How can I be stupider? What news media should I plug into to know less?

Click on Fox News Channel to know less.

Fairleigh Dickinson University is New Jersey's largest private institution [of higher education] with 12,000+ students. The institution has two main campuses located in New Jersey: the College at Florham in Madison ... and the Metropolitan Campus located close to New York City ...

The following is a university press release describing the results of a political science poll conducted by FDU.

==========

Monday 21 November 2011

==========

According to the latest results from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind Poll, some news sources make us less likely to know what’s going on in the world. In the most recent study, the poll asked New Jerseyans about current events at home and abroad, and from what sources -- if any -- they get their information. The conclusion:

Sunday morning news shows do the most to help people learn about current events, while some outlets, especially Fox News, lead people to be even less informed than those who say they don’t watch any news at all.

Among other topics, New Jerseyans were asked about the outcome of the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East this past year. While 53% of New Jerseyans know that Egyptians were successful in overthrowing the government of Hosni Mubarak, 21% say that the uprisings were unsuccessful, and 26% admit they don’t know.

Also, 48% know that the Syrian uprising has thus far been unsuccessful, while 36% say they don’t know, and 16% say the Syrians have already toppled their government.

But the real finding is that the results depend on what media sources people turn to for their news. For example, people who watch Fox News, the most popular of the 24-hour
cable news networks, are 18-points less likely to know that Egyptians overthrew their government than those who watch no news at all (after controlling for other news
sources, partisanship, education and other demographic factors). Fox News watchers are also 6-points less likely to know that Syrians have not yet overthrown their government than those who watch no news.

"Because of the controls for partisanship, we know these results are not just driven by
Republicans or other groups being more likely to watch Fox News," said Dan Cassino, a
professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson and an analyst for the PublicMind
Poll. "Rather, the results show us that there is something about watching Fox News that
leads people to do worse on these questions than those who don’t watch any news at
all."

By contrast, some media sources have a positive effect on political knowledge. For example, people who report reading a national newspaper like The New York Times or USA Today are 12-points more likely to know that Egyptians have overthrown their government than those who have not looked at any news source. And those who listen to the non-profit NPR radio network are 11-points more likely to know the outcome of the revolt against Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. 

However, the best informed respondents are those that watched Sunday morning news programs: leading to a 16-point increase in the likelihood of knowing what happened in Egypt and an 8-point increase in the likelihood of knowing what happened in Syria.

"Sunday morning news shows tend to spend a lot more time on a single issue than other
news broadcasts, and they are less likely to degenerate into people shouting at each
other," said Cassino. "Viewers pick up more information from this sort of calm discussion
than from other formats. Unfortunately, these shows have a much smaller audience than
the shouters."

New Jerseyans are not necessarily more likely to be knowledgeable about domestic politics than international events. Just 47% are able to identify the Occupy Wall Street protesters as predominantly Democratic: 11 % think they are Republicans. Viewers of cable news on MSNBC are the most likely to think the protestors are Republicans.

Watching the left-leaning MSNBC news channel is associated with a 10-point increase in the likelihood of misidentifying the protesters.

Exposure to Sunday morning news shows helps respondents on this question: seeing these programs leads to an 11-point increase in the likelihood of getting the answer right. Listening to NPR also helps, but the biggest aid to answering correctly is The Daily Show with Jon Stewart [broadcast by the Comedy Central cable network], which leads to a 6-point decrease in identifying the protestors as Republicans, and a 12-point increase in the likelihood of giving the correct answer.

"Jon Stewart has not spent a lot of time on some of these issues," said Cassino. "But the results show that when he does talk about something, his viewers pick up a lot more information than they would from other news sources."

Only 55% of New Jerseyans are able to name correctly either Mitt Romney or Herman Cain as the Republican candidates most recently leading in the polls, with 37 % saying that Romney is ahead, and 18% saying that Cain is. Watching Fox News didn't help or hurt respondents on this question. MSNBC, however, helped: Watching MSNBC was associated with a 10-point increase in identifying Romney as the leader, and a 5-point
drop in the likelihood of identifying Cain compared to those who got no exposure to
news at all.

"Given the amount of time and effort the media spent covering these candidates, the fact that only about half of the public can name one of the front-runners is embarrassing," said Cassino. "The fact that Fox News, the preferred media outlet for many of the candidates, doesn't do better in informing viewers is very surprising."


