Since One Of My Five (Yes, 5!) Loyal Readers Seems To Watch Soccer, Here's Something He Might Like

Or not.

This Is One Hellavu Great Idea

Free medical school, I like it, I suppose the ReThugs will call it socialism.

Making medical school free would relieve doctors of the burden of student debt and gradually shift the work force away from specialties and toward primary care. It would also attract college graduates who are discouraged from going to medical school by the costly tuition.

We estimate that we can make medical school free for roughly $2.5 billion per year — about one-thousandth of what we spend on health care in the United States each year. What’s more, we can offset most if not all of the cost of medical school without the government’s help by charging doctors for specialty training.

My emphasis.

1 in 6?

& then this:

About one in six children in the U.S. now have a developmental disability, and that will likely increase demand for health and education services, researchers said.

Don't worry, with the ReThugs in charge, these children won't cost us much, after all, Ryan's budget doesn't include death benefits.

Gil Scott-Heron, R.I.P.

He's dead.

More here.

& here.

I'm Sorry, But This Is Just Bullshit

C'mon President Obama, quit restricting freedom.

Nina Leopold Bradley, R.I.P.

She's dead.http://www.jsonline.com/news/obituaries/122658879.html  Ms. Bradely made Wisco great, along with many others.  The little men, &, sadly women, who currently rule Wisco, if they could read, should take what she & her father have said.  I hold almost no hope that this will occur.

Nina Leopold Bradley continued the legacy of her famous father - renowned environmentalist Aldo Leopold - but in every sense of the word made it her own.

A lifelong naturalist and researcher, she returned in 1976 to the family land where Leopold recorded his observations of nature in the 1930s and 1940s, published as the seminal "A Sand County Almanac" after his death in 1948. Bradley continued those observations, finding clear evidence of how plants and animals were responding to climate changes since her father walked the same land.

Her work was published in 1999 by the National Academy of Sciences, "in one of the first published studies that species were responding differently to climate change," said Buddy Huffaker, executive director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation.

Good For Judge Sumi

Eat it, FitzWalkerstan.  I hope you enjoy it.

Perblueeye? Muscatuna? Maswordacudda?

I wonder if this is the kind of free market Sean Duffy supports?  You know, the kind of free market that just screws the consumers knowingly?  I'll bet Sean just loves this kind of free market.  I would suggest that you go catch your own fish, grill it, eat it. & bee happy.  You can also apply lots of lime juice or lemon or any citrus juice & "cook" the fish & eat it'  Anyway, here's the story.

A Bit Of Good News

Democrat wins in a highly conservative New York district.  Let's see, bite me, ReThugs.  I can only hope these morons hold fast to Ryan's plan to destroy Medicare.

Two Happy Birthdays

First, The Darling Daughter.  I'm lucky, she's a wonderful daughter.  Happy birthday, Kid.  You can see what she's up to here.

&, of course, it's also Bob Dylan's birthday.  & no, we didn't force the pregnancy to end on this day.  I hope he has a great day, a great 70th birthday.  I find this so difficult to believe.  So here's to the Darling Daughter.

There is a great slideshow here. Go & enjoy.

News From FitzWalkerstan

Scott Walker, a college drop-out, can now veto administrative rules promulgated by college graduates & experts in their area of public policy.  Yay, let's be like Alabama & allow one whitetail deer a day for a season that lasts, oh, let's see, all year, yeah, that's the ticket.  This is one more example of how Walker & his ReThug minions are destroying a once great state. While the proposed rules were under the legislature's oversight, a good thing in that it is the legislature that makes the laws & they would have a much better appreciation & ability of how to make sure the rules supported the law.  Walker just wants everything to himself & what about those agencies that have constitutionally elected heads?  Will the Dept. of Education kowtow to Walker?  The Department of Justice?  I sure hope not. Walker is just a fucking worm. an invasive fuxking worm.

Yes, Dear Loyal Five (Yes, 5!) Readers, This Is A Post About The Wonder & Value Of SCIENCE!

Owls.

