August 5, 2014

The Other Ground-breaking Star Trek Icon, with the President

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"Science is not a boy's game, it's not a girl's game. It's everyone's game."
http://boingboing.net/2014/08/04/uhura-and-obama.html

(CNN) -- Nichelle Nichols has spent her whole life going where no one has gone before, and at 81 she's still as sassy and straight-talking as you'd expect from an interstellar explorer.


"I don't have enough sense to keep my mouth shut," says the legendary Star Trek actor with a hearty laugh. "Whatever comes up, comes out."

"I can't help myself."

As the startlingly beautiful and fiercely intelligent Lt. Uhura on the hit 1960s TV series, Nichols was a revolutionary figure at a time when the only African-American women you saw on U.S. TV were usually playing servants.
Indeed, Star Trek was reportedly the only program Martin Luther King Jr would let his children stay up late to watch.

more

http://www.cnn.com/2014/08/04/showbiz/star-trek-legend/index.html?hpt=hp_c3

August 5, 2014

Mike Luckovich Toon- Zombie-brained apocalypse

August 4, 2014

Vaquita, the Mexican porpoise, nears extinction

By Virginia Morell 4 August 2014

An international team of scientists says that the critically endangered vaquita, a species of porpoise (Phocoena sinus) found only in Mexico’s Gulf of California, is fast approaching extinction and that all gillnet fishing in the animal’s range must be banned. The team, which was established by the government of Mexico, warns that the number of porpoises has been cut in half since 2012, when about 200 remained. Now, a mere 97 are believed to survive. Of these, 25 are thought to be reproductively mature females.

The vaquitas, whose popular name translates as “little cow,” are dying at an accelerated rate because of an increase in the illegal gillnet fishery for the totoaba (Totoaba macdonaldi). Totoaba, which can grow to more than 1.8 meters and 135 kilograms, are also critically endangered. Their swim bladders are highly prized as a traditional health food in China, and a single bladder can command thousands of dollars. Consequently, a surge in illegal gillnetting has undermined Mexico’s efforts to ban all commercial fishing in a vaquita refuge and to guide fishers toward other careers.

The scientists report that one in five vaquitas are drowning each year in the nets; the population is declining at a rate of 18.5% each year. In a report to the Mexican presidential commission on vaquita conservation, the scientists urge that the country establish a gillnet exclusion zone for the small porpoises’ entire range beginning in September 2014. The commission will be meeting again at the end of August to discuss the possible ban.

http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2014/08/vaquita-mexican-porpoise-nears-extinction

August 4, 2014

The Nastiest Election Fight In America Still Won't Die

Mississippi state Sen. Chris McDaniel on Monday officially announced a legal challenge to the results of the June 24 Republican Senate primary runoff election, demanding the state's Republican Party declare him the true winner of the runoff election.

"They asked us to put up or shut up. Here we are. Here we are with the evidence," McDaniel said during a press conference outside the office of Mitch Tyner, the campaign's lawyer.

McDaniel's decision to fight the runoff results, while not ultimately surprising, comes nearly six weeks after he was defeated in the Republican primary runoff by incumbent GOP Sen. Thad Cochran. In the immediate aftermath of the election, McDaniel refused to concede and claimed Cochran had "stolen" the race through an unusual strategy of encouraging voters who don't typically participate in Republican primaries to come to the polls.

The Mississippi Republican Party certified the results of the runoff election on July 8, giving Cochran a margin of victory of more than 7,600 votes. Cochran's campaign has dismissed McDaniel's challenge and has made a point of focusing on the general election.



Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/chris-mcdaniel-legal-challenge-ms-sen-thad-cochran-2014-8

August 4, 2014

George Will- Concern Troll

By Charles P. Pierce

It's nice to see that G. Effing Will has taken to stopping by the Stupid Cafe on a regular basis these days. It must be that two-for-one deal the cafe cut with Fox News when the cafe first opened. (We know where the target-rich environments are.) Anyway, G. Effing Will has some serious concern trolling he'd like to share with the Democratic party.

Just bite me, G. Effing.


Do you know a single progressive Democrat, in office or out, who thinks anything but kind thoughts toward Sherrod Brown? The reason his name is not being bruited about for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination is that he's not running for the fcking nomination. Yes, I know that Elizabeth Warren's not running for it, either, but has a bandwagon nonetheless. It's not a great Ovarian Conspiracy. She's just better in front of a crowd, and the idea that either one of them would listen to G. Effing Will about anything as opposed to listening to each other is downright hilarious.

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/George_Will_Shares_The_Stupid

August 4, 2014

Charles P Pierce- The Toledo Water Crisis

Nowhere has the abandonment of reason and of science on the part of half of the American political system had such serious consequences as it has had on our attempts to craft national responses to our cascade of interconnected environmental problems, most of which have some basis in the Great Climate Change Hoax, which half of our political system believe is a scam to suck up that sweet grant money or, as Paul Ryan so brilliantly put it last week, to raise taxes. I don't know but, maybe, if a half-million people still don't have potable drinking water in a couple of weeks, we might take the whole thing a little more seriously than we have, and we might conclude that the planet's getting genuinely pissed at us all.

We stopped this kind of thing back in the 1970's, because that's when we passed the Clean Water Act, and had Earth Day, and we and our Canadian friends were willing to spend $8 billion to save Lake Erie. However, that was before Ronald Reagan was elected to save us all from the dead hand in the jackboot of over-regulation, and to demonstrate to us all that unleashing the power of American corporations was the fast lane to glory. Under Bill Clinton, deregulation became "regulatory reform," which meant finding ways to do the damage more slowly.That was before science became a political drawback. Does the GCCH figure into this? Of course, it does.