Those who listen to talk radio are the most likely to answer the question correctly. People who tune in to that generally conservative format are 17-points more likely to say that Herman Cain is at the top, and 15-points more likely to be able to name either of the leaders.

"The amount of time spent on an issue, and the depth to which it's discussed, makes a difference," said Cassino. "Whatever its flaws may be, talk radio has spent a lot of time
talking about the nomination, and the basic facts seem to have gotten through."
 
The Fairleigh Dickinson University poll of 612 adults statewide was underwritten by WFDU-FM Radio and conducted by telephone using both landlines and cell phones from Oct. 17 through Oct. 23, 2011, and has a margin of error of +/-3.5 percentage points.

==========

For more details of the Fairleigh Dickinson poll:

http://publicmind.fdu.edu/2011/knowless/

30 years later, top Khmer Rouge leaders stand trial for genocide

The Associated Press
(USA newswire)
Sunday 20 November 2011

Top Khmer Rouge leaders'
trial opens in Cambodia
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia -- Three top Khmer Rouge leaders accused of orchestrating Cambodia's "killing fields" went on trial Monday before a U.N.-backed tribunal more than 30 years after some of the 20th century's worst atrocities.

Judge Nil Nonn declared the trial open Monday and read the names of the three senior Khmer Rouge leaders who are defendants in the tribunal in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh.

The charges against the surviving inner circle of the communist movement -- all now in their 80s -- include crimes against humanity, genocide, religious persecution, homicide and torture stemming from their 1975-79 reign of terror.

An estimated 1,700,000 people died of execution, starvation, exhaustion or lack of medical care as a result of the Khmer Rouge's radical policies, which essentially turned all of Cambodia into a forced labor camp as the movement attempted to create a pure agrarian socialist society. Intellectuals, entrepreneurs and anyone considered [opposed to the Khmer Rouge order] were imprisoned, tortured and often executed.

On Sunday, relatives of the victims wept as they chanted and burned incense near a glass case filled with skulls at Choeung Ek Genocide Center, a memorial built in a Phnom Penh field where the Khmer Rouge staged mass executions.

"I want to remind the victims and ask them to push this trial to find justice for those who were killed by the Khmer Rouges regime," 80-year-old Chum Mey, one of the only two survivors from the notorious S-21 prison, said at Sunday's ceremony.

Tribunal spokesman Huy Vannak called the proceedings beginning Monday "the most important trial in the world" because of the seniority of those involved.

"It sends a message that the trial, which survivors have been waiting more than three decades for, finally begins," he said.

The defendants, who sat side by side with their lawyers, are 85-year-old Nuon Chea, the Khmer Rouge's chief ideologist and the No. 2 leader behind the late Pol Pot; 80-year-old Khieu Samphan, an ex-head of state; and 86-year-old Ieng Sary, the former foreign minister.

A fourth defendant, 79-year-old Ieng Thirith, was ruled unfit to stand trial last week because she has Alzheimer's disease. She is Ieng Sary's wife and served as the regime's minister for social affairs.

The regime's supreme leader, Pol Pot, died in 1998 in Cambodia's jungles while a prisoner of his own comrades, who after being toppled from power fought a guerrilla war that did not fully end in the late 1990s.

The U.N.-backed tribunal, which was established in 2006, has tried just one case, convicting Kaing Guek Eav, the former head of the regime's notorious S-21 prison, last July and sentencing him to 35 years in prison for war crimes, crimes against humanity and other offenses.

That case was seen as much simpler than the current case, which covers a much broader range of activities and because Kaing Guek Eav confessed to his crimes. Those going on trial Monday have steadfastly maintained their innocence. The prison chief was also far lower in the regime's leadership ranks than the current defendants.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

- 30 -

PizzaQ! Gauche au droit, Who the heck are these Holy Guys? (Because -- blow me down! -- they're NOT The Apostles!)

Click on Cathedral-Basilica to enlarge.

Like a bolt from the blue, a few weeks ago I got an e-mail from the University of Toronto Press asking permission to use the above photo in an upcoming high-class coffee-table book (and its e-book avatar), which will be published (Good Lord willin' and the crik don't rise) this coming Spring entitled "Religions of Canadians."

In 2008 I trekked to Montreal on a train, stayed a night or two in the hotel above the big train station, and then hopped the 23-hour train to Halifax.

By total accident, this was the view out my hotel room window.

It's a Roman Catholic Cathedral, so those guys on the roof are The Apostles, right?

Who the heck else could they be? The Toronto Bluejays? The Rockettes dancing an Easter pageant? Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs?