Owls are also highly evolved hunters and killers. They have the best hearing in the bird world — some owls, like the great gray, can hear a mouse moving under a foot of snow or more and swoop down and capture it without ever seeing it. In owls with a facial disc, the ears are hidden behind it, and are asymmetrical — one is higher than the other. That allows the birds to locate prey both horizontally and vertically for more accurate detection. The round face functions as a kind of satellite dish, funneling the sound to the ears, so the owl can make in-flight course corrections based solely on sound.

Their exquisite hearing does not mean that their powers of sight are diminished. Owls have many more rods in their eyes than humans, which bring in much more light, akin to natural night-vision goggles. Like humans, owls have binocular vision, which means they see in three dimensions. They can also rotate their heads 270 degrees. “In two turns,” Mr. Holt said, “they can see all around them.”

Their wings stand out as a marvel of evolutionary engineering. There is a comblike serrated feather on the leading edge of the wing, velourlike feathers on top and a trailing edge of feathers on the rear of the wing. “These three things combine to reduce aerodynamic flight noise,” so they can surprise their prey, Mr. Holt said. Being rigged for silent flying means they can also hear their prey better.

The owl also has the lowest wing-loading ratio of any bird, which means the wings are much larger than its body mass and provide a great deal of loft. “That gives them great aerial agility,” Mr. Holt said. “They can fly really slow, just above stalling speed. It also gives them the ability to gain lift easily with prey.”

My emphases.

It's About Time The SCOTUS Did Something That's Good For America

We, the USA, have more people in jail than any other country.  Why, because the ReThugs have created such fear in the American public, that they approve the locking up of just about anyone.  It's time for this stupidity to stop & this ruling may be a beginning. 

 

When Will The Bigots Just Move To Somalia?

 Come on, Gophers, stop the idiocy & do the right thing. 

I Guess We Won Or Something, Eh?

Maybe not.

Explosions killed at least 15 people and wounded 74 in the Baghdad area on Sunday, including a suicide bombing targeting Iraqi soldiers north of the capital, security officials said.

Bullshit

Just Roman Catholic bullshit.  I hate these guys.

Still Think You Live In A Free Country?

I don't.  I'd suggest patchouli oil on the doorknob.  The mush brains on the SCOTUS are continuing to hurt freedom & the country.  

Light Posting? Light Posting? Don't Talk About Light Posting

I'm hoping to be posting, but may not, but I might, who knows?  Anyway, I'm leaving town this afternoon for MN & the funeral of my Aunt Kate.  Hopefully I have some pictures to post here & at my other blog.  I'll be  traveling along the Mississippi River south of The Cities so maybe I'll get lucky & get some eagles & stuff.  later, gators.

Vivian Myerson, R.I.P.

She's dead.

After World War II, they moved to Los Angeles, where Vivian worked as a stenographer for Southern Pacific Railroad and Seymour was a Hollywood set designer until he was blacklisted for union activity. Both were committed leftists: He was active in the labor and civil rights movements, while she was an officer of the Los Angeles Peace Crusade and the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom.

I'm Not Sure I Give A Shit Anymore

With all due respect, what exactly did Sen. Kohl stand for anyway?  On the plus side, maybe Russ can figure out a way to win this election.  I'm also sure that the Koch-head brothers will elect whomever they want.

Now We Know

The reason Shutterwi's alter ego, or should I say AKA Whitey, went on the lam comes to light.  What about the frequency?  It appears that our intrepid photographer has a love/hate relationship with a certain insect species.  Who knew?

Rand Paul, A Cancer On The Body Politic

I wish the racist father & son Paul team would just dry up & blow away.  Who, in their right mind, considers the right to decent health care as a form of slavery?  Anyone?  Anyone?  Thought so. Only idiots like Rand Paul & his father, who gave these guys medical licenses anyway?  Rand Paual is one reason why living in America isn't as healthy as it used to be  Not as much fun, either.  Listen to this lunatic:

"With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies," the senator said, according to Politico. "It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me."

"It means you believe in slavery," Paul added. "It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses."

*****

"Basically, once you imply a belief in a right to someone’s services — do you have a right to plumbing? Do you have a right to water? Do you have right to food? — you’re basically saying you believe in slavery."

