Dodd Endorses Obama

Good for him. I like Chris Dodd, and I think he may end up being one of the options to act as Obama's running made should he win. Still, I can't help but wonder who gives a crap about endorsements. I don't.

Similarly, Richardson, Spitzer, the Kennedys... I can't think of anyone whose endorsement would change my opinion one way or the other. Is anyone sitting on their couch, thinking to themselves "Man, I'd like to vote for one of these candidates, but I still don't know what John Kerry thinks of them yet."

We're Rolling Back Prices ALL OVER THE PLACE

Scientists studying Mars believe they have found a 3 kilometer wide smiley face in the middle of mars. Do Martians have a sense of humor? Is it a message? Are they telling us to cheer up?

No, of course not. Clearly, it's an ad for WalMart. "...So put on a happy face."

Read this story... for no reason.

Natasha Charles is My Hero

Outside of Madison Square Garden in New York, hundreds of angry Knicks fans are protesting against Knicks' coach Isaiah Thomas, signing petitions to get him fired. The New York Times has the whole article, if you care. Regardless, this was by far my favorite couple of paragraphs I've read in an article in a while:

Some people walking by stopped for a few moments to listen out of curiosity but not everyone was supportive. Natasha Charles, who said she was headed to work at New York Lawyers for Public Interest, stopped to debate a few demonstrators.

"Seriously, of all the things you could protest, I can’t believe this,” she said. ”Compared to the jerk we have in the White House, this is minutia. George Bush is the one we should be protesting. This is ridiculous. This is embarrassing.”

In other news, upset about affirmative action, Republicans have begun protesting chocolate milk.

Shock and Awe

"Why is it that people are constantly taking a shit and no one gives a shit?"
- Librocrat 5:13

This should come as a surprise to... someone. Ex Democratic Vice-Presidential Candidate Joseph Lieberman decides to endorse Ex-Important Republican Lawmaker John McCain as the next President of the United States. Proving, yet again, that there is no Jewish person in Washington that accurately reflects the feelings and opinions of the Jewish people.

Hit the road, Joe. Take Jesus with you.

Trent Lott Resigning

You can read the full article here, but I want to point you to this paragraph:

By resigning before the end of the year, Mr. Lott would beat the effective date for new ethics rules that double to two years the amount of time a former public official must wait before he can join a firm to lobby his former colleagues. The new rule applies to those who leave office “on or after” Dec. 31.

I will give you three guesses what he is going to do now that he's decided he's done.

The Democrats finally do something right

It's not much, but I appreciate them for this:

22-second Senate session guards against Bush appointments

By JIM ABRAMS

The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Gavel to gavel, the Senate on Tuesday met for just 22 seconds — a fleeting moment in the life of a sometimes droning body, but long enough to keep President Bush from making "recess" appointments that Democrats might not like.

Senators have been taking turns standing sentry duty this week — just to prevent Bush from circumventing the confirmation process by immediately installing people in federal posts while the chamber is in recess. Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., who carried out that less than glamorous task Tuesday, is a relative newcomer, a low-ranking freshman and a senator who lives just minutes from the Capitol; he wielded his gavel before an empty chamber Tuesday, devoid of senators and even the young pages who serve as messengers.

"I'd much rather be doing this than allow the president to skirt the confirmation process in the Senate," Webb said in a statement. "This is an exercise in protecting the Constitution and our constitutional process."

The Senate must confirm major presidential appointments and judicial nominations, providing a constant source of confrontation between the White House and Senate Democrats. But when the Senate is off, as it is now for the Thanksgiving holiday, the president can make recess appointments that are not subject to confirmation hearings. These appointees can serve until the end of the congressional session, which at this point would be until Bush leaves office.

Among the more controversial recess appointments Bush has made have included John Bolton to be ambassador to the United Nations and Sam Fox, a GOP fundraiser and contributor to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth during the 2004 presidential campaign, as ambassador to Belgium.

Showing the level of distrust between the White House and the Democrats, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., announced that he would employ, apparently for the first time, what are called "pro forma" sessions as a tactic to technically keep the Senate on the job and stop recess appointments.

A pro forma session, during which no legislative business is conducted, satisfies the constitutional obligation that neither chamber can adjourn for more than three days without the consent of the other.

