World News Korner

These were the top choices by the way. I did not even have to pick through them to find the ones that supported the Affordable Care Act.

They ALL did.

(Source.)

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Courtesy of Motherboard:

On Wednesday, March 27th, the largest state in the contiguous United States got almost one-third of its electricity by harnessing the wind. According to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which manages the bulk of the Lone Star State's power grid, a record-breaking 10,296 MW of electricity was whipped up by wind turbines. That's enough to provide 29 percent of the state's power, and to keep the lights on in over 5 million homes.

ERCOT notes in a statement issued today that "The new record beats the previous record set earlier this month by more than 600 MW, and the American Wind Energy Association reports it was a record for any US power system."

The landmark is further evidence of one of the nation's unlikeliest energy success stories. Conservative politicians have a renowned aversion to clean energy (though Republican voters favor it overwhelmingly), and Texas is still deep red. Yet wind farms are cropping up in there faster than almost anywhere else. ERCOT points out as much, as it boasts of the sector's recent growth:

Texas continues to have more wind power capacity than any other state. The ERCOT region has more than 11,000 MW of commercial wind power capacity, with nearly 8,000 MW of new projects in development and more than 26,700 MW under study. Wind power comprised 9.9 percent of the total energy used in the ERCOT region in 2013, compared to 9.2 percent in 2012.

Texas has more wind power than any other state, by a huge margin. And it keeps blowing through these major milestones just about every year. There was some trepidation that Texas's wind industry would slow as fracking rose in prominence and a key tax credit faced expiration, but hallmarks like this underline some very strong fundamentals. Wind power is ideal for Texas, where there's a lot of open land, a lot of breezy plains—and a rising demand for electricity, as the state's population continues to grow.

Okay well come on now! If this is happening in Texas, where crude oil runs through the veins of its citizens, then if should be happening EVERYWHERE!

World's largest wind turbine. Fairbanks, Alaska.

Hell it's happening up here in Alaska as well, and we are almost as oil driven as the Lone Star state.

Maybe even more so.

So this IS happening, even in places that you would think would be the last to start taking advantage of renewable energy. The only question remaining is is it happening fast enough?

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Courtesy of The Wrap:

Pelley's 19 Positive Q Score, which measures likeability, helped him just beat the No. 2 guy, CNN's Anderson Cooper, who had an 18. Cooper's 56 Recognizability score places him among the highest on this list.

“Hardball” host Chris Matthews struck out with the lowest likeability score of all.

To create Q Scores, executive vice president Henry Schafer and his team provides a personality's name and a brief description to more than 1,800 viewers. The viewers are asked if they recognize the person, and how they feel about him or her.

Compared to other TV personalities — from late-night hosts to morning hosts — newscasters tend to be less recognizable and less liked.

While I am gratified to see that Rachel Maddow, Tamron Hall, and Thomas Roberts from MSNBC all placed higher than anybody from Fox I am very displeased to see Lara Logan at number three.

Didn't anybody see her disastrous Benghazi debacle?

I think her entire likeability factor is based on the fact that horny men are fantasizing about having sex with her. Buncha pigs!

And as much as I want to come to the defense of my MSNBC brothers and sisters I simply CANNOT disagree with placing tweety at the bottom of the pile.

The man simply cannot stop interrupting his guests and making stupid comments.

Matthews has done some great reporting, and was called out a number of politicians on their crap, but he is incredibly hard to watch sometimes. Though I would still watch him over Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity ANY day.

Actually if you are looking for the most annoying MSNBC host, that honor should go to Ronan Farrow. I am not even exaggerating that he is the only MSNBC personality who has irritated me enough that I have switched to Fox News instead. True story.

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Courtesy of the Star Tribune:

An 84-year-old Maplewood man fatally shot his son over a dispute about installing cable in the family home, according to charges filed Thursday.

Pang Se Vang, 84, was charged in Ramsey County District Court with second-degree murder in the death of his son, Chue Vang, 36.

Maplewood police responded to the family home in the 1800 block of County Road B East about 11:51 a.m. Monday, where they found Chue Vang dead in a hallway and Pang Vang bleeding from self-inflicted knife wounds to the chest and neck.

According to the complaint: Pang Vang called his pastor that morning and said he was upset that Chue Vang would not pay to install cable in the home. Chue Vang owned the home and lived with his parents and siblings. Father and son had argued, and Chue Vang told his father he could move out, the pastor told authorities.

