And so it goes...

Texas Governor Abbot:

Sam Reisman: 

Texans Don’t Like Federal Aid. Until They Need It.

Memorial Day 2015

Fintan O’Toole: Ireland has left ‘tolerance’ far behind

Fintan O'Toole, Irish Times


We’ve made it clear to the world that there is a new normal — that “ordinary” is a big, capacious word that embraces and rejoices in the natural diversity of humanity. 

LGBT people are now a fully acknowledged part of the wonderful ordinariness of Irish life. 


It looks like a victory for tolerance. But it’s actually an end to mere toleration. Tolerance is what “we” extend, in our gracious goodness, to “them”. It’s about saying “You do your own thing over there and we won’t bother you so long as you don’t bother us”. 

The resounding Yes is a statement that Ireland has left tolerance far behind. It’s saying that there’s no “them” anymore. LGBT people are us — our sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, neighbours and friends. We were given the chance to say that. 

We were asked to replace tolerance with the equality of citizenship. And we took it in both arms and hugged it close.

(GOP) Virginia is for Haters

‘No Gays Allowed’ Law Set To Pass In Virginia




The state of Virginia is set to pass a law which would allow anti-LGBT business owners to bar gay people, purely on the basis of their sexuality.

 The Virginia Bill states that anyone seeking or holding a business license from the state of Virginia in the state can refuse service or entry to gay people, on the grounds it “would violate the religious or moral convictions of such person with respect to same-sex “marriage” or homosexual behavior.”

 This would make it lawful for LGBT people to be barred from hotels, restaurants, schools, hospitals, and any other premise where a good or service is exchanged by someone who dislikes their sexual orientation:

 Want to buy a bed? Prove you’re not sharing it with a member of the same sex.


Want to buy diapers but show up with your same-sex partner? No diapers for you, and don’t darken the door of this store again. 

 We aren’t going to enroll your kid in our school district because she has two moms. All these scenarios would be entirely legal under the new law. 

 The toxic bill has been spearheaded by Virginia’s virulently anti-gay lawmaker Bob Marshall. You might remember him for his fruitless effort to exclude gay people from the state’s National Guard, or his 2012 attempt to block the appointment of a judge on the grounds that the nominee was gay, saying that “sodomy is not a civil right.”

Video of the Week

Sorry I can't embed the video in this post, but please go to the link and watch Amy Schumer nail this subject:  Birth Control.   It's well worth watching.

A BOLD STATEMENT ABOUT REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS



And then there's this:

Congratulations Boston!

And kudos to Mayor Walsh!

An enlightened city (catching up with Portland, Oregon?):



BOSTON - Monday, May 18, 2015—Mayor Martin J. Walsh today signed an ordinance establishing paid parental leave for City of Boston employees, Boston's first-ever Paid Parental Leave policy. The ordinance, which was proposed by Councilors Michelle Wu, Tim McCarthy and Tito Jackson, allows for up to six weeks of Paid Parental Leave to both men and women, as well as same-sex couples, who have worked for the City for at least one year. 

"I would like to thank the Council for working with the Administration to pass this important step forward for working families," said Mayor Walsh. "This is not only the right thing to do but it is important to the vitality and economy of our city. The benefits of this policy to both individuals and organization are a win-win and it is my hope that businesses will follow our lead and extend this benefit to their employees." 

Previous parental leave policies, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act and Massachusetts Parental Leave Act, have focused on protecting parents' jobs during unpaid leave. The lack of income during periods of parental leave is a factor in the wage gap experienced by many women, and forces employees to return to work sooner than their particular family may really need with their newborn or newly adopted child.

Sunday Science Blog

Light blogging over the next few weeks.   Family visiting and other important activities.


Be excellent to each other.

The Intrinsic Qualities of White Guy Presidents

So.  Every single white guy who won the presidency won it on merit, but Barack Obama and, if elected, Hillary, win because of voters' "self-virtue?"

Laura Clawson of Daily Kos exposes Epstein's, and all who buy into this crock of crap, self-absorbed victimhood.  Sadly, many on the right buy into it as well.

So what would Epstein say about the motives of voters should Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio become president? 

Epstein = Derp. 


 Weekly Standard contributing editor Joseph Epstein:

"If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency in 2016 she will not only be the nation’s first woman president but our second affirmative-action president. By affirmative-action president I mean that she, like Barack Obama, will have got into office partly for reasons extraneous to her political philosophy or to her merits, which, though fully tested while holding some of the highest offices in the land, have not been notably distinguished. 