I never gave it a second thought.

Until today.

I had suggested that the editor also identify and credit the sculptor, and she did.

Well, blow me down and knock me over with a feather! They're NOT The Apostles!

* * *

Hiya A***** --

Your identification of the sculptor led me to surf

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph-Olindo_Gratton

and discover that the statues are NOT the Apostles, but are

À la cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde (Montréal)

    Saint Antoine de Padoue et l'Enfant-Jésus (1898)
    Saint Vincent de Paul et un enfant trouvé (1893)
    Saint Hyacinthe tenant une statuette de la Vierge (1899)
    Saint Thomas d'Aquin (1900)
    Saint Paul (1898)
    Saint Jean l'Évangéliste (1893)
    Saint Jacques-le-Majeur (1892)
    Saint Joseph et l'Enfant-Jésus (1899)
    Saint Jean Baptiste (1899)
    Saint Patrice (1899)
    Saint Ignace d'Antioche (1893)
    Saint Charles Borromée (1899)
    Saint François d'Assise (1898)

(I found no indication of left-right order, of who is which.)

This headache at the altar of accuracy now belongs to you and T******* F**. In my defense, I was just a camera-toting tourist passing through, and woefully ignorant of hagiography to boot.

Bob

* * *

Which brings us to today's PizzaQ -- 13 slices of French-bread Pizza.

Using your (hopefully superior) knowledge of the Christian and Roman Catholic Saints, can you identify these statues correctly, from left to right? (Gauche au droit, I guess.)

DO NOT TELEPHONE 

OR E-MAIL THE CATHEDRAL. 

That's cheating, and it's very possible they won't know for sure. The most recent statue went up in 1900, and 111 years is a lot of time to forget which saint is which. 

They probably won't let you ask the Archbishop directly. And if they let you, he will probably insist you chat en francaise/Quebecois.

So this PizzaQ is really a test of how expert you are at Christian hagiography. For those who didn't snore or read Green Lantern comic books through Sunday School or Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, there should be lots of little clues in the statues to identify each one. That's always been the deal with Christian art -- it's filled with signs and symbols and tipoffs to know who's who.

I already screwed up this Holy Rooftop Lineup ignorantly and badly, so surely there exists a spiritually educated reader who can do better than I did. 

And 13 slices of French Bread Pizza is not chopped liver!

2 postage stamps commemorate Veterans Day 2011 / Vleeptron's Random Thoughts on Veterans Day

Click postage stamps to enlarge.

Thank you for serving.

Bring back the draft immediately.

Share the risk. If the sons of the decision-making elite are subject to a no-loopholes draft, presidents and Congress will not be so War Whacky and Jingo Silly.

Stop playing War Poker with Other Peoples' Chips.

If these wars are so fucking vital to national security, why aren't we selling War Bonds or Victory Bonds so civilians can show how much they support the wars?

Explain how the US military will succeed where the Soviet military failed in Afghanistan.

THE THANKS OF A GRATEFUL NATION: Why is unemployment for US military veterans so astonishingly worse than the national unemployment rate?

*******************

Once in khaki suits

Gee we looked swell

Full of that Yankee Doodly Dum

Half a million boots went slogging through hell

I was the kid with the drum

Hey, don't you remember? 

They called me Al

It was Al all the time

Hey, don't you remember?

I'm your pal

Brother, can you spare a dime?

How Pennsylvania State University can fix the child sex assault scandal associated with Penn State's wonderful football program

Somewhat to my astonishment, throughout the Penn State football child-sex-assault scandal which has filled USA newspapers and television, no one has whispered one word about the obvious solution and resolution.

A state university whose top officials tolerate and cover up a pedophile's dozen years of sexually assaulting 10-year-old boys in the football locker room showers should stop playing football. Forever. 

Or maybe for the next four years. (A temporary ban on college football is called "the death penalty" in college football circles.) 

Just enough time so that every student who chose to attend Penn State for its fantastic football program will have graduated and moved on -- to more foot-shooting clueless brain-dead stupidity, or perhaps to a slightly wiser life that actually involves academic achievement -- which (I was always told) was The Mission and Sole Purpose of an accredited university.

Not football. Football is not why we have colleges and universities. Particularly taxpayer-paid public colleges and universities.

(Please Leave A Comment if you disagree, and tell Vleeptron about your college's amazing athletic programs. Rah Rah Sis Boom Bah.)

College football's winningest coach Joe Paterno announced today that he's retiring at the end of this season (Penn State has about 4 more games to play). 

