'Politics is not the art of the possible. It is choosing between the unpalatable and the disastrous'.--gailbreth
NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has found at least a thousand extrasolar planets, a handful of which might be rocky Earth-sized planets in the so-called ‘habitable’ zone where liquid surface water may exist. Extrapolating Kepler’s results, astronomers estimate our Milky Way galaxy alone might hold some 10 billion Earth-like planets.
"We expect that federal debt held by the public will amount to 74% of GDP at the end of this fiscal year, more than twice what it was at the end of 2007, and higher than in any year since 1950. By 2025, in our baseline projections, federal debt rises to nearly 79% of GDP."--CBO
Are all these drones just model airplanes?
Tannins are compounds that are present in grapes and other plants. When you drink a very strong cup of tea, the bitter, sharp taste is caused by these tannins. These tannins act to prevent oxidation of the wine during the aging process. This prevention is very important in red wines, since they're usually aged and matured for much longer period of time than white. Because it is aged longer the tannins provide another layer of flavor, therefore increasing the complexity of the wine and also making it more robust. It also protects the red from the destructive oxidation that will occur earlier in the tannin-less white. The bite of the tannins will diminish and be mellow as the wine ages.
Sophist: noun: One who makes clever, but unsound arguments. From Latin sophista, from Greek sophistes (sage), from sophos (clever). Earliest documented use: 1542. In ancient Greece, Sophists were philosophers and teachers known for their subtle, but fallacious reasoning. Same root at sophisticated and sophomore.
Nationalism came surprisingly late to us humans. Societies were ordered around history and royalty. As late as 1880, only a fifth of the population of France was entirely at ease in the French language. And this linguistic alienation went hand in hand with a hostility to the idea of France itself with fierce local communities where there was violent prejudice both against visitors and against neighboring settlements. In the early 1740s, a cartographer taking part in the Cassini mission to make the first reliable map of France was hacked to death in a tiny village in the Massif Central called Les Estables. They felt with a defined territory they would cease to exist.
Manchester says that wars were great for uniting people, not just emotionally, but linguistically.
A book about Lyndon Johnson has a little sketch about Reagan. The author says that Reagan was terribly nearsighted and throughout his life tried to understand what people were like and wanted without the benefit of really seeing them well. He theorizes that his ability to connect with people was the result of this substitution that he did when communicating.
A man who became a woman five years ago has been nominated to be Pennsylvania’s physician general. Dr. Rachel Levine has been nominated by Gov. Tom Wolf, the state’s newly sworn-in progressive governor. I actually did not know Pennsylvania had a "Physician General" and certainly do not know what he does.
Who were.....Vladimir Ulyanov and Lev Davidovich Bronstein?
Trotsky
People are rightfully concerned about Boehner's invitation to Benjamin Netanyahu to speak to Congress. But there is a bigger problem here: These people --none of them-- will act like grownups. They do things the average person would not do to a stranger. Late last year an Obama official called Netanyahu “chickenshit.” "He’s not [Yitzhak] Rabin, he’s not [Ariel] Sharon, he’s certainly no [Menachem] Begin. He’s got no guts,” the Obama administration official said. Obama sent shivers through Israel with the speech he delivered in Cairo in June 2009, a few months after being sworn in, in which he proposed turning the page with Islam — a speech perceived as a negative statement of intent toward Israel, and not just by the Israeli right.
In March, 2010, the Israeli Prime Minister was humiliated by Barack Obama when he visited Washington. As The Telegraph reported, “Benjamin Netanyahu was left to stew in a White House meeting room for over an hour after President Barack Obama abruptly walked out of tense talks to have supper with his family”, after being presented with a list of 13 demands.
President Obama condemned Holocaust denial in the Middle East, but compared the murder of six million Jews during World War Two to the “occupation” of the Palestinian territories, in a disturbing example of moral equivalence:
In the
famous open mic episode at the G20 in 2011, Nicolas Sarkozy branded the
Israeli prime minister 'a liar' while Obama retorted: 'You're fed up
with him - I have to deal with him every day!'
Golden oldie:
The Social Democrat Party was a Marxist political party, formed in 1898 in Minsk. At the first congress, the Tsarist Oknara arrested all its members.
In 1903, the Social Democrats split. Lenin assumed leadership of the 'Bolshevik' (majority) faction; Trotsky became a member of the 'Menshevik' (minority) faction and developed his theory of 'permanent revolution'. After the outbreak of revolution in Petrograd in February 1917, Trotsky made his way back to Russia. Despite previous disagreements with Lenin, Trotsky joined the Bolsheviks and played a decisive role in the communist take-over of power in the same year. His first post in the new government was as foreign commissar, where he found himself negotiating peace terms with Germany. He was then made war commissar and in this capacity, built up the Red Army which prevailed against the White Russian forces in the civil war and thus played a crucial role in keeping the Bolshevik regime alive.
He saw himself as Lenin's heir-apparent, but his intellectual arrogance made him few friends, and his Jewish heritage may also have worked against him. (Lenin was also Jewish, however.) When Lenin fell ill and died, Trotsky was easily outmaneuvered by Stalin. In 1927, he was thrown out of the party. Internal and then foreign exile followed, but Trotsky continued to write and to criticize Stalin.
Trotsky settled in Mexico in 1936. On 20 August 1940, an assassin called Ramon Mercader, acting on Stalin's orders, stabbed Trotsky with an ice pick, fatally wounding him. He died the next day.
Obama said in his State of the Union speech that the growth of the cost of medicine had declined dramatically. This is quite true----but not for long. Changes to the American health system will result in the government spending 2 trillion(!) dollars over the next decade and take in 642 billion dollars in new taxes, penalties and fees related to Obamacare, about 50,000 dollars per person. Nonetheless between 29 and 31 million people will still be without medical insurance. (These estimates are from the Congressional Budget Office.)
Eighteen-year-old Nolan Burch had a blood-alcohol level of .493 before he passed out at a West Virginia University fraternity house and died in the hospital after two days on life support. 493. And of the two high profile rape cases on campus this month, both girls were unconscious. Unconscious.
If a tax is levied on a corporation — and if the corporation is to survive — it will have one of three responses or some combination thereof. It will raise the price of its product, lower dividends or lay off workers. The important point is that only people, not some legal fiction called a corporation, bear the burden of any tax. Corporations are merely government tax collectors.
"I frankly think dyslexia is a gift. If you are supported in school and your ego remains intact, then you emerge with a strong work ethic and a different view of the world." --The head of Cleveland Clinic, Dr. Cosgrove, who is dyslectic.
A school sex-ed teacher has declared herself a 'pleasure activist.'
AAAaaaaannnnndddddd.....a picture of the new Pennsylvania physician general nominee:
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