"I’m a physician in your community and you say you have a right to health care," Paul continued. "You have a right to beat down my door with the police, escort me away and force me to take care of you? That’s ultimately what the right to free health care would be."

My empases.  With an attitude like that, I wouldn't want this "doctor" to come within a million miles of my body.

Finally, Some Good News Out Of That Awful, Backward State Of Florida

The Miami Heat beat the Boston Celtics, four games to one in the conference semifinal.  For some reason, I'm happy about that.

Well, I'm Not Sleeping Anymore

At least not in a particular bed.

UPDATE: In Canada, O, Canada!

Something Is Weird In Britain

Who the hell steals bees?

Happy Mother's Day All You Mothers

mother

Word History

Date of Origin Old English [OE]

The ancestral Indo-European word for ‘mother’ was *māter-, which has descendants in virtually all the modern European languages. It was probably based on the syllable ma, suggested by the burbling of a suckling baby, which also lies behind English mama, mamma (and indeed mammal). Amongst its immediate descendants were Latin māter (source of English madrigal, material, maternal, matrimony, matrix, matron, and matter) and Greek mḗtēr (from which English gets metropolis). In prehistoric Germanic it evolved to *mōthar-, which has differentiated to German mutter, Dutch moeder, Swedish and Danish moder, and English mother.

They Better Fire This Moron Pilot

Too bad they didn't give the name of the idiot pilot, I would have liked to send him an email, a friendly email, you know, because being friendly & stuff & not swearing help erase  racisim in this country, right?

Wisco's Supreme Court Recount - If You Can Call It That

While Minnesota has the execrable Bachman, at least they know how to do a recount.  Wisco, not so much.  This is so frustrating to me, a person who always believed that Wisco was a stand-up, ethical state.  Sure, we've had our problems - McCarthy, well, that's enough for any state, but I foolishly thought that we were also completely transparent.  Fucking Walker has really poisoned the water.  I hope he & the Fitzgeralds ultimately wind up in prison. Plus what was Kloppenburg thinking in agreeing to not allow video cameras by observers, what was she thinking?

Where Minnesota's post-election hand count of the 2008 U.S. Senate election between then Sen. Norm Coleman and now Sen. Al Franken was, as we wrote at the UK's Guardian at the time, "one of the longest and most transparent election hand-counts in the history of the US," Wisconsin has made it extremely difficult (putting it nicely) to know what the hell is actually going on in their statewide "recount" of the April 5th, 2011, state Supreme Court election between Justice David Prosser and Asst. Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg.

Where Minnesota's chief election official, Sec. of State Mark Ritchie, oversaw a process to ensure that updated and accurate numbers were easily tracked and transparently shared with the media on a daily basis, Wisconsin's chief election authority, their Government Accountability Board (G.A.B.), has posted (and even sometimes removed) confusing, misleading, and unclear updates, often with inaccurate information, on various schedules, and frequently with little or no explanation for wholesale changes and deletion of data.

Where Minnesota counted every vote by hand with full public scrutiny, including photographs and video cameras, Wisconsin is tabulating ballots, often by the same oft-failed, easily-manipulated computer systems that counted them in the first place, behind barriers that preclude broad public oversight, under an agreement between both campaigns which disallows the use of video cameras by observers.

My emphases.

Sean Duffy Really Helps His Constiuents With This Stupid Bill

Or should I ask the Mr Duffy where he got his bill - I wonder if it came from the Koch Bros.

Another bill, sponsored by Rep. Sean P. Duffy (R-Wis.), would make it easier for fellow regulators to veto rules written by the bureau. Members of the Financial Stability Oversight Council need a two-thirds majority to overrule the bureau. The new rule would alter that to a majority vote.

Another Reason Texas Really Sucks

We really do need to give yacht owners a tax break, after all, yacht owners create jobs, don't  ya know & the tax breaks will produce more jobs.  Texas is clearly full of complete ignorant dumbasses.  What the hell can these dopes be thinking?  Maybe they think they will get invited to sail, who knows.  Disgusting.