Paterno, 84, apparently Did The Right Thing (slightly) when, many years ago, he passed on a complaint he'd received that assistant defensive coach Jerry Sandusky had sexually assaulted a 10-year-old boy in the football shower room to higher university officials. 

But he never followed up to see what the university did about an eye-witness account of his assistant coach sexually abusing a 10-year-old boy in the football shower.

(The university, including the university police department, did absolutely nothing. The two university officials actually lied to a state grand jury and denied knowing anything about the incident. They, and Sandusky, have been arrested this week.)

So here's my solution:

Penn State should stop playing football. Immediately. Forfeit the last games of the season. Get out of the College Football Business.

(And it's big business, worth millions and millions of dollars annually through television broadcast contracts).

Well, as my coaches always told us:

Team Sports 

Builds Character.

And, as it turns out, sexually assaulting 10 year old boys in the locker room shower is a component of Character.

PizzaQ! What's it say?

Give Vleeptron a reasonable English gist of this text and uhhh you win 6 slices with pesto sauce and avacado and shitake mushrooms.

 ==============

 

"הדיון על תקיפה מחזק את אירן"

רגע לפני פרסום הדוח החדש של הסוכנות הבינלאומית לאנרגיה אטומית, הצפוי לקבוע רשמית כי אירן מנסה לפתח נשק גרעיני, מנסה שר החוץ הגרמני לקרר את הרוחות. "אני מזהיר מפני הצפת הרעיון של אופציות צבאיות", אמר השר גידו וסטרוולה בראיון לעיתון מקומי, "יש דיונים.. שמחזקים את המנהיגות האירנית במקום להחליש אותה"

סוכנויות הידיעות | חדשות 2 | פורסם 07/11/11 22:58

אחמדינג'אד וחמנאי. מחוזקים?

צילום׃  AP

דיון ציבורי אודות תקיפה באירן הוא מסוכן והוא מחזק את המשטר בטהרן יותר מאשר מחליש אותו – כך מזהיר היום שר החוץ הגרמני בראיון לעיתון מקומי.

בעוד הדיון בשאלת התקיפה באירן נמשך ברחבי העולם, לקראת פרסום הדוח החדש של הסוכנות הבינלאומית לאנרגיה אטומית שצפוי לקבוע כי נמצאו הוכחות לתכנין גרעין לשימוש צבאי, מגיעה התבטאות רשמית בנושא דווקא מבעלת בריתה הקרובה של ישראל באירופה.

שר החוץ הגרמני. מקרר את הרוחות

צילום׃  רויטרס

"אני מזהיר מפני הצפת הרעיון של אופציות צבאיות", אמר השר גידו וסטרוולה בראיון לעיתון "המבורגר אבנבלאט". "יש דיונים.. שמחזקים את המנהיגות האירנית במקום להחליש אותה".

עם זאת, שר החוץ הגרמני הדגיש כי אם אירן לא תשתף פעולה, "הקהילה הבינלאומית לא תחזור ל'עסקים כרגיל'. לאירן יש את הזכות להשתמש באנרגיה גרעינית למטרות אזרחיות, אך גם את החובה שלא לעשות זאת לצרכים צבאיים". בכיר ברוסיה: "לא נזיל דמעה אם אירן תותקף"
בהתבטאות נדירה המנוגדת לעמדה הפומבית של מוסקבה כלפי הקהילה הבינלאומית, אמר בכיר רוסי כי "לא נזיל דמעה אם אתרי הגרעין של אירן יותקפו" והוסיף כי "ישראל לא תאפשר לאירן להשיג נשק גרעיני". את הדברים אמר הדיפלומט הרוסי לאחד מראשי מדינות אירופה לשעבר, והמידע הגיע לגורמים בירושלים.