In his election, Obama was aided by the far from enticing Republican candidates who opposed him, but a substantial portion of the electorate voted for him because having a biracial president seemed a way of redressing old injustices. They hoped his election would put the country’s racial problems on a different footing, which sadly, as we now know, it has failed to do. Many people voted for Obama, as many women can be expected to vote for Hillary Clinton, because it made them feel virtuous to do so. 

The element of self-virtue—of having an elevated feeling about oneself—is perhaps insufficiently appreciated in American politics. How have we come to the point where we elect presidents of the United States not on their intrinsic qualities but because of the accidents of their birth: because they are black, or women, or, one day doubtless, gay, or disabled—not, in other words, for themselves but for the causes they seem to embody or represent, for their status as members of a victim group? 


Yes, he's arguing that white men are elected because of their merit, their intrinsic qualities, and in no way because of the accidents of their birth. Somehow, everyone in American history who has been elected on merit has coincidentally been a white man. 

Everyone who has been elected or been a strong candidate for the presidency while failing to be a white man has also coincidentally lacked true merit. Funny how that works. 

George W. Bush, grandson of a senator, son of a president, one-and-a-half-term governor of Texas ... "notably distinguished" candidate composed of pure, shining merit. But Barack Obama, who got to Columbia and Harvard without family connections, had to build his own fundraising base and political operation rather than inheriting one, and was elected president without even needing the Supreme Court to put its thumb on the scale ... all "accidents of his birth" and affirmative action and victim mentality right there." 

Sunday Science Blog

Busy weekend.  Enjoy these cool science photos from HuffPost:

11 Super-Cool Science Photos From The Past Decade

"It's him!"

"When asked this week at an exclusive Manhattan gathering about who advises him on U.S.-Israel policy, Jeb Bush surprised many of the 50-plus attendees by naming his brother, former president George W. Bush, as his most influential counselor. 


 “If you want to know who I listen to for advice, it’s him,” Bush said Tuesday, speaking to a crowd of high-powered financiers at the Metropolitan Club, according to four people present."




Yes.  That makes about as much sense as choosing Lizzie Borden as an advisor on parental relationships.

This Nut Wants to be President?

With his Ivy League education and supposed "brilliant" intellect, this guy couldn't tell the difference between Right Wing Paranoid Idiocy and fact.

And neither could the Governor of Texas. 

These people are an embarrassment to themselves and this country.

Dr. Ben Carson says he wants to be president...

and tells us all that welfare enslaves African-Americans.

Sunday Science Blog

Rainbow colored images from Mercury

Really?

When we say the extremist TeaPublicans are looney, that's not an attack, that's the truth.


This sounds like something from a satire site, but it isn't.  These people actually believe the U.S. military (y'know, the group these people fetishize and call "heroes,") are coming to take over the state of Texas while on a military exercise.

The governor of Texas has put his National Guard on alert so that Texas will not be taken over by the US military.


No.  This is not satire.  These hysterical people really believe this lunacy:



Wingers Debate Why Obama Is Plotting Military Takeover of Texas



Texas residents were up in arms this week over a planned U.S. military training exercise that's been portrayed in right-wing conspiracy theory circles as everything from a ploy to confiscate Americans' guns to an excuse to abduct political dissidents.

 The speculation reached such a fever pitch that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) on Tuesday asked the State Guard to monitor the exercise so that "that Texans know their safety, constitutional rights, private property rights and civil liberties will not be infringed."

Residents' fears can be traced back to a "leaked" slideshow presentation that outlined the operation's goals and logistics and made the rounds on the fringe of the conservative blogosphere.

The document was posted by the conspiracy theory website All News Pipeline to the document sharing site Scribd in March under the headline "Jade Helm Martial Law WW3 Prep Document 1."


As of Thursday, it had been viewed more than 2.1 million times. The document contained a map that labelled certain states, including Texas and Utah, as "hostile." So it comes as no surprise that rumors about a possible military takeover would run rampant among anti-federalists and conspiracy theorists.

It's worth noting that Brazos Valley, Texas radio station WFAW actually posted the U.S. Army's slideshow presentation back in February when county commissioners approved the military's request to conduct the training exercise.



