kpete
kpete's JournalPhoto-Bombing Obama’s Iran Talks
http://www.juancole.com/2015/01/bombing-obamas-cartoon.html
TORTURE IF YOU MUST, BUT DO NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES CALL THE NEW YORK TIMES
Monday’s guilty verdict in the trial of former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling on espionage charges — for talking to a newspaper reporter — is the latest milepost on the dark and dismal path Barack Obama has traveled since his inaugural promises to usher in a “new era of openness.”
Far from rejecting the authoritarian bent of his presidential predecessor, Obama has simply adjusted it, adding his own personal touches, most notably an enthusiasm for criminally prosecuting the kinds of leaks that are essential to a free press.
The Sterling case – especially in light of Obama’s complicity in the cover-up of torture during the Bush administration – sends a clear message to people in government service: You won’t get in trouble as long as you do what you’re told (even torture people). But if you talk to a reporter and tell him something we want kept secret, we will spare no effort to destroy you.
the rest:
https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/01/27/torture-must-circumstances-call-new-york-times/
Penn & Teller call Bullsh*t! on anti-vaxxers — using a little thing called science
A short segment from magicians Penn & Teller’s old show Bullsh*t! still holds up as an effective counter against anti-vaccination arguments.
“You may have heard vaccination causes autism in 1 out of 110 children,” Penn Jillette explains early on. “F*ck that. Total bullsh*t.”
But indulging the argument for a second, Jillette sets up a plexiglass “vaccination” barrier in front of plastic bowling pins to represent a group of vaccinated children. Another group, placed closest to Teller, represents children who did not get vaccines.
Gilette notes that, while positioning the barrier, he knocks one of the pins out — representing the one hypothetical children who develops autism.
But the key to the experiment is the moment when the two men start throwing balls representing various illnesses at the pins. While Jillette’s barrier holds up, more pins in Teller’s group are taken down by diseases like the flu, mumps, whooping cough, and others.
“We have vaccinations against all of them,” Jillette says. “Which side do you want your child to stand on?”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/penn-teller-call-bullsht-on-anti-vaxxers-using-a-little-thing-called-science/
Why serious people discount Fox News
Pitts: Why serious people discount Fox News
By Leonard Pitts Jr. The Miami Herald
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Last week, Fox did something Fox almost never does. It apologized. Indeed, it apologized profusely, multiple times, on air.
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It's amazing, the things you can get used to, that can come to seem normal. In America, it has come to seem normal that a major news organization functions as the propaganda arm of an extremist political ideology, that it spews a constant stream of racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, paranoia and manufactured outrage, and that it does so with brazen disregard for what is factual, what is right, what is fair, what is balanced — virtues that are supposed to be the sine qua non of anything calling itself a newsroom.
If you live with aberrance long enough, you can forget it's aberrance. You can forget that facts matter, that logic is important, that science is critical, that he who speaks claptrap loudly still speaks claptrap — and that claptrap has no place in reasoned and informed debate. Sometimes, it takes someone from outside to hold up a mirror and allow you to see more clearly what you have grown accustomed to.
This is what the French and the British did for America last week.
For that, Fox owed them an apology. But serious people owe them thanks.
MORE:
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/2093289-155/pitts-why-serious-people-discount-fox
NFL Will Try To Pin 'Deflategate' On A Locker Room Attendant
http://m.tmi.me/1eXHpm
Deflategate has taken another twist.
FOX Sports has learned that the NFL has zeroed in on a New England Patriots locker-room attendant in connection with the scandal of improperly inflated footballs used in the AFC championship game against the Indianapolis Colts.
The person of interest was already interviewed by the league. The NFL is trying to determine whether any wrongdoing by this individual occurred, sources tell FOX Sports.
There is surveillance video showing the attendant taking the footballs from the official's locker room into another room at Gillette Stadium before bringing them out to the field, sources tell FOX Sports.
The NFL confiscated 11 of 12 footballs at halftime that were under the league-mandated air pressure of 12.5 PSI. The league has since launched an investigation into the matter.
http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/deflategate-fallout-nfl-focusing-on-patriots-locker-room-attendant-012615
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/26/deflategate-locker-room-attendant_n_6549608.html
Former Marine on Chris Kyle, American Sniper, and Social Implications
Former Marine on Chris Kyle, American Sniper, and Social Implications
Posted on January 27, 2015 by Robert Barsocchini
Ross Caputi, a former marine who participated in the US’s second siege of Fallujah, writes that the reason the American Sniper book and film have been so successful is that they “tell us exactly what we want to hear”: that US America is “benevolent” and “righteous”. That, he says, is why the book and film are so popular; their popularity speaks volumes about US society, and signals more danger ahead for the rest of the world.
The killings for which Chris Kyle is idolized, Caputi notes, were perpetrated during his participation in the second US siege of Fallujah, which Caputi, from firsthand knowledge, calls an “atrocity”.