Pang Vang’s wife said their son asked his dad to talk to his sons about any problems.

“I’m not talking with you kids,” Pang Vang said before closing himself off in his bedroom.

Chue Vang opened the bedroom door, said, “Dad!” and was shot once by his father, charges said.

Another son wrestled a rifle away from their father and family members fled the home.

“If you are not afraid of dying then come in and bother me,” Pang Vang told his wife when she confronted him in their bedroom. “If you are afraid of dying, then you better run away.”

Damn, this guy really holds grudge. Still I am sure that he must feel terrible about killing his son over something so trivial. Or not:

Pang Vang eventually surrendered to police after telling them he would settle the dispute with his deceased son in the afterlife.

So apparently being very religious, does NOT make you a more moral person? Gee who would have thunk it?

Well it's a good thing the old man had a rifle to protect him from losing an argument with his son.

You know the only thing that stops a bad son from not installing cable and offering to pay for it, is a good father with a bad attitude and a loaded rifle.

Of course the next stage of this conflict may be a little tougher on the old man, because I am not sure that they allow guns in heaven.

What am I saying? There is NO way that so many conservatives would be working so hard to get there if they didn't!

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Nancy and Bristol, Gee it's almost like they are the same person!

Courtesy of Brancy's Blog:

As I’ve mentioned, I love reading my Bible, especially if some verses really jump out at me. When they do, I’ll share them with ya!

Here’s the latest:

The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life, but violence overwhelms the mouth of the wicked.” Proverbs 10:11

The part about “the mouth of the righteous” being the “fountain of life” totally reminds me of the wonderful activists in the pro-life movement!!!

On the other hand, it also makes me picture pro-abortion advocates and the violence they preach… it just makes me sick. They have “mouths of the wicked,” because they and spew so much violence toward people who are only trying to protect innocent life.

Choose life.

Just in case you are confused by the fact that there is something missing between the "they" and the "and" in the paragraph above, no I did not leave out a word. It's just that somebody is not doing their follow up editing very well.

Now this is clearly the work of Nancy French who seems to have now completely taken over Bristol's blog, while Sarah seems to be doing a little more of her own writing. (Either that or her stupidity is contagious and has infected her ghostwriters.)

This post is essentially accusing pro-choice people of violence and murder, when of course legal abortion is no such thing.

It is only the religious looney's who believe that live begins at conception, while science places it at the time when a fetus can viably live outside of the womb. (Which is somewhere between 23 and 27 weeks.)

That means that there are really very, very few actual deaths that can be attributed to the pro-choice movement.

Sadly the same cannot be said for the other side:

March 10, 1993: Dr. David Gunn of Pensacola, Florida was fatally shot during a protest. He had been the subject of wanted-style posters distributed by Operation Rescue in the summer of 1992.

July 29, 1994: Dr. John Britton and James Barrett, a clinic escort, were both shot to death outside another facility, the Ladies Center, in Pensacola.

December 30, 1994: Two receptionists, Shannon Lowney and Lee Ann Nichols, were killed in two clinic attacks in Brookline, Massachusetts.

January 29, 1998: Robert Sanderson, an off-duty police officer who worked as a security guard at an abortion clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, was killed when his workplace was bombed.

October 23, 1998: Dr. Barnett Slepian was shot to death with a high-powered rifle at his home in Amherst, New York.

May 31, 2009: Dr. George Tiller was shot and killed by Scott Roeder as Tiller served as an usher at a church in Wichita, Kansas.

So who is it that is spewing violence again?

Pro-choice people are NOT pro-abortion, they would much rather prevent unwanted pregnancy, through education and birth control, rather than see a young woman subjected to a procedure that can be quite traumatic and emotionally painful.

Which makes one wonder how many young women might have ended up in abortion clinics after following the advice of Bristol Palin, Abstinence Only Spokesperson, during her 2011 tour?

If only those young ladies would have had an honest role model to follow, they might have been spared such an upsetting procedure.

And speaking of procedures, and violence, what happened to whatever was responsible for this puzzling weight gain?

There is a quote about glass houses and throwing stones, and I can hear the sound of shattered glass from here.

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Courtesy of The National Memo:

In mid-March, House Republicans took their 52nd vote in 38 months to repeal the Affordable Care Act. While a majority of the House voted in favor of the bill, however, public support for these continued efforts to repeal the health care law is progressively shrinking.