These pro forma sessions will continue throughout the current holiday recess.

Conservatives and Liberals have Different Brains

Sorry for the light posting, I'm working on a few side projects unrelated to the awesomeness that is this blog (Oh yes, I said it).

I've been meaning to write about this for a while. A study by researches and NYU and UCLA, reported in the journal of natural sciences and written about in the Seattle Times, says that a certain part of the brain related to decision making, flexible thinking and problem solving strategies reacted differently between liberals and conservatives. "The brain region in question helps people shift gears when their usual response would be inappropriate, supporting the notion that liberals are more flexible in their thinking."

Participants were college students whose politics ranged from "very liberal" to "very conservative." Scientists instructed them to tap a keyboard when an M appeared on a computer monitor and to refrain from tapping when they saw a W.

M appeared four times more frequently than W, conditioning participants to press a key in knee-jerk fashion whenever they saw a letter.

Each participant was wired to an electroencephalograph that recorded activity in their anterior cingulate cortex, the part of the brain that detects conflicts between a habitual tendency (pressing a key) and a more appropriate response (not pressing the key). Liberals had more brain activity and made fewer mistakes than conservatives when they saw a W, researchers said. Liberals and conservatives were equally accurate in recognizing M.

Researchers obtained the same results when they repeated the experiment in reverse, asking another set of participants to tap when they saw W.

The results of the study were not meant to apply to the correctness of either strategy or to indicate the correctness of either political belief (there is no "ideal" brain functioning strategy, so that it is not better to be conservative or liberal when it comes to flexible decision making or vice versa).

Analyzing the data, Sulloway said liberals were 4.9 times more likely than conservatives to show activity in the brain circuits that deal with conflicts and were 2.2 times more likely to score in the top half of the distribution for accuracy.

Read the whole article here.

Not winning their case

In response to the skyrocketing costs of the occupation of Iraq, and the requested $23 billion in additional domestic spending, Democratic representatives David Obey, John Murtha and and Jim McGovern have proposed an additional income tax increase because "it is unfair to pass the cost of the war onto future generations":

"The war will cost future generations billions of dollars in taxes that we're shoving off on them and it is devouring money that could be used to expand their educational opportunities, expand their job training possibilities, attack our long-term energy problems and build stronger communities," Obey said.

The proposed measure will increase taxes on the lower and middle class by 2%, and wealthier people by 12-15%.

Among the many problems with this idea, one of its most glaring flaws is its inability to deter Republican attacks. Immediately after the plan was announced, an RNC spokesman responded: "Americans will reject Democrat [sic] plans to take away their hard-earned dollars."

Unfortunately, that is probably the case. Obey believes that by adding this tax-surcharge, Americans will "stop ignoring what this war is costing American taxpayers and call the president's bluff on fiscal responsibility." But I believe this bill falls short of doing that, and instead appears only to help fund the occupation that is growing more and more unpopular even amongst Republicans.

This action is dependent on the idea that Americans will realize that Bush's spending is out of control. Unfortunately, this assumes that the small minority of Americans who still believe in this invasion will not attribute an increase in taxes to the party they already associate with tax increases.

Basically, it gives those individuals credit for being smarter and more in-tune politically than they probably are. DailyKos supports this bill, and for our sake I hope that if it passes it works as planned, but its goal seems lofty and unattainable, and I believe its message will get lost with its effects.

Microchips in Dogs and Humans may cause Cancer

You can read the whole story here. But the interesting political piece relates to an ex-presidential candidate and the FDA:

The FDA also stands by its approval of the technology.

Did the agency know of the tumor findings before approving the chip implants? The FDA declined repeated AP requests to specify what studies it reviewed.

The FDA is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which, at the time of VeriChip's approval, was headed by Tommy Thompson. Two weeks after the device's approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Thompson left his Cabinet post, and within five months was a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options.

Thompson, until recently a candidate for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination, says he had no personal relationship with the company as the VeriChip was being evaluated, nor did he play any role in FDA's approval process of the RFID tag.

"I didn't even know VeriChip before I stepped down from the Department of Health and Human Services," he said in a telephone interview.

