StupidiNews!

• With Syria openly warning that it has and will use chemical and biological weapons should the al-Assad regime be attacked, the United States is warning that Syria should keep those contained.
• Georgia's highest state court has stayed the execution of a mentally disabled man, but only on temporary grounds involving the method of lethal injection.
• Social activists are pushing Democrats to try to raise the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour, but Republicans insist that minimum wages need to be abolished to make America more competitive.
• US 10-year bonds fell to a record low yield of 1.40% as investors continue to flock to safe US treasuries.
• Scientists have come up with a construct made of protein from rat hearts and synthetic plastic that manages to swim like a jellyfish.

Last Call

OBAMA IS DOOOOOOOOOOOMED!

Despite concerted Democratic attacks on his business record, Republican challenger Mitt Romney scores a significant advantage over President Obama when it comes to managing the economy, reducing the federal budget deficit and creating jobs, a national USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

By more than 2-1, 63%-29%, those surveyed say Romney's background in business, including his tenure at the private equity firm Bain Capital, would cause him to make good decisions, not bad ones, in dealing with the nation's economic problems over the next four years.

The findings raise questions about Obama's strategy of targeting Bain's record in outsourcing jobs and hammering Romney for refusing to commit to releasing more than two years of his tax returns. Instead, Americans seem focused on the economy, where disappointment with the fragile recovery and the 8.2% unemployment rate are costing the president.

He's done, it's over, measure the drapes for President Romney, it's hopeless, we're all...wait, what?

In the separate Gallup tracking poll, the race stands at 46% Obama, 45% Romney.

Really.   So....despite all the CEO preisdent stuff...people are still preferring the President.   Gosh, it's like Gallup and USA Today are in the business of trying to sell a really close race or something.

Westboro Fail Is Really A Win

The Westboro picketers had chosen a Missouri soldier's funeral to use for publicity, when people came together to make sure they weren't successful.

A planned protest by the Westboro Baptist Church was overshadowed Saturday when thousands of supporters gathered at the funeral of a fallen soldier to block the radical church's effort.

Thousands of people in red shirts formed a "human wall" around the Columbia, Mo. church where 21-year-old Army Specialist Sterling Wyatt's funeral was held. Wyatt was killed in Afghanistan earlier this month.

Westboro Baptist Church, an independent Kansas-based church known for its extreme ideology and widely condemned demonstrations, had indicated plans to picket the funeral. When Tori Smith, an acquaintance of Wyatt's, got wind of the protest plans, she decided to organize a small group of supporters to counteract the church's negative actions. Word of Smith's plans spread quickly, drawing thousands to the church on Saturday morning.

See, that's how you do it.  Show respect for the fallen, for the families you live with grew up with, and enforce decency in a way that promotes goodness.  Westboro members have no class, no integrity and no clue.  However, the people who stood up to them were able to demonstrate grace, kindness and strength.  

Well done, guys.

From A Child's View

Years ago, kids from an orphanage in Sudan were given cameras.  Volunteers taught them how to take pictures, and turned the kids loose to photograph what was significant to them.  The results were so moving and powerful that 100cameras.org was born.

Photographs from these trips have brought thousands of dollars to the children's organizations. Bullock says they have a lot of freedom as a small group to address each community's needs individually. "That's the great part of our model. We get to have the conversation with the organization and ask, 'What do you need?'"

In Sudan it was lifelines, like food and medicine. In New York it was educational needs, after-school learning and computers. Cuba's greatest need was humanitarian aid like food and medicine, but the community also needed a center where the children's parents could be taught business classes.

100cameras raised $17,000 for the Sudanese orphanage. It was used for critical maintenance to get a truck running that brings in food and medicine. The money was also used to build a fence that keeps them protected from violence of rebel forces in the region.

The staff says they are overjoyed by the fact that these kids are creating their own success. Bullock says, "It's really exciting for kids there to see these changes and to feel an ownership in that."

The goal is to have their cameras stretch around the globe, and for the impact to continue to be both economic and personal. "We want as many kids as possible empowered with the idea and concept that their perspective matters. To know it's their work that can create change in their own communities."

The kids don't just get a handout, but the chance to truly bring change to their communities.  The photographs are pretty cool, and each project gets better and turns out better results.  I'm impressed.

Aw, Nuts

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In a study based on 62,000 Danish mothers, the children of those who atepeanuts and tree nuts while pregnant were less likely to develop asthma or allergies than the kids whose mothers shunned nuts.