More paranoid lunacy here:



Radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones has been sending out warnings for weeks regarding the exercise, saying it is the U.S. military positioning itself to take over the states and declare martial law.  


[Texas Gov.] Abbott apparently has heard the concern and ordered the Guard to monitor the training and U.S. military personnel. “To address concerns of Texas citizens and ensure that Texas communities remain safe, secure and informed about military procedures occurring in their vicinity, I am directing the TExas State Guard to monitor Operation Jade Helm 15,” Abbott wrote in his letter to the commander of the Texas Guard.





There are 15 military bases in the state of Texas.  Fifteen!   And the wackos on the right are frothing over a military exercise?  Could this paranoia and fear have anything to do with the guy in the White House?   I mean if good ole boy "Dubya" were in the WH, would the governor of Texas be soiling his undies wondering if the country were headed for a coup d'etat?  

I'm guessing no, because in the TeaPublican's little minds, only a GOP preznit loves his country and the military.  Yes, they really believe that rot.  Oh, and Jesus.  Dubya loved Jesus, and the mental dwarfs on the extreme right believe Mr. Obama worships Allah.   And William Ayers.  


Since Mr. Obama moved into the WH, the extremists on the right have been riding the Crazy Train, but now, it's evident that they've exchanged the Crazy Train for a Looney Rocket that'll put them and their favorite conspiracy wingnuts in orbit around the Earth while howling about the black guy in the WH coming to take away their liberty and guns and their right to discriminate against gays!   

"A riot is the language of the unheard." --MLK

The Reverend Martin Luther King's words explain the protests and unrest in Baltimore:



1. “Why is equality so assiduously avoided? Why does white America delude itself, and how does it rationalize the evil it retains? The majority of white Americans consider themselves sincerely committed to justice for the Negro. They believe that American society is essentially hospitable to fair play and to steady growth toward a middle-class Utopia embodying racial harmony. But unfortunately this is a fantasy of self-deception and comfortable vanity.” — Where Do We Go From Here, 1967

 2. “I contend that the cry of "Black Power" is, at bottom, a reaction to the reluctance of white power to make the kind of changes necessary to make justice a reality for the Negro. I think that we've got to see that a riot is the language of the unheard. And, what is it that America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the economic plight of the Negro poor has worsened over the last few years.— 60 Minutes Interview, 1966


3. "But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear?...It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity." — “The Other America,” 1968

 4. “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” — “Revolution of Values,” 1967 

 5. “Again we have deluded ourselves into believing the myth that Capitalism grew and prospered out of the Protestant ethic of hard word and sacrifice. The fact is that Capitalism was build on the exploitation and suffering of black slaves and continues to thrive on the exploitation of the poor – both black and white, both here and abroad.” 

 6. “A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” —“Beyond Vietnam,” 1967

h/tDailyKos




These are uncomfortable, inconvenient truths that many people refuse to face and deliberately ignore.  Just go read the extreme rightwing blogs where their self-satisfied conversations place blame on black citizens alone--claiming that black parents just don't care about their families or themselves.  This is the way white people who have no clue about their own white privilege deal with these complex problems.

Here's a particularly ignorant, ill-thought-out explanation for the troubles in Baltimore found on an rightwing extremist's blog:


"I know, personal responsibility is swearing to a liberal but it just might work. Why were there so many youth's at the start of the riots, why are their neighborhoods so blighted, why do they not have better schools . Because the parents don't care. They must follow hilldabeast idea of it takes a village.not a parent. If it is because they are repressed, why do they have to loot and burn. For the majority it is about free stuff."





Most of the folks who share their opinions on that blog all patted themselves on their virtual backs for that brilliant insight into what causes unrest and violence in these particular neighborhoods:  Libtards, hilldabeast, free stuff, and parents who don't care!

There it is, my friends.  Your modern right winger's deep thoughts on America's racial problems. 


Jack Handey envies the shallow nincompoopery of it all.

Your Modern GOP

So, from the hysterical people who claim Mr. Obama and the Libruls are destroying the country, who know without a doubt that Mr. Obama and the Libruls are turning the country into a Fascist/Communist/Marxist/Socialist/Muslim dystopian nightmare, we present their idea of what a free, liberty-loving America should look like.

These people run the state of Kansas.   And we all know what happened to Kansas when it decided Sam Brownback and his ideas would deliver them to freedom and prosperity.