- פרסומת -

כלפי חוץ רוסיה מתנגדת להטלת סנקציות על אירן ומקפידה להתבטא באופן מתון בנושא האירני, אך על פי ההערכות, העמדה המפתיעה של הבכיר הרוסי נובעת מאינטרסים רוסים הקשורים לנפט ולתוכנית הגרעין האירנית ביום שאחרי תקיפה. תקיפת מתקני הגרעין באירן תעלה את מחירי הנפט בעולם ורוסיה שהינה יצרנית נפט גדולה בעצמה, תרוויח מכך. בנוסף, אירן תהיה תלויה ברוסיה בהיבט של רכישת חלקים וחלפים לתוכנית גרעין ביום שאחרי ההפצצה. דוח הסוכנות לאנרגיה אטומית שיתפרסם בהמשך השבוע צפוי להיות החמור מכולם ולקבוע כי בניגוד להצהרותיה, אירן מנסה לפתח נשק גרעיני לצרכים צבאיים.
רוצים לקבל עדכונים נוספים? הצטרפו לחדשות 2 בפייסבוק

תגיות: גרמניה   אירן   תקיפה   דיון ציבורי   גידו וסטרוולה  

לאחר דוח הגרעין: סנקציות והגבלות נתניהו: הכן הציבור לתקיפה באירן ברק על אירן: "לנקוט כל פעולה" בעד תקיפת הכור באירן? סמסו 1

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תגובות (12 תגובות ב-8 דיונים)

פתח הכל סגור הכל

8 חמנאי שם כובע שטריימל לראשו? * משמרות הצניעות מול משמרות המהפכה  08/11/11 | 10:19 7 האטם מביא שלום!!!ראה רוסיה סין ארהב ועוד והשכל!!!! * מיכאל הכהן  08/11/11 | 05:42 מה יש לך?! * אלמונית  08/11/11 | 16:09 6 יאלה תקיפה באירן ומהר!!! * דודי  08/11/11 | 00:32 כן ברור * ישראלי  08/11/11 | 03:52 5 תכלס...מסכנים האזרחים שלא רוצים את אחמדי... * הם ניסו לעשות מהפכה אבל לא עזרו להם  07/11/11 | 23:35 4 שיקח ה' את המדינה הזאת כבר * עדן  07/11/11 | 23:34 לקבוע לך תור? * פסיכולוג  07/11/11 | 23:59 חחחחחחחחחחחח * אבי  08/11/11 | 01:22 3 ושוב תודה לידיעות אחרונות. העיתון נגד המדינה * דניאל איש חמודות  07/11/11 | 23:30 2 אילאיל סמל יצורה אפתית ומתנשאת עם רגשי נחיתות * וכוח שעלה יותר מדי לראש.  07/11/11 | 23:30 1 זה לא אירן זה רק שתי הקופים מהתמונה למעלה * אחד לפוני  07/11/11 | 23:23

מקרא: = תגובה ללא תוכן   = תגובה עם תוכן   

 

Eid-al-Adha Mubarak -- a Blessed Eid-al-Adha, a wonderful Hajj -- greetings from Vleeptron!

Well of course certainly you should click on the Hajj 

at the Kaaba in Mecca.

If you went on the Hajj and saw the Kaaba -- hey, leave a comment! How was it? What did your heart feel?

now we have 5 cats

Click kittens to enlarge.

Our friend rescued a mother cat who had just given birth to a litter of six kittens, and gave us these two: Daisy Mae and William. Unfortunately the veterinarian noticed that Daisy Mae had testicles, so we quickly changed her name to Spike so the kitten would not grow up with psychological ambiguities and confusions about its gender.

Now the household has five cats: Benedict Spinoza Cat, Stewart Wallace Darnley Cat, and Mimi the screaming paranoid shelter rescue cat.

"In time the Rockies may crumble / Gibraltar may tumble / they're only made of clay / but our love is here to stay" -- Ira Gershwin

Click image to enlarge.

Hiya Hiya M & J*****!

Yeah, we got wholloped but good. I guess there were two components to the whollop -- first, the authentic snow whollop and its attendant damage, tree limbs down, electric power out all over the place, cars can't get out; but then the psychological whollop of a Halloween Blizzard. 

I mean, in your whole life, do you ever recall Trick-or-Treating through a foot of snow? I haven't heard any native New Englanders remembering a big snow whollop this early either, it was freaky. I'll bet a lot of migratory birds were having a leisurely autumn picnic when the whollop reminded them to get the hell out of here and head for Central America.

We had a couple of days of warning, so we were as prepared as we could be for the worst, which started Saturday midday. S.W.M.B.O.'s a weather obsessive and is linked to every emergency weather gizmo manufactured on Earth, including a radio that's perfectly silent for months at a time, until ye Apocalypse Is Nigh, and then wakes us up with a screaming banshee alarm at 03:17 and makes us poop ourselves. 

The town also has this automated phone notification service, they call it Reverse 911. This time the phone call warned all potential sickos to drive to Northampton and rent a motel room now, because after the snow hit the fan, ambulance response time was going to be very iffy. So we were well warned that this was going to be Large & Nasty.

