New FBI data released today finds that the number of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty -- that is, killed with felonious intent by a suspected criminal -- plummeted to 27 in 2013, its lowest level in decades.
Notably, the sharp decline in officer fatalities comes even as the number of justifiable homicides by officers, which the FBI defines as "the killing of a felon by a law enforcement officer in the line of duty," climbed to its highest level since 1994 last year.
In short, it's getting safer to be a cop, and more dangerous to be a criminal.
There's something to cheer about here - in general, a society might prefer to have living cops and dead felons, rather than vice-versa. But there's a good deal to worry about, too.
This year there have been numerous high-profile tragedies involving cops shooting unarmed civilians. Just this past week, a 12-year-old boy brandishing a pellet gun was killed by police in Cleveland in broad daylight. In New York last Thursday, cops accidentally shot an unarmed man in a stairwell. The specter of Michael Brown looms over it all.
The decrease in officer deaths and rise in felon deaths has corresponded with a rise in the militarization of the nation's police forces, fueled by a glut of surplus military equipment heading home from Iraq and Afghanistan. Few people would object to the outfitting of police officers with better body armor and protective gear. But the assault rifles and armored vehicles, so visible during this summer's protests in Ferguson, are a different story altogether.
Smart policing requires an element of trust between officers and the community they serve. But in some cases it appears that militarized police forces are operating under a motto of "occupying" cities and restraining the population, rather than protecting and serving. As we've seen in Ferguson, that only heightens tensions.
It's particularly worth noting that the FBI data on justifiable homicides is widely understood to be substantially undercounted -- some states don't participate in the FBI's data-gathering programs at all, and others don't tally justifiable homicides separately. So while the figures above are useful for generating a trend, the actual national numbers are considerably higher.



Christopher Ingraham writes about politics, drug policy and all things data. He previously worked at the Brookings Institution and the Pew Research Center.

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The Blue Band: Good Visualization Of Spaceship Earth's Atmosphere

November 24, 2014, 3:13 pm
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Singing The Blues With Felonious Funk: Lack Of Transparency In Healthcare Pricing.

November 24, 2014, 3:15 pm
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What does it actually cost to take a trip through this tube? (Photo by Flicker user liz west, used under a Creative Commons license)
Trying to shop around for the best deal on health care services can be maddening. So Lisa Aliferis, a health care reporter for KQED News in San Francisco, came up with a simple idea: ask people what charges they're actually seeing on their bills and try to make sense of the madness.
We already know there's a huge variation in what hospitals charge for the most basic health-care services, based on their internal price listings. For instance, the average cost of a primary care visit ranges from $95 in Miami to $251 in San Francisco, according to a comprehensive study of employer-provided insurance coverage earlier this year. A first-of-its-kind data release from Medicare last year showed similar variations in the pricescharged by hospitals.
But insurers and patients rarely pay the listed price. Aliferis — in a partnership with KPCC, a public radio station in Los Angeles, and Clearhealthcosts.com, a health transparency startup — tried to capture information of actual prices that people, who reported the information anonymously, were seeing on their medical bills — breaking down what the insurers were charged and what people actually paid.
She found big price differences within the same state, based on facility and insurance status. Private insurers in the Los Angeles and San Francisco areas paid anywhere between $128 and $694 for a mammogram, a procedure performed about 38 million times a year. A Medicare patient was charged $255 for a lower back MRI, while another uninsured patient was charged $6,221 at an academic medical center for the same procedure, Aliferis wrote.
Her database relies on reports for individuals and hasn't been without its problems. The most common complaints, Aliferis writes, is that it's still hard to comparison shop — it's not going to be easy as buying a retail item online. Also, the price of a health-care service doesn't say anything about the quality of that service. In health care, there's really no correlation between the two.
Another big finding came from the patients themselves — frustration. Frustration toward "their inability to get a bill that made sense (or find an accurate price in advance)," Aliferis wrote in the policy journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
Past research suggests that people will save money when they're able to shop around for health-care services — but it also shows most people with access to price transparency tools don't actually use them.
The interest in the project so far has been high, Aliferis wrote in her journal piece. The group has received hundreds of submissions since launching the crowd-sourced database in June — including some from doctors themselves, and it's been searched thousands of times.


Jason Millman covers all things health policy, with a focus on Obamacare implementation. He previously covered health policy for Politico.


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Tom Toles Cartoon: Benghazi And The Republican Party

November 25, 2014, 6:37 am
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What's Wrong With Conservatives? Seriously. What's Wrong With Them?

November 25, 2014, 6:44 am
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"American Conservatives And Oppositional-Defiant Disorder"

Jindal Criticizes The Stupid Party: "Simply protects the rich so they get to keep their toys"

"Bank On It: The South Is Always Wrong"

"Red State Moocher Links"

"Why The Bible Belt Is Its Own Worst Enemy"

"The Reign of Morons Is Here," Charles P. Pierce, The Atlantic

"A Southerner Explains Tea Party Radicalism: The Civil War Is Not Over"

"People Who Watch Only Fox News 
Know Less Than People Who Watch No News"

What will Republicans do with the Republican committee's exoneration?
Bill Maher has the answer!
Bill Maher: The Zombie Life Cycle Of Republican Lies. They Never - Ever - Die

George McGovern: "The Case For Liberalism, A Defense Of The Future Against The Past"

"Republicans Finally Admit Why They Hate Obamacare"
http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/06/republicans-finally-admit-why-they-hate.html

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The Hard, Central Truth Of Contemporary Conservatism

The hard, central "fact" of contemporary "conservatism" is its insistence on a socio-economic threshold above which people deserve government assistance, and below which people deserve to die. 

The sooner the better. 

Unless conservatives are showing n'er-do-wells The Door of Doom, they just don't "feel right." 

To allay this chthonic anxiety, they resort to Human Sacrifice,  hoping that spilled blood will placate "the angry gods," including the one they've made of themselves. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2013/09/harvard-study-45000-americans-die.html 

Having poked their eyes out, they fail to see  that self-generated wrath creates "the gods" who hold them thrall.

Almost "to a man," contemporary "conservatives" have apotheosized themselves and now -- sitting on God's usurped throne -- are rabid to pass Final Judgment. 

Self-proclaimed Christians, eager to thrust "the undeserving" through The Gates of Hell, are the very people most likely to cross its threshold. 

Remarkably, none of them are tempted to believe this. 

"GOP's Anti-Medicaid Expansion Body Count, By State"

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"The Least Of These..." Psychiatrist Spends 2 Years On Street With Homeless People

November 25, 2014, 6:53 am
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Jonathan is one of the homeless men psychiatrist Robert Okin met on the Streets of San Francisco. Okin spent two years interviewing people with mental disorders on the street.
Jonathan is one of the homeless men psychiatrist Robert Okin met on the Streets of San Francisco. Okin spent two years interviewing people with mental disorders on the street. 

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"Do You Know What You're Doing To Me?"
Jesus of Nazareth

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Monday, Nov 24 2014

Dr. Robert L. Okin: “Silent Voices: People With Mental Disorders On 

The Street”

Listen
The homeless have become a fixture of the urban landscape in cities across America. One psychiatrist spent two years speaking to the mentally ill living on the streets of San Francisco, learning about their lives. Now he shares those stories, along with his ideas about how to improve our homelessness and mental health problem nationwide.

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