Today's edition of quick hits:
* Counter-terrorism: "Yemen has confirmed that a top member of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula was killed in a weekend airstrike that U.S. officials say was conducted by the CIA, another sign that the U.S. drone campaign in Yemen is gaining momentum."
* Mad cow: "The U.S. Agriculture Department confirmed on Tuesday that it detected a case of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the nation's fourth, in a dairy cow in central California."
* A former BP drilling engineer was arrested today "on charges of intentionally destroying text messages sought by federal authorities as evidence in the wake of the April 20, 2010, Deepwater Horizon oil spill disaster."
* Murdoch media scandal takes a dramatic turn: "The long-running tabloid newspaper scandal that has shaken Rupert Murdoch's global media empire appeared on Tuesday to have reached into the heart of Prime Minister David Cameron's government."
* Good move: "The Senate on Tuesday voted down a Republican-backed motion meant to block a National Labor Relations Board rule that speeds up union elections."
* Perhaps Rush Limbaugh should stop talking about Sandra Fluke.
* Are President Obama's executive orders as problematic as George W. Bush's? Not really.
* It's not SOPA, but the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) is causing a stir and it's poised for House passage this week.
* With postal "reform" efforts still pending on Capitol Hill, Matt Taibbi takes a look at the anti-union politics driving the initiative.
* Planetary Resources, Inc: "A newly unveiled company with some high-profile backers -- including filmmaker James Cameron and Google co-founder Larry Page -- is set to announce plans to mine near-Earth asteroids for resources such as precious metals and water."
* And President Obama took his message on student loans to North Carolina today, and appeared quite fired up.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
Leave a Comment:
Since he has been to the very bottom of the Pacific and to Titanic more than any other person I suppose I should not be at all surprised Jim Cameron is into Asteroid Mining.
But since it is Jim Cameron I have to wonder what manner of movie he sees in this because I am certain he does. :)
Doctor No and the space pirates meet Aliens from planet z?
Doctor Who gets stranded on a mining station and...been done.
How about Dr Who running up and down identical corridors in a quarry in a base under siege?
BP drilling engineer's lawyer says prosecution is being tough on him so he will rat out others! Duh. Since when does the prosecution not want the big cheese unless it is congress.?
Hi Steve, trying to get your attention to this on Mitt Math (the 92%): http://therepublicon.blogspot.com/2012/04/mitt-math-and-truth-on-womens.html Three pieces of news in it. One, a better analysis of the deception—the problem isn't just start point. Two, women did better under Obama than Bush. Three, 'churning' has been higher under Obama—more going into and out of unemployment, accounting for a nervous public.
The post office is where I send out my items from time to time. You know Christmas, birthdays, memorial photo/movie DVDs. I have a P.O. Box because the vandals seem to think they are entitled to get into the boxes on the street, where my stuff was sent. I get prescriptions through the mail, via trusted P.O. folks. I know a person that recently retired from the P.O. They are not living lavishly. I do not want to lose the post office!!! If the real problem is pensions, let's talk about that. I see this as very regressive political tactic that would cause a great deal of hardship, come on people, stop trying to union bust and reduce peoples' wages and making people pay some private company more so the top execs get their h u g e bonuses and salaries.
If you want to do something about government spending, then how about adjusting things in the fleets of vehicles, maybe we do not need new vehicles if one can be fixed, office equipment, wages of the top paid folks could be reviewed? We need revenue, we need jobs and good economy. Raise taxes on people that currently pay less taxes than a wage earner… raise cap on FICA, stock trade federal fees, charge banks that foreclose after taking bailout, stop subsidizing some of the private corporations that don't need it, cut out raids on legal pot stores, stop jailing lower "crimes" and home arrest some of these people, stop outsourcing prisons, capital gains for dividends... stuff like that?
The post office has been a non-government entity for a long time. The republicans have however been quick to OVERregulate them in order to kill off them and their union. Does anyone believe UPS would deliver door to door cheaper? They would not only either triple the price or end door to door service while being exempt from paying retirement and good health care.
It all boild down to a pure anti-union move.
Did you know that some stuff shipped by UPS actually is shipped through the Post Office? Really. For example, if you have a big enough order from Amazon to use the free shipping option, the galley slaves box it up for UPS who then hands it over to the Post Office which delivers the package to the UPS facility nearest to you for delivery.
And the moral of the story is that UPS controls costs by using the Post Office.
I didn't know about UPS doing that and I guess I sort of knew USPS was a federal entity with civilian employees. I see there is a surplus in pension fund and employer contributions are suspended http://www.fea-gea-iea.org/
I feel the USPS is very efficient and dependable, they are my choice. The lady even drives down my driveway if there is something too large to fit in the mailbox where I sometimes get deliveries instead of my P O Box, which costs only 75 or so bucks a year. They also do lots of charitable community work.
@sandyc954,
There are some places where UPS just does not go.
Most are small towns located far from population centers. Good way to describe most of Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado.
Those places are more expensive for delivery, so UPS exploits unprofitable USPS routes to maximize profit.
Great article in the current issue of The New York Review of Books by Richard Dworkin on the ACA mandate is Constitutional
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/may/10/why-mandate-constitutional-real-argument/
He's looking at the law. Unfortunately, we have four SC justices who aren't the least bit interested in the actual legal aspects. They're concerned more about what the Republican Party wants.
Can you say Conservitve activist judges? Uh huh Good! I knew you could!
Maybe mad cow explains the current GOP and its flock of idiots!