Here's one of those freedom-loving ideas, brought to you by your modern GOP:




Kansas could put teachers in prison for assigning books prosecutors don’t like




A bill approved by the Kansas Senate on Wednesday would enable prosecutors to bring charges against teachers and school administrators for assigning or distributing materials judged harmful to students, the Kansas City Star reports. 

The bill, proposed by conservative state Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook (R-Shawnee), deletes a provision in current state law that exempts schoolteachers and officials from such prosecutions. 

Senators passed the bill 26 to 14. After introducing the bill earlier this month, Pilcher-Cook told the Topeka Capital-Journal that she did so in response to a poster displayed at a Shawnee Mission middle school in 2013. The poster posed the question, “How do people express their sexual feelings?” and listed such examples as oral sex, kissing, intercourse, and talking. 

Media outlets pounced on the controversy after some parents complained, and though the poster was part of a broader sex education curriculum that emphasized abstinence, the school suspended use of the material. Pilcher-Cook and other supporters of her measure also say that it’s necessary to prevent the distribution of pornography in schools — a problem that has not hitherto arisen. 

The Star reports that earlier this week, state Rep. Joseph Scapa (R-Wichita) cited as pornographic a book by Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison.





I wasn't able to determine if this stupid piece of legislation became a law in Kansas.  I wouldn't be surprised if it did.  Because those fascist-hating, freedom loving people in Kansas know all about freedom--who should have it and who shouldn't.

Power Line Pundit, Hinderaker, Pwnd!

TPM Interview: Rightwing Blogger Explains How He Got Punked By Phony Harry Reid Rumor




John Hinderaker, the man behind the rightwing blog Power Line, woke up to a nasty surprise on Sunday morning. 

 In the pages of the Las Vegas Sun, a man named Larry Pfeifer announced that he had successfully duped a conservative blogger into running a story that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid's recent injuries to his eyes and face were the result of a dustup with his own family. 

 Hinderaker would have recognized Pfeifer's name; he had published Pfeifer's account on Power Line only a few weeks earlier. Initially sporting the alias "Easton Elliott," Pfeifer had approached Hinderaker claiming that he witnessed Reid's brother, Larry, talk about pummeling a family member while sharing at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. (Eventually, Pfeifer told Hinderaker his real name.) 

 Hinderaker published the story on Power Line on April 3. Before long, the fake story was blasted over the airwaves by Rush Limbaugh and picked up by Breitbart News and WND. (WND's headline: "Was Harry Reid really pummeled by a relative?") Hinderaker even brought “Easton Elliott” on as a guest when he filled in as host on Laura Ingraham's show on April 9.



Did any of these bloggers and pundits bother to check on the veracity of the story?  
Here's how the crazies on the right get their news.  They find some rumor on the internet from their crazy uncle's email, or someone who will feed them a rumor, and the suckers run with it.  Why bother to check if it's true or not when the story fits their Obama/Reid/Pelosi/Hillary-hating narrative?

They were had, and they deserve to be mocked to the moon and back. This is ample evidence of their total lack of interest in truth or checking for facts.  As long as the rumor slams a Democrat, it's true for them.

Brilliantly funny.

This performance seems to have hit a nerve with the cray-crays on the extreme right. Their panties are all in a bunch because the president said "Bucket!"  

Would Ronald Reagan have EVER said such a thing?  No.  He was a really nice guy who said the Civil Rights Act was an insult to the south.  Reagan would never have said "BUCKET!"  because he was such a righteous gentleman.

Also this:

"The Reagan administration invited senior South African security officials to the United States, violating a U.N. arms embargo, and the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have imposed economic sanctions on Pretoria. Reagan also had Mandela placed on the U.S. international terrorist list, where the anti-apartheid leader remained until 2008." 

See, Ronald Reagan was a gentleman who would never say "BUCKET!"

Sunday Science Blog

UPDATE BELOW

So you think you're smarter than an octopus?




Octopus dexterity is a thing of awe. One veterinarian saw an octopus undo its own surgical sutures. Divers off the Pacific Northwest Coast have seen male octopuses stand on undersea rocks in the cold salt water, stretching two arms out before them like antennae, apparently searching for that perfect female. Cephalopods – squid, octopus, cuttlefish and nautiluses – have been around for millions of years. The word "cephalopod" means "head-foot."