General's Aid is Sick Blogger

Umm... I just write a liberal blog. From the AP:

General's aide on leave over Web site
By Thomas Peele
Contra Costa Times

The California National Guard has placed on leave the personal assistant to its top general and started an investigation after questions were raised about a Web site he maintains that advocates mass violence.

"I, honestly, would like nothing more than to assist in the wholesale slaughter of every idiot on the face of the planet," Senior Airman Travis Gruber, of Sacramento, Calif., writes on the site, HowToKillPeople.com. In other postings and in a related blog, Gruber denigrates African Americans, Jews, Asians, women, gays and people with physical disabilities.

Until Wednesday, Gruber was the personal assistant and driver to Maj. Gen. William Wade, the Guard's commanding officer. The job, which Gruber had filled for more than a year, gave him access to the state's leaders, such as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom he trashed in a posting that questions the governor's intelligence. Military law forbids soldiers from using "contemptuous words" about civilian leaders.

In honor of Gruber's inflated ego, here is a stick figure fight from YouTube:

Aquafina - Tap Water in a Plastic Bottle

For those of you who are bottled water freaks ("you're drinking out of the tap? I don't do that, who knows what's in it?") - this is directed at you.

Found this story on Northwest Progressives. From the Seattle Times:

The label on Aquafina water bottles will soon be changed to spell out that the drink comes from the same source as tap water, the brand's owner PepsiCo said today.

A group called Corporate Accountability International has been pressuring bottled water sellers to curb what it calls misleading marketing practices.

Aquafina is the single biggest bottled water brand, and its bottles are now labeled "P.W.S." The new labels will spell out "public water source."

"If this helps clarify the fact that the water originates from public sources, then it's a reasonable thing to do," PepsiCo spokeswoman Michelle Naughton said today.

The corporate accountability group is also pressing for similar concessions from The Coca-Cola Co., which owns the Dasani water brand, and Nestle Waters North America, seller of Nestle Pure Life purified drinking water, which gets some of its water from municipal sources.

Still averse to tap water?

The decisions by Nestle and PepsiCo come as criticism grows over environmental concerns about the industry's use of local water sources as well as consumption of resin and energy to package and ship the bottles.

While there are a lot of ways to respond to this story, the best way is already written by Jonathon over at Northwest Progressives (emphasis added):

Bottled water is basically tap water packaged in plastic. Drinking the water that comes out of your tap (especially here in the Northwest, which has an excellent system that is relatively clean and safe) is a healthier and more environmentally friendly practice. If you like your water chilled and further purified you can buy a BRITA or similar pitcher for your refrigerator.

OMFG

I hate them.

WASHINGTON, July 10 — Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues. Top officials delayed for years and tried to “water down” a landmark report on secondhand smoke, he said. Released last year, the report concluded that even brief exposure to cigarette smoke could cause immediate harm.

Dr. Carmona said he was ordered to mention President Bush three times on every page of his speeches. He also said he was asked to make speeches to support Republican political candidates and to attend political briefings.

And administration officials even discouraged him from attending the Special Olympics because, he said, of that charitable organization’s longtime ties to a “prominent family” that he refused to name.

“I was specifically told by a senior person, ‘Why would you want to help those people?’ ” Dr. Carmona said.

Full Article.

Bill Gates Overthrown as World's Richest Man

But the joke is that this dude took his place:

And his name, in all seriousness, is Carlos Slim.

Drug Resistant TB will KILL YOU!

"Um... Whoops. Psych. Just playin'"
- Center for Disease Control (CDC)

Remember that Drug Resistant Tuberculosis that some dipshit had when he decided to tour the countryside, putting thousands if not millions of lives in danger? Well, it's not that dangerous. Officials vastly overstated the initial strength and deadliness of Speaker's strain of TB.

So congratulations Andrew Speaker (attorney at law). Your actions didn't kill people. Be proud. Although I would suggest that a new question on the LSAT should read:

If you were diagnosed with TB or any other contagious, disease causing bacteria, should you ride multiple planes against your doctor's advice?
a) Yes
b) Maybe
c) No, that would be stupid.