I was on my own cosmic expedition just now. I was thinking about how the science was wrong, space is not only still expanding but actually accelerating. Well this got me to thinking(a very dangerous thing to do), We call the beginning the big bang. Light travels faster than sound though so should it not be the big flash...bang? Of course for light to exist there must be a place and a time in which it exists so therefore space exceeds the speed of light in spreading out the place in time for light to appear. Light exists and unless it hits a wall it spreads or radiates onward. Light will of course dissipate but then again it does so relative to its confines. This was the reasoning behind Reagan's flashlights in space program, lasers fired within an atmosphere would be absorbed and blocked by that atmosphere thus requiring very very powerful and highly focused beams. Of course even in space the power required makes the whole thing somewhat of a joke(nope no shadow so they couldn't be using solar power, fusion?gee and yet they kept it from GE while watching the nuclear waste pile up?)
Well anyway as long as light exists there must be time and space and since the big flash bang would have created light that sped out faster that anything that could stop it and since space must expand faster than that light in order to give it a where and time must go along to give it a when...
Aw shucks I think somebody just flipped the switch to off. Turn out the lights the party is over(pop the balloon)
Paul I thought you may be interested in an article I just read on Integral Fast Reactors (IFR) project Q&A. Found it hopeful
@Paul S. Campbell,
There is a second explanation for the expansion of the universe.
Assume there is a megaverse larger than our universe.
Now assume mass-density in a limited region of the megaverse exceeds the mass required to form a super massive black hole. This creates a region within the megaverse where light cannot reach other areas.
Our universe could occupy this "black hole" region within the megaverse.
Now assume a spacecraft with a very powerful engine outside the swarthschild radius of the universe (outside the super massive black hole we might occupy).
The spacecraft "experiences" a larger swarthschild radius when accelerating toward the black hole because it reaches the speed of light further away. The spacecraft "experiences" a smaller swarthschild radius when accelerating away from the black hole because it reaches the speed of light closer.
Radial acceleration corresponds with apparent size and position of a black hole. That means that the volume of the universe is not fixed.
The "moment of creation" would be the moment when the localized mass density within the megaverse exceeded the amount required to form a black hole within the region occupied by our universe (formation).
The expansion or contraction of the universe would be the propagation of the event horizon.
It is impossible to tell the difference between this model of our universe and the conventional "big bang" model that has been made so popular in the press.
@nomoremagicalthinking,
The IFR sounds cool.
One of the difficulties is that the confinement vessel for a similar kind of reactor burst open and released high-level radiation near Los Angeles.
That has contaminated the water table in my county.
Technology is not yet available to remove this contamination from ground water or to prevent this kind of failure.
This kind of reactor requires a new kind of electric motor. It would need to be large and sealed inside the reactor similar to how a refrigerator motor is constructed.
Liquid sodium is one of the most volatile materials, and any oxygen or hydrogen contamination inside the reactor vessel can cause this kind of failure. The insulation commonly used in electric motors contains hydrogen and oxygen.
pink slime, check; mad cow disease, check; cattle futures drop, check; beef prices in the store remain unchanged.........does not check!!!!!!!!!
Beef wrapped tight then gased in order to look still fresh check.
Thank goodness the right is trying to get rid of the FDA and USDA etc., wouldn't want them to get funded well enough to do even better at finding tainted meat.
wHY ARE YOU wasting our time listening to Mitt Romney, he is going to change his story multiple times in the days ahead. And just lookat at his audience of pathetic ppls. We need truth to be spoken. FOX will give the man plenty of air time. We need more facts about Obama etc.. to counter these fools.
$240,000,000 and still for sale. I felt independent just having a job. GWB tried to create his own legacy, little fame, lots of infamy. Mitt what is truly going through your mind?
I'm sure that Republicans have been working very hard to convince everyone that all the voters are concerned about is jobs and the economy. They have fought every inch of the way to see to it that the economy did not recover, to see to it that the unemployment rate remained high throughout this presidents term of office. It would be so much easier for them if the voters were so concerned with the economy and with having a stable job that it would distract them from everything else that the right wing politicians have been doing to ruin this nation, and to secure for themselves a place in the ruling oligarchy which they are trying to replace our democracy with.
It won't work. Most people aren't that short sighted. Most of us know that there are other things to be concerned with and that the Republicans are on the wrong side of nearly every one of those issues. Moreover, most of us understand that the policies of the Republican party and their Corporate backers are precisely the reason our economy is in so much trouble in the first place. We aren't fooled.
The time of the Republican party is over.. it has been over for a while now, actually - largely thanks to the new global society created by the near instantaneous communication we information sharing network provided by the internet (Thank you, Al Gore!), but they have held onto power through money and gamesmanship - lying, cheating and buying their way into political power to maintain their tenuous grip. Now that they know they can't hold onto their power in a democracy any longer, they are trying to quietly do away with it and consolidate their power as fast as possible. They figure that if they can just squeeze us hard enough, we'll all cry 'uncle' and let them continue to rule the populace and maintain their idea of the status quo.
That all ends this year. With this next election. I just hope that the extreme right can be taught to think critically quickly enough after the elections to avoid the rash of home-grown terrorism that threatens to plague us when they realize just how hopelessly outnumbered they are, in their backward ideology.
Virginia Foxx, Phd., U.S. Congress person, college president, educator, is not seeking reelection. Thank god. A real dinosaur. Has not proposed any significant legislation while in Washington! Her recent comments re students who take out student loans is indicative of who represents us.
Love how you have Richard Clarke on to promote CISPA but never mention it by name. FAIL!