Some scientists believe that we humans separated from cephalopods, evolutionarily speaking, perhaps more than 700 million years ago. That’s hundreds of millions of years before the Cambrian Explosion, when so many life forms radiated throughout our planet’s oceans. Given that long divergence, we should be very different species. And we are. In some ways.

Cephalopods are invertebrates, animals without skeletons. They usually have eight arms, some have a couple tentacles too. These appendages attach not to the main body; instead, they encircle the animal’s mouth like some kind of living beard. Many cephalopods can change the color of their skin almost instantaneously. Some, like the fabulous cuttlefish, look like flashing neon lights. These guys are weird.

 And yet – they are a lot like us, in some very basic ways. For one thing, we both have similar brain cells. For almost 100 years, scientists have used the giant axon of a little squid, Loligo pealeii, to study how our own brains work.

In most animals, the neuron is the cell that’s the central processor of the world outside the body. The neuron has a main body and an axon, a long thin living tube that extends from the main body somewhat like a thread or a wire. Our own axons are gossamer-like, delicate and easily damaged. It’s difficult for researchers to work with them. But the little squid’s axons may be as thick as a pencil lead. They are visible to the naked eye and are easily handled.

By studying how the squid axon works, scientists have learned quite a bit about how ours function. They hope to apply some of what they’ve learned to finding cures for diseases like Alzheimer’s.



Disturbing Octopus Facts and Their Eventual Global Conquest






Planet of the Apes? 

It’s an OCTOPUS UPRISING we need to worry about: 

Intelligent eight-tentacled animals could evolve to become even smarter Octopuses are highly intelligent, more so than any other invertebrates 

They can be trained to distinguish between different shapes and patterns In some studies, they have been shown to practice observational learning 

Scientists says they may one day build structures other than simple shelters 





Deep Intellect



MEASURING THE MINDS OF OTHER creatures is a perplexing problem.

One yardstick scientists use is brain size, since humans have big brains. But size doesn’t always match smarts. As is well known in electronics, anything can be miniaturized. 

Small brain size was the evidence once used to argue that birds were stupid — before some birds were proven intelligent enough to compose music, invent dance steps, ask questions, and do math. Octopuses have the largest brains of any invertebrate. Athena’s is the size of a walnut — as big as the brain of the famous African gray parrot, Alex, who learned to use more than one hundred spoken words meaningfully. That’s proportionally bigger than the brains of most of the largest dinosaurs. Another measure of intelligence: you can count neurons. 

The common octopus has about 130 million of them in its brain. A human has 100 billion. But this is where things get weird. Three-fifths of an octopus’s neurons are not in the brain; they’re in its arms. “It is as if each arm has a mind of its own,” says Peter Godfrey-Smith, a diver, professor of philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and an admirer of octopuses. 

For example, researchers who cut off an octopus’s arm (which the octopus can regrow) discovered that not only does the arm crawl away on its own, but if the arm meets a food item, it seizes it — and tries to pass it to where the mouth would be if the arm were still connected to its body. “Meeting an octopus,” writes Godfrey-Smith, “is like meeting an intelligent alien.” 

Their intelligence sometimes even involves changing colors and shapes. One video online shows a mimic octopus alternately morphing into a flatfish, several sea snakes, and a lionfish by changing color, altering the texture of its skin, and shifting the position of its body. Another video shows an octopus materializing from a clump of algae. Its skin exactly matches the algae from which it seems to bloom — until it swims away.

UPDATE:

The GOBP: The Grand Old BENGHAZI! Party.

"We have to stop being the Stupid Party." -- Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal

Benghazi Coverup Allegations Rejected in Bipartisan House Probe


(Bloomberg) --" A two-year investigation by Republican and Democratic members of the House intelligence committee rejects allegations that the Obama administration intentionally misled the public about the deadly attacks on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya.

 Repudiating what it called “the swirl of rumors and unsupported allegations” over the Benghazi assault, the lawmakers said in a report released yesterday that there was never a “stand-down” order blocking rescue efforts and that White House officials weren’t to blame for an inaccurate initial account of the events on Sept. 11, 2012.

 The committee’s report doesn’t name former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, a prospective Democratic presidential candidate in 2016."



GOP panel on Benghazi finds no Obama administration wrongdoing



Seventh GOP Benghazi Investigation Finds No Criminality Or Malfeasance – Eighth Inquiry Is Underway