The results support the recent withdrawal of recommendations that pregnant women should avoid nuts because they might raise a child's risk for allergies to the nuts themselves and for other hypersensitivities like asthma, according to the U.S. and Danish researchers.

"There's some mixed data out there and this current study is showing that maybe there might be a benefit to your child in having less asthma later on if you continue to just eat the way you're still eating and not avoid (nuts)," said Dr. Todd Mahr, a pediatric allergist at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center in La Crosse, Wisconsin, who was not involved in the study.

In 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics rescinded its recommendation that women should avoid eating peanuts while pregnant to prevent a possible food allergy, and the UK's health agency did the same in 2010.

There is little research implicating even peanuts, specifically, eaten by a pregnant mother and her child's risk for peanut allergy - much less a wider range of sensitivities. Yet the fear continues to lead many expectant mothers to steer clear of nuts.

The article has many other findings listed, as well as information about what these numbers mean.  For example, the focus was on nuts so there may be other foods that aren't turning up in the results.

Being a mother is a difficult job, no question.  Trying to filter medical information in this overload would be daunting.  It's upsetting to know that tribal knowledge is steering women in the wrong direction.  More research should give more facts to use to make sure mothers can make good decisions and eat well during pregnancy.

The Fall Of The House Of Jackson

Katherine Jackson was reported missing by at least one concerned family member.  As TMZ has reported, authorities believe Jackson is safe and well in Arizona.  Why do they think this?  Why hasn't the mother of Michael Jackson released a simple statement putting minds at ease?  We don't know yet.  Something feels weird, but when has this family ever been normal?

Michael's daughter Paris has been outspoken and honest.  After living a life of hiding, the girl has found her voice and isn't afraid to speak.  It's refreshing, and may peel layers of stupidity back so this dysfunctional group can move on.

Some sources say the 82-year-old woman is resting on doctor's orders, some say with one of her daughters.  She has been  under a lot of stress with Michael's estate, though the good news is it is nearly out of debt after an amazing financial comeback.  Michael Jackson may have had a complicated relationship with his father, but there was never a doubt that he loved his mother and would have wanted her to be well cared for.

Update
This morning, TMZ ran an update that Katherine reached out to let concerned family members know she is okay.  No explanation as to why she was reported missing or why she isn't at home.

The Pain In Spain Continues, Part 3

Several more Spanish regional governments are now asking for bailout billions as Spain's problems continue to grow worse.

The Balearic Islands and Catalonia are among six Spanish regions that may ask for aid from the central government after Valencia sought a bailout, El Pais reported.

Castilla-La-Mancha, Murcia, the Canary Islands and possibly Andalusia are also having difficulty funding themselves and some of these regions are studying plans to tap the recently created emergency-loan fund that Valencia said it would use yesterday, the newspaper said, without citing anyone.

Spain created the 18 billion-euro ($23 billion) bailout mechanism last week to help cash-strapped regions even as its own access to financial markets narrows. 

And with Spanish 10-year bonds now well into the danger zone at 7.25% and climbing, the cost of that bailout is only going to get significantly worse.  Spain and California have about the same number of people (46 million) and close to the same GDP (California is about $2 trillion, Spain about $1.5 trillion.)  Imagine if 6 California counties, not cities but entire counties, declared bankruptcy and demanded bailout money?  That's where Spain is right now.

And yes, that should scare you.  If Spain goes down, Europe follows.

Getting Serious On Syria, Part 8

The NY Times dropped this piece in our laps on Sunday, claiming that the Obama administration is just going to dropkick al-Assad out of Syria and be done with it.

The Obama administration has for now abandoned efforts for a diplomatic settlement to the conflict in Syria, and instead it is increasing aid to the rebels and redoubling efforts to rally a coalition of like-minded countries to forcibly bring down the government of President Bashar al-Assad, American officials say.

Administration officials have been in talks with officials in Turkey and Israel over how to manage a Syrian government collapse. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta is headed to Israel in the next several days to meet with Israeli defense counterparts, following up on a visit last week by President Obama’s national security adviser Thomas E. Donilon, in part to discuss the Syrian crisis. 

The White House is now holding daily high-level meetings to discuss a broad range of contingency plans — including safeguarding Syria’s vast chemical weapons arsenal and sending explicit warnings to both warring sides to avert mass atrocities — in a sign of the escalating seriousness of the Syrian crisis following a week of intensified fighting in Damascus, the capital, and the killing of Mr. Assad’s key security aides in a bombing attack. 

