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.
Mitt Romney pointed to the health care law he signed as governor of Massachusetts one of his signature achievements Wednesday, a move that has drawn swift and strong rebuke from conservatives in the past.
Romney pointed to the Massachusetts health care law — the foundation for the national healthcare reform law Romney promises to dismantle if elected — as a key highlight of his record in an interview with NBC News.
“[D]on’t forget — I got everybody in my state insured,” Romney told NBC. “One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don’t think there’s anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record.”
President Barack Obama is over the magic 50 percent mark and tops Gov. Mitt Romney among likely voters by 9 to 12 percentage points in Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, according to a Quinnipiac University/ CBS News/New York Times Swing State Poll released today.
Voters in each state see President Obama as better than Gov. Romney to handle the economy, health care, Medicare, national security, an international crisis and immigration. Romney ties or inches ahead of the president on handling the budget deficit.
Obama leads 60 - 35 percent among Ohio women likely voters, while men support Romney 52 - 44 percent. White voters back Romney by a narrow 49 - 46 percent, while 98 percent of black voters back the president. Independent voters are split with 47 percent for Romney and 46 percent for Obama.
Women likely voters back Obama 58 - 39 percent while men are divided with 50 percent for Romney and 47 percent for Obama. Hispanic voters go Democratic 55 - 41 percent while independent voters are split with 49 percent for Romney and 46 percent for Obama.
The economy is the most important issue for 47 percent of Florida voters, while 20 percent list health care; 10 percent list the budget deficit and 8 percent list national security.
The president would do a better job on health care, voters say 54 - 41 percent and do a better job on Medicare, voters say 55 - 40 percent. Voters over 55 say Obama would do a better job on Medicare 52 - 42 percent and back the president 53 - 45 percent.
Pennsylvania women likely voters back Obama 58 - 37 percent, while men split with 49 percent for Romney and 48 percent for the president. Independent voters are split 48 - 48 percent.
The economy is the most important issue for 48 percent of Pennsylvania voters, while 20 percent list health care; 11 percent list the budget deficit and 7 percent list national security.
The president would do a better job on health care, voters say 54 - 41 percent and do a better job on Medicare, voters say 55 - 39 percent. Voters over 55 say Obama would do a better job on Medicare 52 - 43 percent and back the president 50 - 46 percent.
During an interview on Fox News, Coulter told host Sean Hannity that her new book “Mugged: Racial Demagoguery from the Seventies to Obama” proved that “everyone — blacks especially — are better off when the white guilt bank is shut down as it was for more than a decade after the O.J. verdict.”
“Liberals kept trying to push the racial narrative in their newspapers and on TV, but Americans just weren’t buying it,” she explained. “After Oct. 3, 1994 when they heard the verdict and saw black law students at Howard University cheering it, that was it.”
“And for a dozen years, we had paradise. Suddenly, people weren’t walking on eggshells, you could have [then-New York City Mayor Rudy] Giuliani enforcing sane criminal laws in New York and not caring that we was constantly being called a racist by liberals and Al Sharpton, the Clinton administration. And look what it did, it transformed the city and it saved — because the policies were continued — tens of thousands of black lives.”
Two Purple Hearts says a lot about a person and their commitment to doing the right thing while facing mortal risk. This man knew what he was doing, and in the process he saved the life of someone he loved very much.A veteran awarded two Purple Hearts was struck and killed while pushing his wife away from an oncoming car. 80-year-old Rubin Baum, who served as a medic in the Korean War, was standing with his wife, 62-year-old Denise Baum, trying to hail a cab in New York City.The New York Daily News spoke with the newly widowed Baum about her late husband. According to Denise Baum, a sedan crashed into a minivan, causing the sedan to lose control and go into a spin. It hit the couple. Denise was thrown into a parked car. Her husband was pinned under the sedan.
(CNN) -- Women have finally arrived.From Washington to Wall Street to Twitter, writers, academics, and business leaders are pointing to the empowerment of women as key to many of the world's greatest challenges. They're publicizing the research and amplifying hard facts, like the fact that when women have equal access to agricultural resources, 100 million to 150 million fewer people will go hungry.Or that when women participate equally in the workforce, the GDP in the U.S. the eurozone, and Japan will experience a double-digit spike. And while there's no perfect metric for the popular perception of "girl power," a 2010 Pew study found widespread public support for women's equality in virtually every nation.