And it was. The big problem was that the beautiful autumn leaves were still on the trees, and the snow was wet and heavy, so inevitably big limbs and branches were going to bend and break, and take the electric power lines down with them. 

By Saturday evening we lost power -- but Bob's Amazing Emergency Propane-Fueled Generator instantly kicked in, and all our critical needs worked. Everything goes black, the generator makes a scream, the engine starts purring, and 10 seconds later you're back in business and can microwave oatmeal.

Truth to tell, the biggest annoyance we face in a power blackout is boredom -- no TV, no computer. But we can cook and read, and the phones -- landline and cel -- worked.

Astonishingly, they restored our power 11 hours later. The snowplow guy doesn't go into action until the streetlights work, but by Sunday morning if we could dig the cars out, we could drive away. But trying to drive anywhere, even with the Hilltowner's Best Friend, 4-Wheel-Drive, is just not a very wise or safe idea.

So much of the area lost power that if you run low on gasoline, no gas station pumps work, so you're skrood and stranded far from home. 

So we've stayed comfy and cozy -- we cranked up the wood stove, a real charming delight -- thru the big mess.

The cats -- the 3 seniors, and our 2 new kittens, William and Spike -- are all horrified at this Winter Horrorland outside the door. As always, they look up at us piteously and demand to know why we have manufactured this Outrage. The seniors had dim memories of nasty white stuff, but this was the first time the kittens had ever seen snow, and reacted with confusion and terror.

The Short Version: We survived very comfortably and nicely, and just for safety and caution ain't driving nowhere until tomorrow (Tuesday).

I will totally plotz tonight if the doorbell rings and there are Trick or Treaters on the porch. Even in good autumn weather there haven't been any yet -- would you let your kids dodge coyotes and bears and porcupines for a bag of unhealthy crap? -- and I think the town throws a very supervised well-lit Halloween at the main intersection, which is largely free of child-mauling predatory beasts. I don't think Chesterfield has lost a Trick-or-Treater since the late 1980s.

Where the hell have I let her talk me into moving to? The only wilderness experience we haven't had yet has been an attack from hostile First Peoples, and if/when that happens, I won't be entirely surprised. I think some of the neighbors still keep a loaded rifle above the fireplace or front door. (Chesterfield was settled as farmland awards for veterans -- mostly Germans, whose last names still grace lots of mailboxes -- of the French & Indian War.)

Civilization: If it doesn't work, go down to the basement and flick a switch, or phone somebody. In less than a day, it works again. If you want pastry or ice cream or Marlboros at 3 a.m., there's a joint a mile away that sells pastry or ice cream or milk or diet soda or coffee at 3 a.m.

Cynthia's most outraged crisis in Northampton was that a few times a year, the water turned brown, and you can't do the laundry when the water's brown (unless brown undies are okay with you). The Water Department phones melt off the hook when the water turns brown.

When we bought this joint, I talked to our insurance lady (in Northampton) on the phone, and she asked how far the nearest fire hydrant was, and I laughed heartily, and explained that the FD pumper truck dumps one end of a long hose into the Beaver Pond, and puts out the fire with the other end of the hose. Hydrants? We don' need no steenkin' hydrants!

She was also heartily amused to learn our new house had no locks on the doors. Amused, but not at all sympathetic. We had to have locks installed or she wouldn't cover the place.

M**** I am sorry youse got Respiratory Cooties again, and I hope the new Wonderful Drugs (I think that's what Mammy Yoakum or Snuffy Smith called them) make short work of the Cooties. You sounded great and hale and hearty.

I had this Plan for Sunday 

"Nothing is so doomed as a scheme for mirth." 

-- Samuel Johnson

in the works for weeks -- we were going to meet W**** and J******* and their two girls at Mount Washington, New Hampshire, and ride to the summit on the famous Cog Railway.

Mount Washington has the worst recorded weather on Earth and has killed 37 hikers -- frozen corpses in short pants and t-shirts and tank tops. At the foot of the mountain it's all springtimey and butterflies and birdies singing and sunscreen, and then halfway up you get whomped with a blizzard like the one that caused the unhappy Donner Party so much distress, the Surprise Changeover takes about 10 minutes.

I went there about two years ago all eager to get cinders in my eye from the wonderful coal steam engine, but to my amazement they'd just replaced it with a spankin' new John Deere engine that burns recycled French Fry vegetable oil. Oh brave new world, that has such gizmos in it!