The administration has had regular talks with the Israelis about how Israel might move to destroy Syrian weapons facilities, administration officials said. The administration is not advocating such an attack, the officials said, because of the risk that it would give Mr. Assad an opportunity to rally support against Israeli interference. 

The plan appears to be as with Libya, to greatly increase assistance to rebel groups and give them the means to force al-Assad out by violent means.  In other words, regime change, Obama style (hopefully without the ten year war afterwards with US troops.)

It's pretty clear that the massacres in Syria will not stop unless al-Assad goes, but I'm not sure the cure will be better than the disease or not here.  It's at least worth debating.  Sadly, there's no such thing as political debate in Washington these days, so whatever the Obama administration decides to do, it's already a done deal.

We'll see.

StupidiNews!

• The Aurora, Colorado shooting suspect will face arraignment in an Arapahoe County court today, the charges are expected to include first-degree murder which could carry the death penalty.
• A near-riot broke out in Anaheim, California after police fired upon an unarmed suspect who later died and responded to the crowd with rubber bullets and attack dogs.
• Penn State's football program is expected to face "unprecedented" NCAA penalties for the school's involvement in enabling child sexual abuse.
• Greece moves back to the forefront of the European financial crisis as the country's international creditors arrive in Athens today for another stark assessment of Greek finances.
• With success of its pilot Project Sputnik, Dell will be selling Ubuntu-based laptops with pre-loaded development tools.

Last Call

Nothing will happen after Aurora.  Nothing.  No laws will be passed, no regulations enforced, nothing.  And the next massacre will happen a few weeks or months from now, or hours if we're talking about the often forgotten urban centers of America where the victims are inner city minorities neck deep in gang violence.

Meanwhile our village betters keep telling us we can never have gun control.

Conservative columnist George Will said Sunday that the Aurora, Colo. shootings have little to do with the nation’s gun laws, describing it as the product of an isolated, deranged individual.

“That’s what the problem is – an individual’s twisted mind,” he said on ABC’s “This Week” roundtable. “There is a human itch in the modern age to commit sociology as soon as this happens and to piggy-back various political agendas on a tragedy. And I just think we ought to resist that. … There are deranged people in the world.”

We can never have gun control because Crazy People.

Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, also appearing on the roundtable, similarly argued that the tragedy didn’t have much to do with gun laws. She said the more relevant issue is mental health.

You know, mental health programs that Republicans say we have to cut if not eliminate entirely because we can't afford them, and we have to give tax cuts to corporations and the job creators and more money to the Pentagon for better, deadlier weapons to kill people with.

After all it's the stupid victims' fault for being shot and not packing heat to defend themselves with.

Former Arizona State Sen. Russell Pearce wrote a missive Saturday highlighting the collective failure of the victims of the Aurora, Colo. massacre to stop the shooter who left 12 people dead and nearly 60 wounded in a movie theater.

The outspoken conservative — known for his ardent pro-gun and anti-illegal-immigration views — later sought to clarify that he was merely blaming gun control laws.

Early Saturday morning, the former Republican lawmaker took to Facebook to mourn the victims. He then wondered why none were “[b]rave” enough to stop the atrocity.

“Where were the men of flight 93???? Someone should have stopped this man,” he wrote. “…All that was needed is one Courages/Brave man prepared mentally or otherwise to stop this it could have been done.”

Only more guns can solve America's gun problem, just like only more tax cuts can solve America's tax revenue problems.

Today In Village Idiocy

Jay Rosen, journalism professor at NYU and media critic at large, has a term for that obnoxious Village tendency to compare two sides in an argument (liberals and conservatives especially) and lazily declare both sides to be equivalent in their partisan transgressions while the Villagers pretend to stay above the fray.  He calls it the View from Nowhere:

In pro journalism, American style, the View from Nowhere is a bid for trust that advertises the viewlessness of the news producer. Frequently it places the journalist between polarized extremes, and calls that neither-nor position “impartial.” Second, it’s a means of defense against a style of criticism that is fully anticipated: charges of bias originating in partisan politics and the two-party system. Third: it’s an attempt to secure a kind of universal legitimacy that is implicitly denied to those who stake out positions or betray a point of view. American journalists have almost a lust for the View from Nowhere because they think it has more authority than any other possible stance.

Rosen's been on to this tendency since the early Dubya years, nearly a decade now.  He's certainly nailed the process and the why:  It's used to suck all the legitimacy out of either side in a political argument and bestow it on the writer.

