Friday, January 6th, 2017
Sophia Tesfaye, Deputy Politics Editor - Salon
Stephan: I had to read this story twice to really absorb what it was saying -- I just don't have an adjective strong enough -- of what is now happening with guns. Here is just one point from this story, "Although fatal shootings are already a more common
cause of death in Missouri than car accidents, a new law allows anyone 19 or older who owns a gun to carry it in public, concealed, without getting training or a permit." What could possibly go wrong with 19 year olds wandering into bars, or at sports events, or parties legally armed with a completely unregistered hand gun. Our we going to return in the United States to the age of dueling and coredors stoking the roads.
We have reached a form of madness that I can only ascribe to the fear fugue that is the normal state now for the Theocratic Right. A consensus is growing amongst neuroscientists that this fugue state is the result of that cohort's overactive Right Amygdalas. A little almond shaped structure in your brain associated with your fear response, fight or flight, and correlated strongly with highly conservative religiosity and politics, and lack of rational thought. It's one of the reasons fake news is now an issue. Once people seeking power understand this psychophysical dynamic they see how easy it is to manipulate. In my view the American gun situation is an textbook example of this process in action.
AP/Eric Gay
The new year means new legislation, and Republicans in at least two states have gifted their constituents with laxer gun restrictions to kick off 2017.
Although fatal shootings are already a more common
cause of death in Missouri than car accidents, a new law allows anyone 19 or older who owns a gun to carry it in public, concealed, without getting training or a permit.
“This law would allow anybody to go get a gun, carry it, and never have to fire the weapon until they think it’s necessary to use it, without any education whatsoever,” Sheriff Mike Sharp of Jackson County, who was among several law enforcement officers opposed to the law, told NBC News’ Pete Williams.
Despite a veto from Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon last year, the Republican-led legislature voted to override the blockade. The new measure allows owners to avoid a state-approved training course previously required in obtaining a permit to carry. Owners of firearms will be able to conceal and carry them anywhere in Missouri. Some public places, such as courtrooms and jails, are […]
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Friday, January 6th, 2017
Danny Vinik, - The Agenda
Stephan: I have been thinking about where Donald Trump may focus his attention. The more I thought about it the more I thought his focus will on contracts, deals. That's what he brags about and writes about. What knows and takes pride in. So how might that play out? This essay I think does a good job laying that out.
Credit: Alternet
On Thursday afternoon, President-elect Donald Trump dropped a bombshell on the defense industry: He asked Boeing to price out an alternative to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jets, a hugely valuable contract that Trump has criticized as too expensive. Lockheed’s share price plunged almost 2 percent in after-hours trading.
It was the culmination of weeks of interference by the president-elect in the arcane, bureaucratic function of federal procurement. In early December, it was Boeing on the receiving end of Trump’s wrath, when he tweeted that the costs of the new Air Force One planes are “out of control” and told reporters, “Boeing is doing a little bit of a number.” A few days later, he criticized the cost of the F-35 contract. And earlier this week, he convened top military officials and the CEOs of Boeing and Lockheed at his Mar-a-Lago estate to discuss how to bring costs down. Trump told reporters afterward, “We’re just beginning, it’s a dance.”
More than any other president, Trump appears to want to take a direct role in federal contracting, a technical, complex part of the […]
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Friday, January 6th, 2017
Stephan: Just an announcement, but who knows where it leads. Even about our own bodies we still have much to learn.
Scientists recently discovered what they are calling a new human organ that exists in the digestive system.
Named the mesentery, the organ was previously thought to consist of fragmented and disparate structures. Researchers found, however, that it is one continuous organ and outlined evidence to classify it as such in a review published in The Lancet Gastroenterology & Hepatology.
“In the paper, which has been peer reviewed and assessed, we are now saying we have an organ in the body which hasn’t been acknowledged as such to date,” J. Calvin Coffey, a researcher from the University Hospital Limerick in Ireland, who first made the discovery, said in a release.
The mesentery is a double fold of the peritoneum, which is the lining of the abdominal cavity. It connects the intestine to the abdomen.
While the mesentery’s specific function is still unknown, studying it as an organ could lead to new discoveries about its impact on abdominal diseases.
“When we approach it like every other organ … we can categorize abdominal disease in terms of this organ,” Coffey said.
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Thursday, January 5th, 2017
Perry Stein and Sandhya Somashekhar, - The Washington Post
Stephan: This is a wonderful story and a classic example of how the 8 laws work. Just as the Tea Party arose on the Right. I think we are going to see arise a strong and coherent wellness oriented movement in the U.S., and that this may be the official announcement of it.
Janaye Ingram, center, with Ianta Summers and Ted Jackson at 3rd Street and Independence Avenue SW, where the march will begin. Ingram has been the local point person for getting the logistics issues smoothed out.
Credit: Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post
Teresa Shook never considered herself much of an activist, or someone particularly versed in feminist theory. But when the results of the presidential election became clear, the retired attorney in Hawaii turned to Facebook and asked: What if women marched on Washington around Inauguration Day en masse?
She asked her online friends how to create an event page, and then started one for the march she was hoping would happen.
By the time she went to bed, 40 women responded that they were in.
When she woke up, that number had exploded to 10,000.
Now, more than 100,000 people have registered their plans to attend the Women’s March on Washington in what is expected to be the largest demonstration linked to Donald Trump’s inauguration and a focal point for activists on the left who have been energized in opposing his agenda.
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Thursday, January 5th, 2017
Natasha Geiling, Reporter - Think Progress
Stephan: Here is some good news, and further evidence that while U.S. government policies seem to be oriented towards preserving carbon energy as long as possible, many other nations have taken a different path. It is all part of what I see as an alarming mosaic of trends. With the exception of our military which in
fiscal year 2015 accounted for 54 percent of all federal discretionary spending, for a total of $598.5 billion, in terms of healthcare, education, elder care, democracy, child care, life expectancy, upward mobility, and most other social outcomes we increasingly look like a second tier country.
Happily even though we can't seem to muster the political will to deal with what is coming, we will nonetheless benefit from the policies of India and other countries, because their move out of carbon energy benefits the planet and demonstrates once again the Theorem of Wellbeing.
An Indian security man walks amid a rooftop solar plant at the secretariat gymkhana in Gandhinagar, India.
Credit: AP/Ajit Solanki
In ten years, India could get almost sixty percent of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources, according to a government forecast published this week. (emphasis added)
According to a draft of the country’s 10-year energy blueprint, the Indian government expects that 57 percent of the country total electricity capacity will come from non-fossil fuel sources by 2027 — a marked increase over the country’s Paris goals, which say that the country will reach 40 percent non-fossil fuel electricity by 2030. The draft also noted that no new coal-fired power plants would be needed to meet India’s electricity demands through 2027.
“India is moving beyond fossil fuels at a pace scarcely imagined only two years ago,” Tim Buckley, a director at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, told the Guardian. He also characterized the forecast as “absolutely transformational.”
India is the world’s fourth-largest greenhouse gas […]
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