Love to you both, and smooth sailing through all Weather and Earthquake Surprises that come your way. I went to school in DC and like all geometry and physics students I know that the Washington Monument is 555 feet 5 and 1/8 inches tall. (Or used to be until recently.) Ya need that in metric?

Bob

PS. Oh here's [see top] another Wonder of the White Mountains. For millennia, it was New Hampshire's natural symbol for Permanence, Reliability, Dependability, Eternity. 

Then one night in 2003 ...

Swiss voters abandon anti-immigrant party, dive for the center

The Associated Press  (USA newswire)

Sunday 23 October 2011

Nationalists Lose Ground 

in Swiss Vote

BERN, Switzerland (AP) — Swiss voters backed moderate parties in their general election on Sunday, and the nationalist Swiss People’s Party lost ground after mounting a campaign heavy on anti-immigrant sentiment.

 

The nationalists were projected to take 25.9 percent of the vote for the lower house, a drop from four years ago, according to projections from the public television station SF early Monday.

On the left, the Green Party also suffered a surprising setback, taking 7.9 percent of the vote. Both the People’s Party and the Greens were projected to lose seats in Switzerland’s lower chamber, the 200-member National Council.

The results halted 20 years of steady growth by the People’s Party in parliamentary elections, which are held every four years. The party, which drew just 11 percent of the vote in 1987, rose to capture 28.9 percent in 2007, while support eroded for two of the major center-right parties, the Free Democrats and the Christian Democrats.

Two other centrist parties — the Conservative Democrats, who split from the People’s Party in 2007, and the Green Liberal Party — were the beneficiaries of the nationalists’ decline. The Green Liberals in particular rode a wave of antinuclear sentiment stoked by the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi power plant in Japan in March.
 
The number of political parties in Switzerland makes for intense haggling after every election, as each group demands fair representation in the country’s seven-member cabinet, which governs by consensus despite the sometimes widely differing views of its members.

Despite its setback, the People’s Party won the most votes, and it immediately laid claim to two seats in the cabinet, whose ministers run federal agencies and take turns serving as president for a year.

The party’s campaign warned that immigrants were spoiling a nation that has been an oasis of stability. Almost one in five residents of Switzerland was born elsewhere, one of the highest proportions in Europe. 

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Herman Cain gets a shitload of Free Speech from the creepy gazillionaire Koch Brothers and their stooge front, Americans For Prosperity

Among the close-to-a-dozen candidates for the Republican party nomination to run against President Obama in 2012, Herman Cain, an African-American pizza chain entrepreneur, has generated a surprising amount of attention and enthusiasm. 

 

Oddsmakers give his campaign possibilities -- but at very high odds.

But screwier things have happened in recent USA national politics.

Well, anyway, he seems to be Bought and Paid For as the public political window-dressing of the gazillionaire right-wing Koch Brothers. And if pure cash alone can purchase the US presidency, well, as Judy Tenuda said of her sexual liaisson with the Pope: "It could happen!"

 

So we would end up with a president who pushes the agenda of two of the creepiest most dangerous people on Earth.

Incidentally, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that money is a form of constitutionally protected Free Speech, and the government is henceforth forbidden from putting any limits or caps on the amount of Free Speech you can donate to any politician.

Herman Cain seems to be the first big-time recipient of all this Free Speech.

====================

 

The Associated Press (USA Newswire)

Monday 17 October 2011

Long ties to Koch brothers 

key to Cain's campaign

 

by RYAN J. FOLEY, Associated Press

IOWA CITY, Iowa (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain has cast himself as the outsider, the pizza magnate with real-world experience who will bring fresh ideas to the nation's capital. But Cain's economic ideas, support and organization have close ties to two billionaire brothers who bankroll right-leaning causes through their group Americans for Prosperity.

Cain's campaign manager and a number of aides have worked for Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, the advocacy group founded with support from billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch, which lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation and spending.

Cain credits a businessman who served on an AFP advisory board with helping devise his "9-9-9" plan to rewrite the nation's tax code. And his years of speaking at AFP events have given the businessman and radio host a network of loyal grassroots fans.

The once little-known businessman's political activities are getting fresh scrutiny these days since he soared to the top of some national polls.

His links to the Koch brothers could undercut his outsider, non-political image among people who detest politics as usual and candidates connected with the party machine.

