If all printers were determined not to print anything till they were sure it would offend nobody, there would be very little printed. -- Benjamin Franklin
As global average temperatures rise due to greenhouse gas emissions, the effects on the planet, such as melting ice caps, extreme weather, drought and rising sea levels, will threaten populations and livelihoods, said the report conducted by humanitarian organisation DARA.
It calculated that five million deaths occur each year from air pollution, hunger and disease as a result of climate change and carbon-intensive economies, and that toll would likely rise to six million a year by 2030 if current patterns of fossil fuel use continue.
More than 90 percent of those deaths will occur in developing countries, said the report that calculated the human and economic impact of climate change on 184 countries in 2010 and 2030. It was commissioned by the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a partnership of 20 developing countries threatened by climate change.
"A combined climate-carbon crisis is estimated to claim 100 million lives between now and the end of the next decade," the report said.
It said the effects of climate change had lowered global output by 1.6 percent of world GDP, or by about $1.2 trillion a year, and losses could double to 3.2 percent of global GDP by 2030 if global temperatures are allowed to rise, surpassing 10 percent before 2100.
With six weeks until Election Day, new polling from Quinnipiac, the New York Times and CBS News shows President Obama leading in crucial swing states including Ohio, Florida and Iowa. As Obama’s lead grows, so does the number of conservatives who claim polls in general are biased and cannot be trusted. Similar to their dismissal of fact-checkers who flagged lies in Romney’s ads and Paul Ryan’s convention speech, conservatives are now claiming the media outlets that conduct the polls are attempting to discourage Republicans from voting by falsely tipping the polls toward Democrats.
Helping this narrative along is a new website, Unskewed Polls, which claims, after liberal media bias is removed, Romney is in fact beating Obama by a wide margin in every poll. Business Insider unpacked how the website is manipulating data to come up with a Romney victory.
Nicknamed “poll sample truthers” by Dave Weigel, the skeptics are falling over each other to explain how the numbers are lying.
So, I have three theories why they have decided to avoid polling data:
Theory #1- Victimhood is so much easier and far more soothing than objective reality. They can scream about how every polling outlet is against them and affirm the “left wing bias” of the media. Ed Henry and Chris Wallace are giggling right now.
Theory #2- They know they are going to lose, so they are just poisoning the well, trying to nullify the impact of an Obama victory. For Republicans, this is a viable strategy. For Democrats. this seems kind of silly, since anyone with a pulse knows that Jim Demint and the teahadists are going to spend the next four years sabotaging Obama regardless, much like they have for the past four years.
Finally, there is option #3- the point of claiming the polls are wrong is to provide cover for Republican governors to throw the election.
This was after a debate regarding whether some of her purchases were covered by food stamps. Approximately ten dollars worth of items were being questioned, and the manager decided to just give her the items rather than argue. Yet he said this.Is a $15 gift card enough to compensate for public humiliation at your local grocery store? According to one Georgia woman, the answer is absolutely not.Cindy Nerger, 28, who relies on food stamps to feed her family, said she was brought to tears after being embarrassed by a manager at a Kroger store in Warner Robbins, Ga.“He said, ‘Excuse me for working for a living and not relying on food stamps like you,’” Nerger said the manager told her.
A federal criminal complaint unsealed in Covington on Wednesday says Kerry T. Prater of West Liberty had three weapons and at least 500 rounds of ammunition when he ran through an Erlanger police roadblock on Sept. 17. Obama's motorcade passed through northern Kentucky that day on the way to Cincinnati.The complaint, written by Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms Agent Ronald Young, says Prater has a lengthy criminal history and had been previously declared mentally ill.
Young wrote that police erected the roadblock that afternoon. Air Force One landed at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport in Hebron, Ky., about 16 miles south of Cincinnati.The suspect ran through the roadblock and was forced off the road by an Erlanger police officer, Young wrote."Prater refused to exit the vehicle and (the officer) removed him from the vehicle," Young wrote.After Prater was out of the car, the police officer saw a partially concealed .38 caliber revolver on the front passenger floorboard, Young wrote. The officer then found a .223 caliber rifle hidden under a towel on the rear floorboard with four loaded magazines and 500 additional rounds of ammunition, Young wrote.A search of Prater's car turned up a third revolver as well, Young wrote.
President Obama's support for abortion and taxpayer funded birth control could kill his chances to win swing voters in Ohio, Virginia, Wisconsin and Florida, and possibly his reelection, according to a new poll.
Likely voters by a 49 percent to 25 percent margin, or two-to-one, say they are less likely to vote for Obama because he included taxpayer funding of abortion in Obamacare. A whopping 54 percent are less likely to back him due to his vote against a law to give equal treatment to babies born alive after a failed abortion. And 69 percent reject the administration's mandate that forces faith-based institutions to provide insurance that covers birth control.
In fact, the policy does not require anyone who does not want abortion coverage to pay for it. Under the law, states have to offer at least one health plan on their insurance exchanges that doesn't cover abortion services at all. If a state decides it does want to have health plans that cover abortion services on its exchange, and if a woman chooses one of those plans, then she has to pay a separate fee of at least $1 to a separate account for that coverage in order to make sure no federal dollars are used to support abortion services.
In reporting on abortion-rights opponents' criticism of Sen. Barack Obama's opposition as an Illinois state senator to bills seeking to amend the Illinois Abortion Law of 1975, the media have promoted numerous myths and falsehoods about Obama and the legislation. In several instances, the media have simply repeated false accusations -- or made the accusations themselves -- that Obama's opposition amounted to support for infanticide. For example, on the August 18 edition of his radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Obama "believes it is proper to kill a baby that has survived an abortion," while right-wing pundit Ann Coulter said that Obama "wants the doctors ... chasing it through the delivery room to make sure it gets killed." Further, author Jerome Corsi claimed that "[e]ven if a child was born, he said the woman still had the right to kill the child in an abortion," and Oregonian associate editor David Reinhard wrote that Obama's opposition was "enabling infanticide." In fact, as Media Matters for America has repeatedly noted, Obama and other opponents said the bill posed a threat to abortion rights and was unnecessary because, they said, Illinois law already prohibited the conduct supposedly addressed by the bill.
In a single-payer system, you pay for your insurance through taxes. In an employer-based system, like the one the Affordable Care Act reinforces, you pay for your insurance through wages that your employers withholds and dumps into a health insurance fund on your behalf. Either way, though, it’s really your money that's paying for your health insurance, not your company’s. The only objection that ought to matter is yours.