liberal N proud
liberal N proud's JournalHow conservatives lie about government
From Social Security hysteria to "Obamacare" madness, right-wing propaganda is increasingly divorced from reality
How can otherwise sane people believe such lunacy? The answer is that members of the right-wing counterculture are brainwashed — that is the only appropriate term — by the apocalyptic propaganda ground out constantly by the conservative media establishment. A perfect example is a recent essay by Philip Klein, a senior editorial writer of the Washington Examiner, the right-wing newspaper owned by the billionaire Philip Anshutz: “The Welfare State Is Destroying America.”
As if to concede that there is no Social Security crisis in the near future, Klein engages in three intellectually dishonest maneuvers typical of right-wing propagandists. First, he talks about medium-term and long-term problems as though they were present-day emergencies. Second, he blurs the distinction between Social Security’s long-term fiscal challenges, which are minor, and those caused by rising healthcare costs, in order to make Social Security seem worse off than it is in reality. Third, he implies that “the growing debt burden” of the United States is primarily caused by Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, ignoring tax cuts, wars and the effects of a near-depression:
With health care costs rising and the population aging, America’s welfare-state obligations are bringing the country to its financial knees. If left unchecked, the growing debt burden will not only trigger runaway inflation and stifling taxes, but it will also threaten national security.
http://www.salon.com/2012/01/24/how_conservatives_lie_about_government/singleton/
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Missouri Republicans Introduce Bill Forcing Educators To Teach Creationism In Schools And Universiti
Missouri Republicans Introduce Bill That Forces Educators To Teach Creationism In Schools And Universities
Apparently it’s that time of year when every Republican controlled legislature introduces bills designed to force Christianity upon us. As I reported earlier on Thursday, the Indiana Senate introduced a bill that allows school boards to force teachers to teach creationism as science. Now I’m disappointed to report that my home state of Missouri is considering a similar bill, except this one is far worse.
On January 10, 2012, the Missouri House of Representatives introduced a bill that would force educators to teach creationism in schools as an accepted science, despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of the scientific community rejects creationism as science. But this bill is worse than the Indiana bill. House bill 1227 or the Missouri Standard Science Act skips school boards and directly forces teachers to teach creationism. The bill goes even further than that, however. It not only requires that creationism be taught in elementary and high school, but also in introductory college science courses as well. It also requires textbooks to include creationism.
This bill seeks to violate religious freedom and is an attempt by Republicans to indoctrinate our kids. It forces teachers to drill an unfounded Biblical belief into the minds of students, even if it goes against their own religious beliefs. It also forces college professors, who have spent their academic careers in the science community, to teach an entirely rejected theory that has no factual basis in science as an accepted theory to impressionable college students. This can easily be construed as a church effort to convert non-believers and those of different faiths to Christianity.
The bill is wrong on so many levels it’s pitiful...
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/01/12/missouri-republicans-introduce-bill-that-forces-educators-to-teach-creationism-in-schools-and-universities/
Donors Gave as Santorum Won Earmarks
The announcements flowed out of Rick Santorum’s Senate office: a $3.5 million federal grant to Piasecki Aircraft to help it test a new helicopter propeller technology; another $3.5 million to JLG Industries to bolster its bid to build all-terrain forklifts for the military; $1.4 million to Medico Industries to upgrade equipment for its munitions work.
Each of the news releases represented an earmark or, in some cases, multiple ones — the practice by which members of Congress set aside money in federal spending bills for what critics often denounce as pet projects back home.
Mr. Santorum, who picked up the endorsement of a group of prominent Christian conservative leaders on Saturday, has been trying to persuade conservatives to coalesce behind his candidacy. His rivals for the Republican presidential nomination have seized upon his spending record in an effort to cast doubt on his fiscal conservative bona fides.
But an examination of Mr. Santorum’s earmark record sheds light on another aspect of his political personality, one that is at odds with the reformer image he has tried to convey on the trail: his prowess as a Washington insider.