A perfect example of that is this Mark Fisher piece in the Washington Post equating Romney's tax returns to...you guessed it, President Obama's boirth certificate.  Fisher is careful to keep his View from Nowhere intact as he compares the two and throws up his hands, blaming both sides for the "lack of trust" in our politics.

When Obama’s birth certificate, passport records and medical files remain an issue for some voters through his presidency, it means that some people are still trying to resolve doubts about his exotic background — his role as a racial pioneer and his biography as the child of a father from Africa and a mother who took her son across the globe.

And when Romney’s tax records become a political albatross, that dispute is not so much about the merits of running a transparent campaign as about the discomfort some voters feel toward the candidate’s wealth and whether he understands the lives of those who have less.

Document battles — whether trumped-up election-season kerfuffles or genuine quests for important information — have been a mainstay of every national campaign since 2000. That should tell us that the hunger for proof stems from something much deeper than our search for the immaculate candidate. It’s part of our larger national neurosis, the corrosion of the sense that whatever our political leanings, we all share a common fact base. The fraying of that consensus has led increasingly to an entrenched popular skepticism, a stance toward politicians and institutions of all kinds that’s not just an arched-eyebrow “Show me,” but an obstinate and insistent “I don’t believe you.”

Not only do Americans increasingly segregate themselves in information silos arranged by political ideology, but even when we’re ensconced in the comforting echo chamber of Fox/Drudge World or MSNBC/NPR Land, we’re cynical about the very nature of facts.

Obama's birth certificate and Romney's tax returns are the same!  Both should be dismissed as things you shouldn't believe in.  The controversies surrounding them are just ginned up, because FOX and Drudge are the same as MSNBC and NPR.  Only the Village stands above it all.

And this is how our press will deal with the Romney tax returns issue now.  "It's the same as the Obama birth certificate thing, it's all nonsense, both sides do it.  We'll tell you what you really need to know about the candidates.  Stay tuned!"

Our press is trying to get you away from anything that would sink Romney and leave the campaign season meaningless.  They'd be out millions in political ad revenue if the race wasn't close, and more importantly nobody would ask them what they should be thinking about the candidates.

We're "cynical about the nature of facts" alright.  Especially with this press.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Bill Moyers gives us this staggeringly important interview with author Chris Hedges, who describes America of the Great Recession, an America completely subservient to corporate interests in both parties, those corporate interests bleeding out American cities and regions in the name of Almighty Profit.

Hedges calls these areas "Sacrifice Zones" in his new book.  He's absolutely right.

Hedges was particularly eloquent in describing the coal-mining areas of West Virginia, which “in terms of national resources is one of the richest areas of the United States [but] harbor the poorest pockets of community, the poorest communities in the United States. Because those resources are extracted, and that money is not funneled back into the communities.”

“Not only that,” he continued, “but they’re extracted in such a way that the communities themselves are destroyed. … They no longer want to dig down for the coal, and so they’re blowing the top 400 feet off of mountains poisoning the air, poisoning the soil, poisoning the water. … You are rendering the area moonscape. It becomes uninhabitable. … It’s all destroyed and it’s not coming back.”

Hedges went on to talk about Camden, New Jersey, which since the disappearance of manufacturing has become the poorest city in the United States and one of the most dangerous. “It’s a dead city,” he said. “There’s nothing left. There is no employment. Whole blocks are abandoned. The only thing functioning are open-air drug markets, of which there are about a hundred. And you’re talking third or fourth generation of people trapped in these internal colonies. They can’t get out.”

He spoke also about the Pine Ridge Reservation and migrant workers in Florida, saying, ” It’s greed over human life. … We, in that biblical term, we forgot our neighbor. And because we forgot our neighbor in Pine Ridge, because we forgot our neighbor in Camden, in Southern West Virginia, in the produce fields, these forces have now turned on us. They went first, and we’re next.”

“These corporations know only one word, and that’s more,” Hedges went on. “And because the mechanisms of governance can no longer control them, there is nothing now within the formal mechanisms of power to stop them from the creating, essentially, a corporate oligarchic state.”

Watch the interview:



Devastating.  This is happening here, now.  And at every turn Republicans (and some Democrats) will make sure more and more Americans are sacrificed for corporate profit.  The GOP future of the United States is to simply keep jettisoning the weak and broken into the abyss until everything belongs to the one percent.