“All military aged males were forced to stay within the city limits of Fallujah” (while women and children were warned to flee through the desert on foot)
“…an estimated 50,000 civilians were trapped in (Fallujah) during this month long siege without water” (since the US had cut off water and electricity to the city)
“…almost no effort was taken to make a distinction between civilian men and combatants. In fact, in many instances civilians and combatants were deliberately conflated.”
“The US did not treat military action (against Fallujah) as a last resort. The peace negotiations with the leadership in Fallujah were canceled by the US.”
“(The US) killed between 4,000 to 6,000 civilians, displaced 200,000, and may have created an epidemic of birth defects and cancers“
“(The siege was) conducted with indiscriminate tactics and weapons, like the use of reconnaissance-by-fire, white phosphorous, and the bombing of residential neighborhoods. The main hospital was also treated as a military target.”
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The US invasion of Iraq, Caputi concludes, was “the imposition of a political and economic project against the will of the majority of Iraqis. … We had no right to invade a sovereign nation, occupy it against the will of the majority of its citizens, and patrol their streets.”
MORE (Plus Links to all the points above):
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/01/former-marine-chris-kyle-american-sniper-social-implications.html
Gay Alabama lawmaker threatens to reveal colleagues' affairs
MONTGOMERY – State Rep. Patricia Todd, D-Birmingham, had a warning for her Statehouse colleagues over the weekend.
“I will not stand by and allow legislators to talk about ‘family values’ when they have affairs, and I know of many who are and have,” Todd, the state’s only openly gay lawmaker, said on Facebook over the weekend. “I will call our elected officials who want to hide in the closet out.”
Todd was responding to comments from her fellow lawmakers after Friday’s decision by a federal judge to overturn the state’s ban on same-sex marriages.
“It is pretty well known that we have people in Montgomery who are or have had affairs …” Todd told the TimesDaily this morning. “I just want them to be careful what they’re saying, some of it might come back to stick on them.”
MORE:
ttp://www.timesdaily.com/news/state-capital/gay-alabama-lawmaker-threatens-to-reveal-colleagues-affairs/article_34c78098-a573-11e4-ba01-7773fa3a140e.html
Senator Elizabeth Warren Will NOT Be Ignored
Behind Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s Treasury takedownHow the Massachusetts senator rallied the left and blindsided the White House.
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Weiss supporters in the White House and on Wall Street were stunned. They expected some opposition from the left but not the explosion that greeted the nomination. Never mind that, as undersecretary for domestic finance, Weiss would not be the person chiefly responsible for consumer financial protection — Warren created a whole separate agency for that — or that neither Gillibrand nor Warren had ever met or spoken to the man.
...............
The game in Washington had changed.
Elizabeth Warren, sometimes disregarded by the White House as a largely irrelevant nuisance, could no longer be ignored. Bolstered by grass roots groups eager for any anti-Wall Street crusade and a vibrant progressive media that hung on her every word, Warren succeeded in knocking out Weiss’ nomination
…
It was not a total victory. Weiss will still join Treasury as an unconfirmed counselor to Secretary Jack Lew. But in terms of symbolism, the Washington power game and the ideological direction of the Democratic Party, Warren won big. And the moderate, Wall Street- and business-friendly wing of the party — in past years happily occupied by Democratic presidential nominee-in-waiting Hillary Clinton — got punched in the mouth.
…
On the other side, the despair among Wall Street’s Democratic elite is growing acute. As is the belief that Weiss himself never mattered in this fight.
MORE:
http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/antonio-weiss-lizabeth-warren-treasury-114539.html?hp=t4_r
Pediatricians Urge DEA to Reclassify Medical Marijuana to Boost Research
Specifically, the AAP wants marijuana to be removed from the DEA’s Schedule 1 listing for controlled substances, which are not considered to have any “currently accepted medical use in the U.S., a lack of accepted safety for under medical supervision and a high potential for abuse.” Other drugs in this category include heroin, acid and ecstasy.
Instead, the medical society wants marijuana downgraded to the list of Schedule 2 drugs, which are considered to have a “high potential for abuse which may lead to severe psychological or physical dependence.” These include various widely prescribed narcotics, such as oxycodone and fentanyl, as well as morphine and codeine, which are used for medical purposes.
“A Schedule 1 listing means there’s no medical use or helpful indications, but we know that’s not true because there has been limited evidence showing [marijuana] may be helpful for certain conditions in adults,” says Seth Ammerman, a clinical professor in pediatrics at Stanford University and a member of the AAP national committee on substance abuse, who co-authored the new policy statement.
“By placing this on Schedule 2, it would allow the FDA to be involved [in pediatric research] as the agency is in any study. Unless scheduling changes, this won’t happen. And there could be therapeutic benefits. The AAP is not opposed to medical marijuana, per se, but we feel it’s important that this be explored within the [framework of the] FDA process, where you have standardization.”
http://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-270B-1364
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