A review of some of his earmarks, viewed alongside his political donations, suggests that the river of federal money Mr. Santorum helped direct to Pennsylvania paid off handsomely in the form of campaign cash.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/16/us/politics/as-rick-santorum-secured-earmarks-2006-donations-flowed-in.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha2
Space probe crashes into Pacific, Russians say
Derelict Russian space probe crashes to Earth
Military spokesman reports Phobos-Grunt re-entry over Pacific Ocean
MOSCOW — A failed probe that was designed to travel to a moon of Mars but got stuck in Earth orbit has crashed into the Pacific Ocean, Russian officials said Sunday.
The unmanned Phobos-Grunt probe was one of the heaviest and most toxic space derelicts ever to crash to Earth, but there were no reports of injury or damage. There's a good chance that no one actually saw the spacecraft's fiery plunge.
"Phobos-Grunt fragments have crashed down in the Pacific Ocean," the RIA-Novosti news service quoted Alexei Zolotukhin, a spokesman for Russia's aerospace defense forces, as saying. The debris zone was said to be 775 miles (1,250 kilometers) west of Wellington Island in the South Pacific. Re-entry was estimated to occur at about 12:45 p.m. ET, based on the data received by the Russians.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46005190/ns/technology_and_science-space/
That 100 years of Oil they claim America has will go overseas
All the drill baby drill and fracking the oil companies are doing, taking all the puclic lands, state parks and such so they can drill for oil and ship it over seas.
Read this artilce describing the deals being made with oil companies in America by foreign companies.
Sinopec and Total Continue Shale Gas Buying Spree
Deal-making in the shale gas sector, one of the hottest last year, is off to a strong start in 2012, with two foreign companies buying big stakes in operations in the United States.
The French oil giant Total announced plans on Monday to buy a piece of the Chesapeake Energy Corporation’s shale operation in Ohio for $2.32 billion. Hours later on Tuesday, Sinopec International Petroleum Exploration and Production agreed to buy a 30 percent stake in five Devon Energy shale operations for about $2.2 billion.
Under the terms of Chesapeake joint venture, Total will take a 25 percent interest in a 619,000-acre parcel of the Utica Shale in eastern Ohio. The deal is Total’s second partnership with Chesapeake, the most active natural gas driller in the United States.
<snip>
Sinopec will pay Devon $900 million in cash and up to $1.2 billion in future drilling costs in exchange for a one-third interest in five shale operations, including in the Utica Shale, as well as for petroleum deposits in Louisiana, Oklahoma, Michigan, Colorado and Wyoming. Through the end of the year, Devon said it expected to drill 125 wells in the five locations.
“This arrangement improves Devon’s capital efficiency by recovering our land and drilling costs to date and by significantly reducing our future capital commitments,” John Richels, Devon’s president and chief executive, said in a statement.
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/01/03/total-buys-2-3-billion-stake-in-chesapeake-shale-assets/
The 5 businesses that rip off the poor
Banks rate right there with the Check/Loan Sharks
1. Payday lenders
2. 'Buy here, pay here' car lots
3. Used-car leasing
4. Rent to own
5. Banks
http://money.msn.com/shopping-deals/5-businesses-that-rip-off-the-poor-weston.aspx
7 year old girl gets liposuction voucher for Christmas from Mom
Mummy, just what I always wanted! Girl, 7, gets £7,000 liposuction voucher for Christmas from ‘Human Barbie’ mum51-year-old mother claims surgery will 'come in handy'
Follows £6,000 boob job as birthday gift
A seven-year-old who received a voucher for a boob job on her last birthday has received yet another inappropriate gift from her surgery-obsessed mother: A £7,000 voucher for liposuction.
Little Poppy Burge received the gift in her Christmas stocking after her mother, a 51-year-old plastic surgery addict known as The Human Barbie, decided it would 'come in handy'.
'I put the voucher in her stocking - there's nothing wrong with that,' she said.
'She asks for surgery all the time. She wants to look good and lipo is one of those procedures that will always come in handy.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2081674/Poppy-Burge-gets-liposuction-voucher-Human-Barbie-mum-Sarah-Christmas.html#ixzz1iawXyrTt
What is wrong with people.
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