We're not too far off from that point now, a decade at most.

48 Hours Remembers Unsolved MO Murder

I remember when this happened, mostly because they made such a big deal about self-defense classes and how this woman was a green belt and was still beaten brutally.  And though it sounds hopelessly naive, that sort of stuff really never did happen around here.  Until then, at least.  48 Hours has investigated to bring new attention to the case.

"This is small town USA. A lot of stuff like this just doesn't happen," Walter said of the brutal murder.

Police documented the grisly scene using blood evidence to reconstruct Mischelle's final, terrifying moments.

"I believe she got out of the vehicle, and I think there was an argument," Walter explained. "She ended up over the guardrail and down the bottom of the slope. A very violent altercation took place. I believe she was beat at the bottom and knocked unconscious. There was a lot of blood…"

There was also blood under Mischelle's fingernails and marks on her right hand and wrist suggesting she had fought her assailants. 

"I think that she was fighting for her life. I think she was fighting more than one person," Walter said. "There was a blood trail going back up the hill. They carry her across the guardrail. They put her back in the car."

It wasn't until investigators searched her car and found three spent shell casings from a .380 caliber handgun that they realized Mischelle had been shot, too.

"I think after she got back in the car, I think that's when she regained conscious and somebody reached through the window…shot her point blank in the face; shot her in the back of the head. And then one more time in the back," Walter said, pausing. "I can't imagine what she went through that night."

She fought hard for her life, and lost.  It's unlikely anyone will ever come forward with information that will break the case open.  Her story is an important one for the area, though it's not enough to get a blip on coastal or major city news.  We were shocked and were forced to think about what we might do if faced with such a situation.

Besides the "Three Missing Women" case, this is probably the most famous unsolved case to haunt Missouri.

Stalkertastic

An obsessed lover built a hideout inside his ex-partner's house and used it to spy on her.

The 25-year-old man - who has name suppression - spent many hours in the hidden cavity, under a flight of stairs, and stocked it with clothes, bedding, food, candles, torches - and an arsenal of weapons.

He also cut holes in the plasterboard of the hideout and created trapdoors, giving him access to the whole house.

He was caught after he emerged from the hiding spot and lashed out with a spade when another man visited his former partner at the Lower Hutt home about 3am on April 1.

I cannot imagine what it would be like for a man to come bursting out of nowhere, wielding a weapon and speaking in Crazy.  I believe this may be the strangest booty call in the history of booty calls.

Not much is known about the man, except that his father surely contributed to his state.  In complete denial, his father calls it a "one-off" and suggests his son may have set this up over one night.   Trapdoors, bedding, weapons and all.  Somehow, in dear old Dad's mind, this means his son isn't as crazy as they believe.

But he's still crazy.  How do I know?  Sane people don't have a weapons cache in the room they use to spy on their ex.

Thank goodness this didn't end with someone getting killed.  They got to this one in time.

The Pain In Spain Continues, Part 2

The most recent Spanish austerity measures announced last week have now fomented major protests in the capital of Madrid as unemployed young Spaniards are descending on the the city in droves to rally against the Rajoy government.

Thousands of jobless Spaniards marched through Madrid Saturday in the latest angry demonstrations against economic crisis cuts, as fears rose for the country’s financial stability.

Young people thrown out of work by the recession converged on the capital, many of them having hiked hundreds of miles from around Spain, and walked through the city’s central avenues, waving banners and whistling.

“Hands up, this is a robbery!” they yelled, their regular refrain over recent days of protests. “Everyone get up and fight!”

It was the latest in a string of protests that have erupted since Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced 65 billion euros ($80 billion) in fresh austerity measures on July 11, including cuts to pay and unemployment benefits.

“I am very disappointed and angry,” said Alba Sanchez, 25, who had come by car from the northeastern region of Catalonia to join the demonstration.

“People cannot allow all these cuts by this government that hates us.”

The crowd marched peacefully to the sound of drums and trumpets and stopped at the Puerta del Sol square, the symbolic hub of numerous social protests, where demonstrators sat down and held a popular assembly.

On Thursday hundreds of thousands of demonstrators massed there after a mostly peaceful protest march that ended with police firing rubber bullets to disperse small groups of protestors.

Spain's population is only 46 million or so.  Protests involving hundreds of thousands would be the equivalent of a million plus here in the states.  Austerity there is failing, miserably.  The country's unemployment rate is almost 25% and things are only getting worse.

And when Spain goes down in flames, Europe will too.