According to a Kaiser Foundation poll released on Wednesday, only 18 percent of Americans still wish to see the law repealed and not replaced — 11 percent want to repeal the law and replace it with a Republican alternative, 10 percent want it to remain as is, and a 49 percent majority want to keep it and improve it.

It seems repeated GOP efforts to defund the law have hit a standstill, representing a possible warning to Republicans who exclusively focus on the ACA in the upcoming midterm elections. According to the poll, a growing number of Americans have accepted the ACA as the law of the land. Some 53 percent of those polled now say they are tired of debating the already implemented law, and would prefer to move on to other important issues.

This is great news moving forward. In fact there are more stories rolling in about how many of those once opposed to he law are now seeing the benefits.

One was so good it was even used by the White House Blog:

I am a staunch Republican, a self-proclaimed Fox News addict, and I didn't vote for the President. And I'm here to tell you that Obamacare works. I'm living proof.

I'm a chemotherapy patient, and was previously paying $428 a month for my health coverage. I was not thrilled when it was cancelled.

Then I submitted an application at HealthCare.gov. I looked at my options. And I signed up for a plan for $62 a month.

It's the best health care I have ever had.

I wrote a letter to President Obama this past February to tell him about my experience with the Health Insurance Marketplace. I hoped he'd read it, and he did.

I may not be a supporter of the President. But now, I get mad when I see Obamacare dragged through the mud on television.

And even though I regularly tune in to conservative pundits, I'd like to tell them they're getting it wrong. Obamacare works.

It's signed Mark D. Bearden, Ph.D. and the White House is now using it to help sign people up for Obamacare. Which is what I have been suggesting for months.

And of course the enrollment is now over six million.

However before we all start high-fiving each other we need a reality check.

While it is true that the Republicans cannot do anything in the short term to derail the Affordable Care Act, their is a scenario that would give them the power to do just that.

Last night on Real Time Bill Maher interviewed Jimmy Carter. When asked if he thought that winning the presidency, the Senate, and the House would mean that the Republicans would feel empowered to repeal the ACA, Carter said yes it would.

No doubt about it.

So while we may not be able to imagine a scenario where the GOP wins the White House, I am not willing to leave it up to that election to protect our progress, and we need to make damn sure that EVERY Democrat, Liberal, and liberal leaning Independent gets out to vote in 2014.

We have come too far to allow all of this to go up in smoke.

Nate Silver was on the Daily Show the other day and he kind of dared the Democrats to prove him wrong about his predictions concerning 2014. I haven't played truth or dare for many, many years, but that is one dare I am more than willing to take.

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Courtesy of Bloomberg News:

Sanctions imposed by the U.S. and the European Union are pushing Russia toward a recession as the intensity of their economic penalties increases after the annexation of Crimea earlier this month.

Banks including state-run VTB Capital say the world’s ninth-biggest economy will shrink for at least two quarters as penalties for annexing Crimea rattle markets, curb investment and raise the cost of borrowing. Sanctions that have so far focused on individuals via visa bans and asset freezes may be expanded to target specific areas of the economy.

This pressure apparently was too much for Vlad, and the next thing you know.....

Pres. Obama didn't go to war; no, he went after the money & Putin picked up the phone to discuss diplomatic solutions http://t.co/AzhuoI8N6p
— Nerdy Wonka (@NerdyWonka) March 28, 2014

Courtesy of the New York Times:

President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia reached out to President Obama on Friday to discuss ideas about how to peacefully resolve the international standoff over Ukraine, a surprise move by Moscow to pull back from the brink of an escalated confrontation that has put Europe and much of the world on edge.

After weeks of provocative moves punctuated by a menacing buildup of troops on Ukraine’s border, Mr. Putin’s unexpected telephone call to Mr. Obama offered a hint of a possible settlement. The two leaders agreed to have their top diplomats meet to discuss concrete proposals for defusing the crisis that has generated the most serious clash between Russia and the West since the end of the Cold War.

Of course these are just preliminary talks, but it is more than a little impressive that Obama got Putin to call HIM without a shot being fired or any threats of blowing shit up.

Of course if the Republicans had their way we would have Americans dying on the border of Ukraine right now and we would be headed toward World War 3. You know the kind of "diplomacy" that gives those whose campaigns are paid for by the Military Industrial Complex giant boners.

(H/T to The Obama Diary.)

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