Fox News Viewers Less Informed Than Viewers of Fake News Show

According to a new study by the Pew Research Center, the internet - thought to be the "information highway" - has not improved anyone's knowledge of current events. According to the study, Americans are, on average, less informed of current events than they were in 1989, long before the internet became mainstream.

More significant (although some might say "obvious") is that Fox News Viewers were less informed about current events than not only viewers of every other major news network, but also viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report. In fact, viewers of the Daily Show were 175% more likely to know who Scooter Libby is, Identify Vladimir Putin, and name the Sunni branch of Islam.

Although - to be fair to Fox News - Daily Show viewers were roughly 2% more informed than those who listen to NPR, which must say something positive about the upcoming generation.

Regardless, the study informs us of two things. One, Fox News continues to be a complete failure when it comes to anything of substance. And two, that if news organizations really want to inform America, they should figure out a way to make the news into free pornography.
Graph from Wired.com

Ewe've been conned ladies

What a weird story:

THOUSANDS of rich women were conned by a firm into believing LAMBS were valuable miniature POODLES.

Entire flocks were imported to Japan from the UK and Australia then sold by the internet company as the latest “must have” pet.

The bizarre scam was rumbled when Japanese movie star Maiko Kawakami complained on a talk show that her new poodle refused to bark or eat dog food.

She showed photos of the animal and was devastated when told that it was a lamb.

Hundreds of women contacted police to say that they had also been sold lambs instead of pedigree pups by the tricksters based in Sapporo, Japan.

Cops believe that up to 2,000 people across the country had been swindled in the same way. One couple found out the truth only after a dog beautician told them that she could not trim their poodle’s claws — because they were HOOVES.

The company, whose name translated as Poodles As Pets, has now been shut down.

Bosses took advantage of the fact sheep are rare in Japan and most people do not know what they look like.

They advertised poodles online for £630 — half the price of the highly-desired puppies in Japan at £1,260.

A police spokesman said yesterday: “We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company were selling sheep as poodles.

“Sadly, we think there is more than one company operating in this way.

“The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas — Britain, Australia.”

Most of the people caught out by the scam are donating the sheep to zoos and farms.

News of the Week

Too much to do, too much time playing "RoShamBull" on facebook.

Stop making fun of me.

Now, for the news:

- Harriet Miers was going to be called in to testify about the attorney firings, but she was so unqualified to testify before a panel, that congress voted she not actually speak.
- Bush gets his watch stolen in Albania by his adoring fans.

He is also pregnant.
- Judge denies bail for Robert Soloway, the "Spam King." In unrelated news, it looks like I will be blogging for a while because that Nigerian guy didn't get back to me.
- Virginia apologizes for slavery, rocketing them into 1975.
- Bill O'Reilly says that murdering soldiers doesn't matter.
- Bush, unfortunately, is still president.

Racist Seizures

I decided to post this even before I read the story. I saw this on the front page of the New York Times:

Controversy Over London’s Olympic Logo
By ALAN COWELL

The logo for the 2012 Olympics has been compared to a swastika and has been said to provoke epileptic seizures.

Full Story Here.

Around the Globe: News

Another exciting edition of news around the globe:

- Bush decides that Mass Murders in Sudan are bad. The 145,000 Deaths in 2005 alone in the Darfur conflict warrants "Tighter Fiscal Penalties" for a country with no money. Great Solution.
- Iraqi women, forced to flee from their homes, are forced to become prostitutes in Syria
- Kazakhstan women are apparently very, very attractive. Link here, here and here. Pamela Anderson loses her appeal. Take that Borat.
- Um... Sick. Read this.
- The New Iraq Plan must be working perfectly, since May has been the deadliest month of the year for the US soldiers in Iraq. That was the new strategy, right? Let our own people die? No? Oh, then disregard that last one.

Quick News

News of the week:

# Libertarian Ron Paul apparently "won" the Republican presidential debate. His twin brother, the Cryptkeeper, remains unconvinced.

# According to newly surfaced tax records, Rudy Giuliani once donated money to Planned Parenthood. Republicans quickly aborted any his chances at the presidency.

# Six incredibly stupid terrorists videotaped themselves practicing to kill U.S. troops, went into a shop and tried to have it copied to DVD. They have been arrested. The seventh member, unfortunately, is still president.