World News Korner

A cow licks his nose during the Rural Society's annual exposition in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2010.



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By Maximiliano Rizzi of Reuters

Somebody sent this to me yesterday in the comments after my post about the textbooks in Texas, and I thought it was just too great not to share.

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And here I was blissfully unaware that insects even HAD their own Christ.

Weird coincidence that his name is "Obama," don't you think?

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It's hardly impossible to teach someone Michael Jackson's famed moonwalk. You can probably even get 192 people proficient at it. But getting 192 brass-playing musicians to moonwalk as one person? That's a job for Ohio State University's marching band, also known as The Best Damn Band in the Land. For a special homecoming show, the band worked up a medley of Michael Jackson's hits, but the real thriller was in the choreography. Check out their performance and see if you can resist tripping over yourself in admiration.




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Courtesy of Media Matters:

NPR media reporter David Folkenflik writes in his forthcoming book Murdoch's World that Fox News' public relations staffers used an elaborate series of dummy accounts to fill the comments sections of critical blog posts with pro-Fox arguments.

In a chapter focusing on how Fox utilized its notoriously ruthless public relations department in the mid-to-late 00's, Folkenflik reports that Fox's PR staffers would "post pro-Fox rants" in the comments sections of "negative and even neutral" blog posts written about the network. According to Folkenflik, the staffers used various tactics to cover their tracks, including setting up wireless broadband connections that "could not be traced back" to the network.

A former staffer told Folkenflik that they had personally used "one hundred" fake accounts to plant Fox-friendly commentary:

"On the blogs, the fight was particularly fierce. Fox PR staffers were expected to counter not just negative and even neutral blog postings but the anti-Fox comments beneath them. One former staffer recalled using twenty different aliases to post pro-Fox rants. Another had one hundred. Several employees had to acquire a cell phone thumb drive to provide a wireless broadband connection that could not be traced back to a Fox News or News Corp account. Another used an AOL dial-up connection, even in the age of widespread broadband access, on the rationale it would be harder to pinpoint its origins. Old laptops were distributed for these cyber operations. Even blogs with minor followings were reviewed to ensure no claim went unchecked." [Murdoch's World, pg. 67]

In the book's endnotes, Folkenflik explains that "four former Fox News employees told me of these practices." It's unclear whether these tactics are ongoing.

As the owner of a liberal blog let me help with that question. Yes they are still using those tactics.

So for all of you who wondered if you were being paranoid in thinking that there were people paid to come here and defend Sarah Palin, nope you weren't.

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Photo courtesy of Facebook

The rather colorful diatribe (Warning! Links to Breitbart.) begins by relating the fantasy that Palin took on the Alaska "Corrupt Bastard Club" virtually single-handedly. And that it was the grass roots that took them down, when in fact it was the Feds.

Then she mentions her aborted attempt to take over the Republican party up here in 2008 (Which I have mentioned here before):

I’ll never forget standing at the podium during our state GOP convention and asking delegates to stand up with me and oust the status quo because the political environment had to change for Alaska to progress toward her manifest destiny as a more productive—and ethical—state to help secure our union. (She neglects to mention that what she was really trying to do was to overthrow the party completely and put Joe Miller in place as the head of the Alaska Republican party, a plan that was put on hold once she knew that McCain was about to tap her for his VP choice.) Only about half stood up. The rest looked around gauging the political winds and sat on their thumbs. Our federal delegation was incensed at me. Their influence resulted in much of the party machine staying put, but I’ll never be sorry I fought it.

Today, doesn't it seem like we have a Corrupt Bastards Club in D.C.? On steroids? It might not be as oily and obvious as its Alaska counterpart, but it’s just as compromised because its members, too, are indifferent to what their actions mean for We the People.

I’m prepared to be attacked for suggesting this comparison of the D.C. political establishment with the CBC. (Oh, and you will.) But I call it like I see it. And lived it. The fight over defunding socialized healthcare, aka Obamacare, should have opened everyone’s eyes to call it the same.

Palin's ghostwriter (Hiya RAM.) then goes on and on about the secret plan behind Obamacare being the destruction of our current health care system, so that they can introduce single payer and have a health care system that is similar to Canada's, which she deems sub-par:

Now let’s look at what Canadians have. I dare say our good neighbor to your north, and my east, has even worse health care coverage, but at least it’s “free” for the individual.

Then there are kisses blown to Tex Cruz, Mike Lee, and the rest of the Tea-ban.

The only credible plan of action was to do everything in our power to delay the implementation of Obamacare – defund it, postpone it, whatever – while at the same time work to elect a majority to repeal it. That is what Cruz and Lee and those Tea Party aligned House Members were doing. There was no other credible alternative plan to seize the constitutionally appropriate opportunity to legislatively close the purse strings to stop the juggernaut of full socialized medicine.

And then it's right back for the GOP jugular.

GOP politicians claim they’re against Obamacare and promise to repeal it. But when it came time to stand up and use the Constitutional tools they have – the power of the purse strings – to finally halt the implementation, they balked, waved the white flag, and joined the lapdog media in trashing the good guys who fought for us. (The bastards!)