So tell me again, where have we arrived? How is it that half the world is second class? While women can accomplish quite a bit in the United States, there is still a glass ceiling firmly in place. Women are nowhere near claiming their half, even in one of the friendlier countries in the world.The excitement over women's potential and progress is warranted. But there's still a large and disappointing disconnect between research and reality. Girls and women do indeed perform 66% of the work and produce 50% of the world's food. But they earn only 10% of the world's income and own a dismal 1% of its property.
Why Isn’t Romney Up by Ten Points?
But here’s the thing: The most recent Rasmussen party identification poll has Republicans with a 4.3 percentage point advantage over Democrats nationally. At the same point in the 2008 election cycle Democrats had a 5.7 percent advantage. That’s a 10 point swing, a swing that began to manifest itself in the 2010 midterms, when the Democrats’ advantage fell to just 1.2 points — and they suffered an epic blowout.
The polls may be provide a fairly accurate snapshot of where the race is today. But there’s reason to believe Obama’s appreciably weaker than four years ago, and Republicans should be more optimistic than the timid souls that populate our TV screens seem to be.
Declaring that he wants to “change Medicare and Medicaid like I did welfare,” Thompson asked a May gathering of the Lake Country Area Defenders Of Liberty in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin: “Who better to and who better than me, who’s already finished one of the entitlement programs, to come up with programs to do away with Medicaid and Medicare?”
The video has only now surfaced and its a blockbuster—especially in the aftermath of the release last week of a similar video that saw Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney dismissing 47 percent of Americans as a "dependent" class unworthy of Republican consideration.
Just to repeat: a top Republican Senate candidate has been caught on video talking about how he would “DO AWAY WITH MEDICAID, AND MEDICARE.”
Just to repeat: “DO AWAY WITH MEDICAID, AND MEDICARE.”
President Barack Obama is trying hard to win veterans, but it looks like they’d prefer a new commander in chief.
The Obama campaign had been hoping that veterans and their families — especially among the post-Sept. 11 generation that served in Iraq and Afghanistan — would be part of their path to victory: They’re a high turn-out demographic and concentrated in battleground states, with nearly 1 million each in North Carolina, Ohio and Virginia, and 1.6 million in Florida.
But recent polls make clear that the president’s campaign is losing the battle. Even as Obama leads in Colorado, Florida, Ohio and Virginia, Mitt Romney is up by double digits among veterans in those states. Nationwide, he’s got a commanding 20-percentage-point lead over Obama and has even overtaken the president with younger veterans.
A poll released Monday by Reuters and Ipsos proves the obvious: if a candidate talks tough on Medicare and other social welfare programs of use to senior citizens, the elderly will return the favor by deserting his campaign in droves.
The latest unfortunate politician to learn this lesson is Republican nominee for president Mitt Romney, who has seen his support collapse by 20 percent among men and women over the age of 60 in the few weeks since the Democratic National Convention.
The money spent by Super Pacs, unions, corporations and non-profit groups is more than double what those groups spent in 2010, the first campaign in which the supreme court judgment had taken effect. Although Super Pacs are usually thought of being aligned with presidential candidates, the Sunlight Foundation found that much of these groups' recent spending has been focussed on more localised electoral battles.
"A deeper dive into the data shows that the latest uptick in outside spending is focused on congressional races: even in presidential battleground states, almost all the spending by outside groups is focused on House and Senate candidates," [Sunlight Foundation managing editor Kathy] Kiely wrote.
Recent expenditure includes Crossroads GPS spending $400,000 in Nevada against Democratic Senate candidate Shelley Berkley; Workers Voice, an AFL-CIO Super Pac, logged hundreds of expenditures in the $25-60 range in Florida, indicating a get-out-the-vote effort for senator Bill Nelson, according to the Sunlight Foundation.
Of $465m of outside money spent so far in 2012 $460.8m comes from Super Pacs, corporations and other groups which do not have to register as political groups. An additional $4.1m comes from "electioneering communications": advertisements or political activities that focus on issues and policies – the oil industry, for example – and encourage voters to support a candidate without mentioning any politicians by name.
Arnold Schwarzenegger says his estranged wife Maria Shriver confronted him about his secret love child during a couple's therapy session and that she'd suspected for years ... according to his new book ... but the good news -- Arnold assured Maria he was still "turned on" by her.What a jerk. What an absolute rotten, clueless son of a bitch.
In the book, obtained by the New York Daily News, Arnold says Maria took him to couple's therapy in 2011 -- the day after her left the California governorship. He believed he was there for routine marriage counseling -- instead, Maria asked him point blank if he slept with the maid and spawned a love child years before.
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