I guarantee you that anyone who makes that argument -- that climate change is involved because it results in heavier rainfall and, therefore, more sewer systems flooding into the lake, carrying Christ alone knows what-all -- will find someone standing up and telling them, "You're blaming climate change for everything," as though there were nothing connected in the ecology of the planet at all. And that is not even to mention the role played by the invasive zebra mussels, that kill the animals that eat the algae. Every way you can screw a planet, we have.

more
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_Toledo_Water_Crisis

August 4, 2014

Monday Toon Roundup

Immigration










IP













GOP










Economy




Health

August 4, 2014

The Meltdown of the Anti-Immigration Minuteman Militia

Borderline personality: A Minuteman Project volunteer in 2005. AP Photo/John Miller

In early July, Chris Davis issued a call to arms. "You see an illegal, you point your gun right dead at them, right between the eyes, and say 'Get back across the border, or you will be shot,'" the Texas-based militia commander said in a YouTube video heralding Operation Secure Our Border-Laredo Sector, a plan to block the wave of undocumented migrants coming into his state. "If you get any flak from sheriffs, city, or feds, Border Patrol, tell them, 'Look—this is our birthright. We have a right to secure our own land. This is our land.'"

Davis' video was publicized by local newspapers and the Los Angeles Times. But the militia never materialized in Laredo, and Davis walked back his comments. (The video has been taken down.) Over the last few weeks, a smaller force under Davis' watch has appeared along the southern border, spread thinly across three states. The fizzling of this grand mobilization was another reminder that the current immigration crisis has been missing a key ingredient of recent border showdowns: Bands of the heavily-armed self-appointed border guardians known as Minutemen.

During the past four years, the Minuteman groups that defined conservative immigration policy during the mid- to late-2000s have mostly self-destructed—sometimes spectacularly so. Founding Minuteman leaders are in prison, facing criminal charges, dead, or sidelined. "It really attracted a lot of people that had some pretty extreme issues," says Juanita Molina, executive director of the Border Action Network, an advocacy group that provides aid to migrants in the desert. "We saw the movement implode on itself mostly because of that." An analysis by the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors right-wing extremist groups, found that the number of Minuteman groups in the Southwest had declined from 310 to 38 between 2010 and 2012.

The movement's coming-out moment was in 2005, as an influx in migrants from Mexico collided with post-9/11 security concerns to create a nativist revival. A Marine vet named Jim Gilchrist announced the formation of a month-long, 1,000-man patrol along Arizona border. His Minuteman Project found a natural platform on conservative talk radio and cable news, and attracted support from nativist politicians such as then-Arizona Senate president Russell Pearce. Some Minuteman groups patrolled the US-Mexico line on foot, investing in night-vision goggles, ham radios, and ammunition by the bucket. Others were content to squat in lawn chairs under canopies, scanning the border for crossers and alerting the CBP.

more

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2014/08/minuteman-movement-border-crisis-simcox

August 4, 2014

Compound Built for Jailed Polygamist Warren Jeffs Is Now a B&B

With its scenic location, cheery website and the promise of “quaint comfy rooms,” you might never suspect the complicated past of Utah’s newest inn. Only the name offers a clue.

Welcome to America’s Most Wanted Suites and Bed & Breakfast, a compound originally built for polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs, who is serving life in prison for sexually assaulting a girl he took as a child bride.

Constructed by his followers at the self-proclaimed prophet’s request in 2011, the Hildale, Utah, property now belongs to Willie Jessop, Jeffs’ former bodyguard-turned-hotelier. It opened to the public last week, allowing guests to get a glimpse of some of the mansion’s menacing features, such as double thick walls, solid doors that require extra hinges and a 12-foot-tall concrete fence that surrounds the property.

“I left it there so people could go and see how paranoid he was,” Jessop, 44, told NBC News about his former boss. “It was my hope that the walls would help be a reminder to the community that if you need walls like this, you’re probably doing something wrong.”

more

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/travel/compound-built-jailed-polygamist-warren-jeffs-now-b-b-n169751

August 4, 2014

Wall Street Frets That You're Getting Paid Too Much

Wall Street money managers are worried about two things: that they won’t get paid enough and that ordinary Americans will get paid too much.

The fight over who gets what from the bonus pool is an unseemly annual rite at Wall Street firms. Last year the average bonus paid to securities industries employees in New York City was $164,000, the most since the financial crisis, according to New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

In contrast, concern over rising pay for the rest of America is a monthly, not annual, ritual. Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that average hourly earnings in July were flat, vs. an expected 0.2 percent increase. They’re up only 2 percent over the past year. However, hawks pointed out that the Employment Cost Index—which covers both wages and benefits—rose a more-than-expected 0.7 percent in the second quarter, its biggest rise since 2008.

“Wages are trending up, and once wage inflation takes hold, it continues for four to five years,” says Torsten Slok, chief international economist at Deutsche Bank. Slok notes that a survey by the National Federation of Independent Business finds an increased share of companies—around 15 percent—are “planning to raise wages up significantly in recent months.” He says in a chartbook for clients: “A broad-based pickup in wages in the pipeline.”

For Wall Street, the risk is that higher wage growth will lead to more inflation, which will push up interest rates, which will push down stock prices. The rate-setters of the Federal Reserve think that unemployment can fall to 5.4 percent before inflation starts to be a problem. Slok says inflation could come much sooner, citing academic studies that put the inflationary threshold anywhere from 6 percent unemployment all the way up to 7.2 percent.

MORE

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-08-01/wall-streeters-worry-that-theyre-paid-too-little-and-youre-paid-too-much