hedgehog
hedgehog's JournalA question about that missing airliner -
would the "ping" from the black box be detectable with sonar?
If so, why haven't we had Navy ships and submarines in the area listening?
Talk about missing a chance to make friends!
I think the Fort Hood shooting may just have been someone "going postal"
It's possible something about the shooter's experience in Iraq will emerge, but I think that connection obscures a greater truth.
Currently, about 1 in 9 people killed in the workplace aren't involved in an industrial accident, but are shot by a co-worker:
https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/workplaceviolence/
Can anyone imagine the outcry should 500 people a year be killed say, by collapsing scaffolds? Yet this number goes unremarked. It's only when violence hit a major nationwide employer that it's more than a local story. The Armed Forces employ 1, 400, 000 people - Fort Hood has 75,000 people on base. There will be all kinds of committees and hearings about what the military needs to do to stop such incidents, but I think what's really going on is that sooner or later any large employer is going to face such an incident.
The problem isn't with the military handling of soldiers with mental health problems; if anything, they are better taken care of than the average civilian. The problem is easy access to guns.
Does anyone here know what percentage of union dues goes to campiagn contributions?
I was talking with someone today who insisted that 20% of all union dues goes to the Democratic Party. I find that number hard to believe, but being from the reality based party I'd like some data.
Please understand - I have no problem at all with unions donating cash to people who will support their objectives. Union members elect their officers, and unions therefore represent a lot of people. $200,000 donated from a union representing thousands and thousands of people is a different kettle of fish than $20,000 coming from one person.
Just a thought -but I am told that many large corporations are sitting on mounds of cash -
and I am also aware that many large corporations not only don't pay income axes, but actually get rebates from the United States government.
So - how much of that money these corporations are sitting on is money from our income taxes?
Edit: the worst part - often a cash rich corporation goes out and buys another company rather than investing the money in new jobs. Given that many buy-outs result in golden parachutes for the execs and shuttered work places for everyone else, we're paying taxes to put ourselves out of work!
Obama is not the Messiah; he never claimed to be.
Obama has done some things I disagree with; he has done more that I do agree with, and a lot of things that make me jump in the air, raise my fist and holler Yes!
Show me a single President from the Democratic Party who has been perfect, I'll wait.
It's OK to say "I disagree with Obama about X, here's what I'd like to see instead". It's not OK to repeat Right Wing talking points, Libertarian talking points, and/or to call Obama names or label him a used car salesman, dictator, etc.
It's not OK to accuse other Duers of being Obama worshipers.
Spewing vitriol may make some feel better, but it makes DU a nasty place to be. Even worse, it's boring! Give me a good argument and I'll read it. Call people names and I'll go read something else.
Has the Green family ever taken a look at their customer base?
Who shops at Hobby Lobby? My observation is that the customers are mostly white, middle class women. Who uses birth control? A lot of white, middle class women.
Can anyone say "boycott"?
The President between two ferns -
It's my understanding that after President Obama gave this interview, the Health Care Exchanges saw a surge in applications. Now, it may be that it was a coincidence, that a lot of people waited until the deadline approached. But - if this interview was effective, does that point the way to getting people out to vote this November?
Old dog, new tricks
We recently were very lucky to be able to adopt a very old dog because her owner couldn't take care of her any more. The poor old girl has some sort of problem with her rear legs - occasionally they slide right out from under her when she tries to get up. She goes in and out of our dog pen if we open the people door. She is fascinated watching our other two dogs hop through the dog door. I don't think she has the strength in her hind quarters to hop through the door, but she will stand outside sticking her head in, or inside sticking her head out. I can almost see her trying to figure out the magic trick. We'll be getting a larger, lower door soon.
In case anyone is interested - here is a good explanation of why we remember St. Patrick:
From a review of "How the Irish Saved Civilization" by Thomas Cahill:
" The Patrick in question was a former Celtic slave brought to Ireland from Roman-era Britain. His name was originally Patricius, but he came to be known to later generations as St. Patrick. Mr. Cahill's theory about him goes something like this:
The Ireland of the early fifth century was a brooding, dank island whose inhabitants, while carefree and warlike on the outside, lived in "quaking fear" within, their terror of shape-changing monsters, of sudden death and the insubstantiality of their world so acute that they drank themselves into an insensate stupor in order to sleep.
Patrick, however, provided "a living alternative." He was a serene man who slept well without drink, a man "in whom the sharp fear of death has been smoothed away." The Christianity he proposed to the Irish succeeded because it took away the dread from the magical world that was Ireland. And once they were Christianized, the Irish founded the monastic movement, copying the books being destroyed elsewhere by Germanic invaders, eventually bringing them back to the places from which the books had come.
....
There are other characters in Mr. Cahill's history, the most important of them clearly being Patrick, one of his heroes, a man of less intellectual refinement than Augustine but of greater humanity. Mr. Cahill credits him with being "the first human being in the history of the world to speak out unequivocally against slavery."
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/bsp/irish.html
I recommend the book as an antidote to all the "St. Patty's Day" nonsense out there.
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