Meanwhile, behind the scenes, these same politicians are covertly pushing through amnesty despite evidence that the 33 million newly legalized voters will overwhelmingly lean Democrat! Obviously this makes the likelihood of a GOP hat trick electoral victory, and hence the repeal of socialized healthcare, even more improbable. (What hell? Did she just accidentally admit to why the Republicans are so freaked out?)

The media wants you to believe that the partial government shutdown “fractured” the Republican machine from grassroots commonsense conservatives who go by the acronym TEA Party (that stands for “Taxed Enough Already”). No, Tea Party patriots rose up because the Republican machine “fractured” itself years ago by marginalizing its conservative base. The recent “slimdown” didn’t cause the fracture. It happened because of the fracture – because wayward Republicans have refused for years to stand up and fight for economic freedom and limited government, despite campaigning on those principles every election cycle. That’s how we got into this debt-ridden mess in the first place. They campaigned one way, but governed another.

It’s the establishment’s choice whether this fracture remains unfixed because the conservative grassroots will never give up the fight for freedom. Never. Never. (Never, never, never, goddammit ever!) Generations of our sons and daughters sent off to war to protect our freedom have paid too high a price for us to ever give up the fight.

Well alrighty then.

So essentially Sarah Palin seems to not so much be declaring war on the Democrats and President Obama, as she is declaring war on the Republican party.

It seems that Palin has decided that attacking and destroying the Affordable Care Act is too much for the Tea-ban, but that the GOP presents a softer target for their anger and aggression.

What is that saying again? "The enemy of my enemy is my friend?"

Yeah well forget that, Sarah Palin will always be the enemy, even though by attacking the Republican party from within she may appear to be doing the Democratic party's job for them.

P.S. By the way that picture up above looks posed. I think that this is how the unhappy couple appeared during most of their time in Washington.

"Keep up Todd, or I will drive off and leave you like last time."

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Courtesy of the Examiner:

In a victory for science education and the children of Texas, publishers are refusing to include creationism in science textbooks despite fierce pressure from conservative Christians.

The Texas Freedom Network, a nonpartisan watchdog, released a statement Thursday, Oct. 17, declaring “All 14 publishers are refusing to water down or compromise instruction on evolution and climate change in their proposed new high school biology textbooks.”

The following is from a press release issued by the Texas Freedom Network announcing the news:

"Materials submitted to the Texas Education Agency and examined by the Texas Freedom Network and university scientists show that publishers are resisting pressure to undermine instruction on evolution in their proposed new high school biology textbooks for public schools.

“This is a very welcome development for everyone who opposes teaching phony science about evolution in our kid’s public schools,” Texas Freedom Network President Kathy Miller said. “Texas parents can applaud these publishers for standing up to pressure from politicians and activists who want to put their personal beliefs ahead of giving Texas students a 21st-century science education.”

Conservative Christians on the Texas State Board of Education have been attempting to insert religious superstition into science textbooks for years by attempting to smuggle into the Texas science curriculum materials supportive of Biblical Creationism, also known as Intelligent Design.

Science advocates argue Creationism, or Intelligent Design, is not a legitimate scientific alternative to the theory of evolution. Indeed, critics would claim Biblical creationism is a religious superstition that does real harm to America - a symptom of a willful ignorance and an anti-intellectualism that thwarts scientific progress at home and humiliates America abroad.

There is so much win in that last paragraph.

Texas, as has been reported before, has a HUGE impact on what kind of textbooks that are printed for public school students around the country, which is why they receive a great deal of scrutiny concerning what is, and what is not, included within their pages.

There has been a great deal of controversy concerning the very aggressive attempts by certain Creationists to undermine science and insert their own superstitious view of the beginnings of life on this planet.

Learning that they have, thus far, been unsuccessful is good news for science, good news for our kids, and ultimately very good news for the future of our country.

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Courtesy of The New Civil Rights Movement:

They’ve targeted Blacks, Latinos and college students. Now Texas has come up with a Voter ID law that will disproportionately affect women – the constituency they most fear will support Wendy Davis.

Women are Wendy Davis’ natural base. Her eleven-hour filibuster of an abortion bill that closed family planning clinics in Texas is the reason she has the name recognition and the political capital to make a run for governor. Anti-choice groups who have never before had to spend money opposing a pro-choice candidate are scrambling to form political action groups to run ads against her. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, the man who is most likely to be her opponent, has been touting himself as the real pro-woman candidate for his success at collecting back child support from deadbeat dads. Now, Republicans have found what they hope will be a more reliable plan than trying to persuade women that Republicans have their best interest at heart:

Don’t let women vote.

Think Progress reports that as of November 5, Texans must show a photo ID with their up-to-date legal name. It sounds like such a small thing, but according to the Brennan Center for Justice, only 66% of voting age women have ready access to a photo document that will attest to proof of citizenship. This is largely because young women have not updated their documents with their married names, a circumstance that doesn’t affect male voters in any significant way. Suddenly 34% of women voters are scrambling for an acceptable ID, while 99% of men are home free.

So much for all of that macho talk, huh Texas?

So afraid of one little ole girl politician that they are willing to disenfranchise thousands of female voters. Pathetic!

You know somehow I don't think the women of Texas will take that lying down.

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