Today's edition of quick hits:
* Crisis in Algeria: "Three Americans were among dozens of foreign nationals kidnapped by heavily armed militants who attacked a gas field in Algeria on Wednesday, U.S. officials said. A militant group claimed the raid was launched in retaliation for France's military intervention in neighboring Mali, Reuters reporting, citing media reports in the region."
* Mali: "French soldiers encircled a desert village in central Mali on Wednesday, a Malian Army colonel said, in the first direct operations involving Western troops since France began its military campaign here last week to help wrest this nation back from a militant advance."
* Another cabinet departure: "Ken Salazar, the blunt-spoken lawyer and rancher who took over the scandal-ridden Interior Department at the outset of the Obama administration, said Wednesday that he would step down in March to return to his home in Colorado."
* More good economic news: "U.S. factory production rose in December for the second straight month, buoyed by more output of autos, electronics and business equipment."
* As filibuster reform continues to face long odds, Newsbound's overview of the filibuster, its history, and its application is exceptionally good and highly recommended.
* Ready to move: "Representative Luis Gutierrez and five other members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus met with White House officials Tuesday in the Roosevelt Room to discuss the administration's plan to move forward on comprehensive immigration reform."
* Already slipping into irrelevance: "Former Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) announced Tuesday that he will begin hosting an Internet television program for conservative website PJ Media."
* Are President Obama's executive actions on gun policy legally problematic? Reagan's solicitor general really doesn't think so.
* I occasionally forget just how odd Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's political beliefs really are.
* And in an apparent bid to curtail frivolous questions, the White House has quadrupled the number of signatures required to receive an official response to a petition on its "We the People" website. That will cut down on entertaining interactions, but it's probably for the best.
Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
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This whole thing with guns is ridiculous, especially when it comes to video games. True video games can cause children to be less sensitive to death, but at the same time it is also our own military that is for these violent video games. Why do you think we have these military type games, when it is the very military itself that promotes the game. We want to deal with guns on the street, but it is still the load of crap in part of what our military wants. So who is being in denial here. Especially when we keep pushing for a strong military that rules over the world under some disguise of bull crap for some rich bastards. You don’t see the military saying to its troops or kids oh don’t play these games, the military outright encourages it. One way it is right to get these really deadly guns off the streets, but at the same time these politicians and news media is being hypocritical of the other side of it with the military. So if you think again you can question a military is an overall good thing, then you must admit we are not really an intelligent species, except too much just like a bunch of apes. Because there is just the same dough heads in other countries with that same mentality of stupidity and will fight at any chance they can get. You have the same worthless scum in other countries too, thinking up their stupid crap just to get people fighting again. And for what because of some rich bastards that keep making huge profits off the very lives of everybody else and than make an excuse well it employs people. How sick and screwed up can we get? There is no way you can justify the stupidity of our species, it is just too evident. Since when you think you can justify the things we as a species do, you just keep covering up the facts for all of us in having a better world.
Some say the value of a human life is immeasurable. You just can not put a price tag on it. However, through out mans history, humans have done exactly that impossible thing. The devaluation of human life is absolutely necessary in order to except slavery, or hold back Sandy Storm Relief money, or screw you over in order to make an extra buck, or pull a trigger to take another s life.
Isn't that the truth of it pondering2. Too much being double standard.
The White House iincreased the requirement for petition signatures from 25,000 to 100,000 to cut down on petitions. Apparently they didn't want to waste time on Death Star and Starship Enterprise petitions. That is too bad. I thought the Death Star response was one of the best things I have seen in a while.
Nature reported a surprise finding today- that soot represents 2/3 of the greenhouse gas contribution as Carbon dioxide, making it the 2nd largest contributor to climate change.
The good news about this is that soot reduction is a fairly inexpensive and easy to implement technology. TRMS could pull that Bejing satellite picture again- a lot of that crap is soot, and the thing is it can be reduced without much cost. Compared to the cost of flooding of Chinese floodplains near the coast, this is a no brainer for the Chinese leadership who take the long view of economic costs and benefits.
(article)
John -- Have read the Nature article and spent decades doing remote sensing of "soot." How I wish it were as easy as you suggest!
Soot is an imprecise term covering a large family of mostly carbon-rich particles with sizes that range over several orders of magnitude. "Soot" is produced in diesel engines, forest fires, coal burning, et al. -- so every soot assembly has its own characteristic demographics and chemistry and is spread (or not) by local and regional wind patterns, depending on altitude, which in turn depends on ....
In other words: as tough as CO2 is to reduce or mediate worldwide, soot poses at least as many problems -- scientific, technological, socio-economic, and political.
One plus that may be a minus: as ugly as those satellite images of Beijing are, the soot we can't see is often the most dangerous. Remind you of another invisible greenhouse gas?
(P.S. And I'm on your side.)
Oh. I thought that the technology for low particulate matter wood, diesel and coal burning was fairly low hanging fruit compared to carbon capture and sequestration.
As a policy matter, it seems to me that the carbon tariff idea is a good way to use market forces to fight climate change. This is the concept that the long term cost of the green house gas contribution of a product should be factored into imported goods, and tariffs added on that basis.
Because a lot of that soot hanging over China is pollution exported from the US.