AFP tapped Cain as the public face of its "Prosperity Expansion Project," and he traveled the country in 2005 and 2006 speaking to activists who were starting state-based AFP chapters from Wisconsin to Virginia. Through his AFP work he met Mark Block, a longtime Wisconsin Republican operative hired to lead that state's AFP chapter in 2005 as he rebounded from an earlier campaign scandal that derailed his career.

Block and Cain sometimes traveled together as they built up AFP: Cain was the charismatic speaker preaching the ills of big government; Block was the operative helping with nuts and bolts.

When President Barack Obama's election helped spawn the tea party, Cain was positioned to take advantage. He became a draw at growing AFP-backed rallies, impressing activists with a mix of humor and hard-hitting rhetoric against Obama's stimulus, health care and budget policies.

Block is now Cain's campaign manager. Other aides who had done AFP work were also brought on board.

Cain's spokeswoman Ellen Carmichael, who recently left the campaign, was an AFP coordinator in Louisiana. His campaign's outside law firm is representing AFP in a case challenging Wisconsin campaign finance regulations. At least six other current and former paid employees and consultants for Cain's campaign have worked for AFP in various capacities.

And Cain has credited Rich Lowrie, a Cleveland businessman who served on AFP's board of advisors from 2005 to 2008, with being a key economic adviser and with helping to develop his plan to cut the corporate tax rate to 9 percent, impose a national sales tax of 9 percent and set a flat income tax rate of 9 percent

"He's got a national network now that perhaps he wouldn't have had 15 or 20 years ago because of his work with AFP," said Republican Party of Wisconsin Vice Chair Brian Schimming, who has introduced Cain at events in Wisconsin. "For a presidential candidate, that's obviously helpful to have."

He said Cain was smart to hire Block.

Cain's recent victories in straw polls in Florida and Minnesota highlight the importance of organizing supporters and Block, who has a deep network in the tea party, "gets that side of it," Schimming said.

But Block has had his problems as well. He settled a suit in 2001 accusing him of illegally coordinating a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice's re-election with an outside group. Block agreed to pay $15,000 and sit out of politics for three years.

While Cain is quick to promote his career at the helm of the Godfather's Pizza chain, his ties to AFP aren't something the candidate appears eager to highlight. Cain does not include his AFP work on his biography on his website, but spokesman J.D. Gordon said Sunday that Cain was "proud of his business record" and his association with the group.

"He has made a lot of important connections through AFP," Gordon said, pointing to Block and Lowrie, among others.

And Cain continues to work with the group.

While several other candidates will be at an Iowa Republican Party dinner on Nov. 4, Cain is scheduled to be in Washington mingling with activists at AFP's annual "Defending the American Dream" summit. He is the only confirmed presidential candidate for the event.

AFP spokesman Levi Russell said Cain has spoken at dozens of AFP rallies and events over the years to support a number of the group's activities. AFP has often covered his travel expenses or paid a "pretty modest honorarium" but he has not been paid since becoming a presidential candidate, he said.

"He's a dynamic, pro-business speaker that connects well with our activists," Russell said. "AFP is a very large organization, and there is a natural overlap between Cain's message of fiscal responsibility and the basic principles that AFP advocates for."

A spokeswoman for the Koch brothers did not respond to The Associated Press's request for comment on Cain.

To some liberals, Cain's rise with the help of AFP shows the incredible influence that outside groups controlled by super-wealthy individuals with specific agendas can have on the political process.

"Herman Cain is the first presidential corporate spokes-candidate," said Scot Ross, a liberal activist who leads One Wisconsin Now, which has often mocked AFP as a front group for corporate interests. "The best way to have your issues talked about in the issue debate is to have a candidate in your pocket with snappy comebacks and easily branded policy papers which mask how destructive they would be."

AFP's agenda also includes weakening private and public sector unions, opposing environmental regulations and undoing Obama's health care reform law, among other policies. But before the tea party and Obama, Cain worked with AFP on more local issues.

In 2006, he campaigned all over Wisconsin in support of a proposed constitutional amendment that would have limited state government spending. A slew of officials and analysts said the plan would have ultimately devastated government services, and the Republican-controlled Legislature eventually backed off it.

In a statement announcing Cain's tour, AFP sent out a press release touting his "in-depth understanding of the battle to control out-of-control government taxes and spending." Block promised that Cain was a speaker that activists would not want to miss.

Copyright © 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. 

- 30 -

In just a few days ... 0,003 seconds before dead German X-ray satellite ROSAT smashes into Earth

Click image to enlarge.

theoretical deep underground connection between Katla and Eyjafjallajökull