Friday, November 29, 2013
Insanity: NYU Professor Says End Presidential Term Limits For Obama
Insanity: NYU Professor Calls For End To
Presidential Term Limits; Obama Third Term?
New York University professor Jonathan Zimmerman @ Washington comPost:
It’s time to put that power back where it belongs. When Ronald Reagan was serving his second term, some Republicans briefly floated the idea of removing term limits so he could run again. The effort went nowhere, but it was right on principle. Barack Obama should be allowed to stand for re election just as citizens should be allowed to vote for — or against — him. Anything less diminishes our leaders and ourselves. - [...] - Washington Post.
Hat tip Falcon.
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China sends fighter jets to new defense zone
China sent fighter jets to patrol a group of disputed islands, known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China, after the US, Japan and South Korea ignored its unilateral defense restrictions over the area.
China ramped up a standoff with the U.S., Japan and South Korea over its air defense zone by sending jets over disputed islands.
WASHINGTON — China's military sent several fighter jets and an early warning aircraft on patrol into disputed air space over the East China Sea on Thursday, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported, quoting a spokesman for the People's Liberation Army Air Force.
The move raises the stakes in a standoff with the United States, Japan and South Korea over the zone. Japan and South Korea sent their own military aircraft through the air space on Thursday.
The Chinese patrol mission was "a defensive measure and in line with international common practices," said Shen Jinke, a spokesman for China's air force, in the Xinhua article.
Ties between China and Japan have been strained for months by the dispute over the islands in the East China Sea, called the Diaoyu by China and the Senkaku by Japan. The islands are currently under Japanese administrative control.
China last week unilaterally announced that foreign aircraft — including passenger aircraft — passing over the islands would have to identify themselves to China.
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Author:
By Reuters
Did Comet ISON survive? Scientists see tiny hope
In this frame grab taken from enhanced video made by NASA's STEREO-A spacecraft, Comet ISON, left, approaches the sun on Nov. 25.
Spacecraft images suggest Comet ISON may have just survived its close encounter with the sun on Thursday.
STOCKHOLM — Scientists are studying spacecraft images to find out whether a small part of Comet ISON survived its close encounter with the sun.
The comet at first seemed to have fallen apart as it approached the sun's sizzling surface, but new images Friday showed a streak of light that some said could indicate it wasn't game over just yet.
U.S. Navy solar researcher Karl Battams wrote on his blog that "it does appear that at least some small fraction of ISON has remained in one piece." He cautioned that even if there is a solid nucleus, it may not survive for long.
The European Space Agency, which had declared ISON's death on Twitter late Thursday, was backtracking early Friday, saying the comet "continues to surprise."
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By Associated Press
Arizona Sheriff, Joe Arpaio, brags on Twitter about feeding his prisoners Thanksgiving dinner for only 56 cents each. What a humanitarian.
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| Joe Arpaio next to Sarah Palin, Trig Palin, and her "servant's heart." |
Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio (R) took to Twitter on Wednesday to show off the "special" Thanksgiving meal his office served to inmates on Thursday. What made the meal special? The 56 cent cost per inmate.
"Thanksgiving menu is all set!," Arpaio wrote on Twitter. "Hope the inmates give thanks for this special meal being served in the jails tomorrow."
Thanksgiving menu is all set! Hope the inmates give thanks for this special meal being served in the jails tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/3L5vcWX8Jc
— Joe Arpaio (@RealSheriffJoe) November 27, 2013 I am not sure exactly what "Turkey Soy Casserole" is, but it sounds like a good reason to riot to me.Look I am all about saving money, but I think that prisoners should be allowed to have an actual meal at this time of year. How can you rehabilitate people if you treat them like animals?
Of course I guess it is to be expected from a guy who hangs out with Ms. "Christmas is only for Christians" herself. Two peas in a hateful little pod.
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Global warming deniers and creationists join forces, while scientists around the world bang their heads on their desk in unison.
Courtesy of Mother Jones:
All across the country—most recently, in the state of Texas—local battles over the teaching of evolution are taking on a new complexion. More and more, it isn't just evolution under attack, it's also the teaching of climate science. The National Center for Science Education, the leading group defending the teaching of evolution across the country, has even broadened its portfolio: Now, it protects climate education too.
How did these issues get wrapped up together? On its face, there isn't a clear reason—other than a marriage of convenience—why attacks on evolution and attacks on climate change ought to travel side by side. After all, we know why people deny evolution: Religion, especially the fundamentalist kind.
And we know why people deny global warming: Free market ideology and libertarianism. These are not, last I checked, the same thing. (If anything, libertarians may be the most religiously skeptical group on the political right.) And yet clearly there's a relationship between the two issue stances.
Indeed, recent research suggests that Christian "end times" believers are less likely to see a need for action on global warming.
And now new research by Yale's Dan Kahan further reaffirms that there's something going on here. More specifically, Kahan showed that there is a correlation (.25, which is weak to modest, but significant) between a person's religiosity and his or her tendency to think that global warming isn't much of a risk. Perhaps even more tellingly, Kahan also found that among highly religious individuals, as their ability to comprehend science increases, so does their denial of the risk posed by global warming.
"I have to say, those effects are bigger than I would have expected," wrote Kahan of his findings. The researcher went on to say that he isn't sure why greater religiosity predicts greater denial of climate change. But in his data—with a representative sample of over 2,000 Americans—it clearly does.
The article goes on to give a couple of reasons as to WHY they think these two seemingly disparate subjects have become connected in the minds of many religious Americans, and in the policies put forward by their conservative representatives in Washington.
However I have to say that the first time that I became aware of it was while watching the movie "Jesus Camp."
Frightening, isn't it? In the minds of these religious conservatives secular education is bad, and is simply an attempt by the non-religious to brainwash their children. And ANYTHING that is stressed as dangerous by scientists MUST, by definition, be false and should be rejected outright.
Besides how can the earth become dangerous for humans when God created it especially for them?
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Russian parents facing jail time after taking baby to church for a baptism instead of to a hospital after car accident.
A couple in Russia face jail after their religious zeal compelled them to drive their child, injured in a car crash, to church for an urgent baptism rather than to hospital.
The two-month-old infant was dead by the time it was delivered into the hands of the priest, Fontanka.ru news website said Sunday.
The boy sustained a brain injury in a minor crash in St. Petersburg on Saturday despite being in a child safety seat, the report said.
The worried parents sped him up to the church because “otherwise he would be denied the Kingdom of Heaven,” investigators cited them as saying, Fontanka.ru reported.
Now the two parents, both in their forties, are being investigated for “failure to assist a person in danger,” punishable with up to a year in prison.
This is usually the part where I go off on the ignorance of these people, but I will let a spokesman for the church do that instead.
“This is superstition, not religion,” an Orthodox Church spokesman told Fontanka.ru. “They should have gone to the hospital, it’s only human.”
Yeah, no shit!
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I sometimes feel sorry for these guys.
I would see these young men riding their bikes up and down the hills of Hilo, Hawaii, dressed in their black slacks, white shirts, and ties in 80 degree temperatures, and think to myself that for that reason alone it was a religion to be avoided at all cost.
When I lived on the island I could barely wear clothes without being reduced to a puddle of sweat.
While we are on the subject I should probably admit that I have often had a rather adversarial relationship with the Mormon church though in my defense I don't think it was all my fault.
I don't really have any more against them then I do other religions (You know I dislike them all equally.), but it just seems that we have crossed paths more than a few times and I have always been left with a bad taste in my mouth.
And this was BEFORE Mitt Romney.
Hey, maybe it's just me.
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