As I was saying JohnMesserly, Reagan and Bush have never done anything for us, except create a mess in the world without any proper regulation. When those dumb bozos looked to let rich bastards destroy our companies, steal money, and jobs here so they could have slave labor in other countries at the very cost of everybody else. And you want to call Reagan and Daddy Bush as something good give us all a break. All they did was garbage in and garbage out as they sold out the people in the world. Your first clue was when Reagan took the solar hot water panels off the roof of the White House in just favor of Big oil and coal. Now how long do you think it will take for China to change their policies of slash and burn. China has been the major buyers of coal fired power plants with no end in sight. This whole thing has been about some really dumb and corrupt Politicians and rich bastards.
Considering the 401K was designed to get rid of people's pensions. Yea, I still do have a problem with 401K's. By getting rid of company pensions your wages go down, because now in reality these companies pay much less to what they would normally pay you in a pension. You put the major portion of money through your actual paycheck as the company contributes much less to a 401K. Thus the company just reduced your wages and benefits. It just proves Reagan and Bush were worthless as ever with a 401K. And in the meantime, allowing equity companies to steal people's pension as a result of that thinking of Reagan and Bush.
This probably won't make waves among Americans, but a British Evangelical has come out in support of, well, not exactly full equality. He tip-toes right up to the edge but hasn't quite worked up the nerve to jump in. Still, he goes much further than his American counterparts. That's something. It's tempting to whack the guy for not completing the journey he's obviously on, but I suppose it's more constructive to accept how far he's come and hope he continues on his current trajectory and lands where he should.
I think you are too kind. It is rare for evangelicals to make inerrancy a test for fellowship. But there is a selectivity in application of this latitude that is difficult to ignore. Respected figures in evangelical churches can be allowed great interpretive leeway with accounts of Jonah and the whale or Noah and the flood, but not with anything having to do with sexual mores, gender roles, or political themes favored by the far Right.
As a devout Christian, I consider these positions opposing LGBT and women's rights as necessarily absurd for anyone who takes Christ's teaching to heart. Intolerance is profoundly un Christian.
I wonder if you got through all of the text. The penultimate paragraph's first sentence reads "Tolerance is not the same as Christ-like love. Christ-like love calls us to go beyond tolerance to want for the other the same respect, freedom, and equality one wants for oneself." That doesn't sound like an intolerant, far-right religious figure. And the author does a far better job of moving in the right direction than the author of this ham-fisted 'apology' (who despite meaning well, at least in his own eyes, he nevertheless fails to recognize that gay people really exist and thus undoes whatever good he hoped to accomplish).
There are clergy who get it right, there are clergy who get it somewhat right, and there are clergy who get it very wrong. The first should be celebrated, the second should be recognized and encouraged, and only the last should be condemned.
RE: John Mackey. Why would you want to alienate what is likely the overwhelming majority of your customers? No amount of advertising can overcome that. Whole Foods must be doing really, really well.
Pecunia non olet (money doesn't smell/stink), Emperor Vespasian is supposed to have said when criticised for taxing the toilets at the Forum. Apparently, he's not the only one with that belief:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/dennis-kucinich-joining-fox-news-as-paid-contributor
In our circle, Whole Foods is called Whole Paycheck. Overpriced, overpriced, overpriced. Better prices on excellent produce and meat at Sprouts; better prices on packaged foods at Trader Joe's, even better prices on excellect produce at our two local Super Mercados catering to Hispanics, East Indians, Arabs, etc. So I don't give a rat's patootie what John Mackey thinks or says.
I do care greatly that Mackey doesn't use his misrepresented view of various types of governments to deny his employees health care coverage. That being said, most of the generation of young, wealthy, entrepreneurial or corporate "libertarians" find any rule they did not invent themselves to be oppressive. They are better defined as elitist, oligarchic anarchists.
Whenever I see the term "comprehensive" regarding legislation I know that nothing will get done or what ever is passed will be nowhere near comprehensive. I do not know why they (congress) even use the term.
Wow, major lack of precision in political ideology. Fascism is characterized by the blending of corporate and political leadership, as under the Bush administration, where oil men and women were given the most prominent appointive positions, where they made government policy to benefit the corporations. Corporations writing the law is part of what Fascists do.
Libertarianism leads to Fascism if imposed suddenly while retaining the status quo. The rich start out ahead and get further ahead, until they control the government and everything else. The middle class and poor? Guess.
I just read in Bowling Alone that joining one club has as much health benefit as does quitting cigarettes.
Still no Aaron Swartz and now bipartisan support for Aaron's Law.
Rachel, Can we get more information on the gun buy back jewelry that was a part of your interview with Cory Booker the mayor of Newark, NJ? I think that is an incredible program. Living in a Super Bright Red state I won't be able to support a local program like that. I would really like to contribute to the decrease of guns available and if Newark wants to have all the money they could ever want to buy back guns, count me in.
filibuster link
WHY WHY WHY??? I am hoping they will tweak it with some rules instead of just leaving THAT , because we will have the same do nothing senate if dems allow this rule to continue , gaining 3 seats will have gotten us JACK
if they let this ride AS IS, they will open the senate for business , and in 1/2 an hour, they will be back in their offices napping for the next 2 years , by by democracy
I am just over joyed and motivated to vote for the same worthless results since 2010 , and have them happen for the next 2 years once again , give us a freakin break dems
it would be nice if the maddow blog would cover this more in detail also