Republicans need to figure out where they stand on children’s welfare. They can’t be ‘pro-life
Republicans are trying to take down the EPA and with it environmental regulation that seeks to protect our air, water, food and health.
Many who follow environmental issues find themselves routinely disappointed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its failure to adequately protect the environment (and thus the health of the American people). Even with the EPA acting as environmental cop on the beat, the U.S. is still home to fish too contaminated to eat, dead zones off our coasts (such as one the size of Massachusetts in the Gulf of Mexico), and an unthinkable amount of pesticides applied to our lands. In fact, according to Pesticide Action Network, some two-thirds of all active ingredients in pesticides were legalized by the EPA in a process known as ‘conditional registration.’ That’s the legal equivalent of saying ‘Go ahead and use it, and tell us later whether or not it’s safe.’ Once conditionally registered, pesticides are rarely, if ever, removed from the market once the safety studies are completed.
But House Republicans and their donor base are not among those who worry that the EPA does not go far enough. Quite the opposite. The first talk of taking on the […]
Policy divisions within the unified Democratic and Republican House leadership teams can be hard to find, but more than 100 votes over four days yielded a rare glimpse of daylight in the party upper ranks.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), for example, disagree over the Pentagon’s sponsorship of Nascar vehicles and proposed Obama administration regulations targeting for-profit colleges.
On the GOP side, Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), co-authors of the ‘Young Guns
Ben Ali has fled, Mubarak has been overthrown and Gadhafi is faltering, but al-Qaida is frustrated, because jihadists have played no role whatsoever in the great revolution in the Arab world. The terrorist organization has repeatedly tried to use propaganda to take credit for the revolts, but no one is listening.
One of the side effects of the Arab revolt is that the jihad bubble has burst, at least for now. The popular uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya have impressively demonstrated how little jihadists have to say in Arab societies. Contrary to the propaganda they have been spreading for decades, their mobilization potential is virtually nonexistent.
Their original goal — the overthrow of the secular regimes in the Arab world — has been achieved by others, including groups that are among the declared enemies of al-Qaida and its allies: secularists, students with a Western orientation, politically active women, people who support democracy and moderate Islamists. It isn’t al-Qaida that has proven to be a vanguard, but the secular, Internet-savvy youth of the Arab world. And no one on the squares and streets, from Tunis to Benghazi, has called for a Taliban-esque theocracy, al-Qaida’s vision for the Islamic world.
What an embarrassing revelation!
But […]
Babies born in newer U.S. states have more distinctive names compared with their counterparts in older regions such as New England, a new study finds.
It turns out, the same values that pushed adventurous individuals into new territories as our country was being populated may still show up in the names their descendants give to babies, a new study finds.
In more recently established states, such as Washington and Oregon, parents tend to choose less common baby names1, while parents in ‘older’ areas, such as the original 13 states, go for more popular names.
Frontiers typically have fewer established institutions or infrastructure, and often occupy harsh environments. Early pioneers couldn’t rely on others for help in such sparsely populated areas.
These factors ‘select for people who are high in individualism and foster and reward individualistic values such as uniqueness and self-reliance,’ said lead researcher Michael Varnum of the University of Michigan. ‘This leads to regional cultures which perpetuate these values, which in turn shape behavioral practices, such as baby naming.’ [Most Popular Baby Names in History2]
Psychologist Jean Twenge of San Diego State University, who studies baby naming, applauds Varnum’s study on frontiers and unique baby names3, which is detailed in the February 2011 […]