J.B. Van Hollen Breaks The Law

I thought the no-nothing knew nothing & I was right!  Joell Schigur wins her grievance, now Van Hollen's stupidity will cost the state quite a bit, I hope.  What a maroon.

It's May 2, See? May 2, 2011, see? Inland Fishing Season Opens This Saturday, See?

& it's effing snowing in coldH2Oville & I'm grumpy:  take your pick.

A Good & Truthful Read

Scott Walker - take note you creep:

WHEN we don’t get the results we want in our military endeavors, we don’t blame the soldiers. We don’t say, “It’s these lazy soldiers and their bloated benefits plans! That’s why we haven’t done better in Afghanistan!” No, if the results aren’t there, we blame the planners. We blame the generals, the secretary of defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff. No one contemplates blaming the men and women fighting every day in the trenches for little pay and scant recognition.

And yet in education we do just that. When we don’t like the way our students score on international standardized tests, we blame the teachers. When we don’t like the way particular schools perform, we blame the teachers and restrict their resources.
Compare this with our approach to our military: when results on the ground are not what we hoped, we think of ways to better support soldiers. We try to give them better tools, better weapons, better protection, better training. And when recruiting is down, we offer incentives.

*****
At the moment, the average teacher’s pay is on par with that of a toll taker or bartender. Teachers make 14 percent less than professionals in other occupations that require similar levels of education. In real terms, teachers’ salaries have declined for 30 years. The average starting salary is $39,000; the average ending salary — after 25 years in the profession — is $67,000. This prices teachers out of home ownership in 32 metropolitan areas, and makes raising a family on one salary near impossible.

*****

The study compared the treatment of teachers here and in the three countries that perform best on standardized tests: Finland, Singapore and South Korea.

Turns out these countries have an entirely different approach to the profession. First, the governments in these countries recruit top graduates to the profession. (We don’t.) In Finland and Singapore they pay for training. (We don’t.) In terms of purchasing power, South Korea pays teachers on average 250 percent of what we do.

Makes you think.  While I'm clearly no supporter of the authoritarian regimes in Singapore*, it's a ReThuglican wet dream, or of South Korea's terrible past, at least they understand the value of teachers.  Finland, in goes without saying, is Scandinavian & is, IMHO, just a great place.  Emphasis mine.

*Just like the U.S., Singapore has a large number of drug offenders in its prisons. Singapore has one of the highest execution rates in the world. Over 70 percent of those hung-by-the-neck-until-dead were convicted for drug violations.

Recently Newt Gingrich was on Fox New with Bill O’Reilly, and O’Reilly said that Singapore’s tough drug policies worked “swell”—especially with regard to mandatory drug abuse treatment—but that Americans would not have the “stomach” for such draconian measures.

Gingrich’s response to O’Reilly was: “Well, I think it's time we get the stomach for that, Bill. I would try to use rehabilitation, and I'd make it mandatory.” Of course I’m not suggesting that Gingrich believes that drug dealers should be executed, but his position demonstrates the lack of respect for basic human rights that one often finds among conservatives.

Link here.

My emphases.

Not That It Matters Much, But Here Is What I Think

I guess I'm supposed to say something about the murder & burial at sea of Osama bin Laden.   Well, here goes:  If justice was done, as President Obama stated last night, it appears to me that justice comes from the barrel of a gun.  The glee that some commentators expressed last night because "we" had the body was creepy.  bin Laden was an asshole, a bad guy, but I doubt he was Hitler.  It's always OK to call people like bin Laden Hitler, but not people responsible for many, many more deaths of men, women, & children (I'm thinking of you, Bu$hCo.).  Osama is gone, but I doubt his money is gone, or his family in Saudi Arabia, or Saudi Arabia, for that matter.  Let us not forget that the majority of the attackers on nine-eleven were from Saudi Arabia.  If, in fact, justice is done by violence, then what's the point of a system of laws?  A system where the most powerful, the state, is required to prove their case to a jury of other people?  While I don't grieve at the death of Osama, I do grieve for the future of America if, in fact, justice will continue to be done with bullets.

Happy May Day 2011