Welfare for the Wealthy - NYTimes.com
Welfare for the Wealthy - NYTimes.com:Bittman:
"The House is proposing $20 billion in cuts to SNAP — equivalent, says Beckmann, to 'almost half of all the charitable food assistance that food banks and food charities provide to people in need.'
"Deficit reduction is the sacred excuse for such cruelty, but the first could be achieved without the second. Two of the most expensive programs are food stamps, the cost of which has justifiably soared since the beginning of the Great Recession [3] , and direct subsidy payments.
"This pits the ability of poor people to eat — not well, but sort of enough — against the production of agricultural commodities. That would be a difficult choice if the subsidies were going to farmers who could be crushed by failure, but in reality most direct payments go to those who need them least."
Nothing better illustrates the total depravity of the GOP than this. This bill, which is written to 1) further enrich big agribusiness and 2) ensure lower taxes for the rich, will literally cause many Americans to STARVE TO DEATH. This is absolutely sickening.
My Workout For Tuesday June 04
I earned 1510 points for my workout on Fitocracy!
Barbell Bench Press +520 pts
- 135 lb x 8 reps (+77 pts)
- 155 lb x 6 reps (+82 pts)
- 175 lb x 6 reps (+94 pts)
- 185 lb x 4 reps (+86 pts)
- 205 lb x 3 reps (+87 pts)
- 175 lb x 6 reps (+94 pts)
Barbell Incline Bench Press +424 pts
- 115 lb x 8 reps (+67 pts)
- 135 lb x 6 reps (+71 pts)
- 155 lb x 6 reps (+82 pts)
- 165 lb x 3 reps (+66 pts)
- 135 lb x 6 reps (+71 pts)
- 115 lb x 8 reps (+67 pts)
Dumbbell Flyes +85 pts
- 30 lb x 8 reps (+18 pts)
- 35 lb x 6 reps (+17 pts)
- 40 lb x 4 reps (+15 pts)
- 35 lb x 6 reps (+17 pts)
- 30 lb x 8 reps (+18 pts)
Reverse Flyes +202 pts
- 130 lb x 8 reps (+32 pts)
- 145 lb x 6 reps (+33 pts)
- 160 lb x 4 reps (+32 pts)
- 175 lb x 4 reps (+35 pts)
- 160 lb x 6 reps (+37 pts)
- 145 lb x 6 reps (+33 pts)
Preacher Curl +89 pts
- 75 lb x 8 reps (+18 pts)
- 85 lb x 6 reps (+18 pts)
- 95 lb x 4 reps (+17 pts)
- 85 lb x 6 reps (+18 pts)
- 75 lb x 8 reps (+18 pts)
Lying Barbell Triceps Extension (“Skullcrusher”) +89 pts
- 75 lb x 8 reps (+18 pts)
- 85 lb x 6 reps (+18 pts)
- 95 lb x 4 reps (+17 pts)
- 85 lb x 6 reps (+18 pts)
- 75 lb x 8 reps (+18 pts)
Ab Wheel (kneeling) +56 pts
- 8 reps (+14 pts)
- 8 reps (+14 pts)
- 8 reps (+14 pts)
- 8 reps (+14 pts)
General Yoga +45 pts
- 0:15:00 (+45 pts)
Think you can beat me, or want to comment?
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The Minotaur of Oppression - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money
The Minotaur of Oppression - Lawyers, Guns & Money : Lawyers, Guns & Money:bspencer:
"But only regular readers of "American Thinker" are going to nod sagely when they read things like this:
"'Parents must gradually take back the responsibility for raising their own children, the future men and women who will determine whether progressive authoritarianism is permitted to close the final, innermost gate of its labyrinth, locking our descendants inside to be devoured by the Minotaur of oppression, or whether the monster will be killed at last by a modern Theseus, in the form of millions of free souls prepared to defend themselves as too few today are, and to rebuild their communities — to recivilize — on principles of reason and human nature.'"
Maybe the Minotaur of Oppression ate the author's English teacher before he got around to explaining that flowery language is no substitute for an actual point.
Also: totally starting a metal band and naming it the Minötaurs of Oppressiön.
Military Justice System May Face Drastic Retooling To Address Sexual Assault
Military Justice System May Face Drastic Retooling To Address Sexual Assault:Cassata/Lardner:
"Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is a proponent of ambitious legislation that would remove commanders from the process of deciding whether serious crimes, including sexual misconduct cases, go to trial. That judgment would rest with seasoned trial counsels who have prosecutorial experience and hold the rank of colonel or above.
"The military has serious reservations about Gillibrand's plan, concerned that stripping commanders of some authority would make it difficult for them to maintain good order and discipline. Not so, say some lawmakers, who argue that the military's piecemeal approach clearly hasn't been the answer."
Holy crap, military leaders, are you serious? It would make it difficult to maintain good order and discipline? Here's a news flash: based on the number of sexual assaults being reported (to say nothing of those that are clearly NOT being reported)… you're not maintaining good order and discipline NOW.
SEAL Team 6 Vet Kristin Beck Comes Out As Transgender | TPM LiveWire
SEAL Team 6 Vet Kristin Beck Comes Out As Transgender | TPM LiveWire:Thompson:
"Retired Navy SEAL Kristin Beck published a memoir titled 'Warrior Princess' on Tuesday describing her 20-year military career and and her experience coming out as transgender."
Wow. I might have to read this. Apparently Beck was in Team 6, which is the most elite of the SEALs.
tastefullyoffensive: Sculptures in Modern Day Clothes...
Sculptures in Modern Day Clothes [alexispersani]
These are some pretty sharp-dressed sculptures.
mypubliclands: In the top photo, you can see an ore track...
In the top photo, you can see an ore track coming out of the historic Silver Canyon Mine in the Schell Creek Mountain Range in Nevada, east of the Ely District. At one time the track ended at a wooden chute that sent the extracted ore from the mine down into a lower elevation where it was milled.Further down in the valley bottom is the ghost town of Aurum, originally known as Silver Canyon which sprang up in 1878. By 1881 Aurum had become a fair sized town with a store, a saloon, a blacksmith shop, two boarding houses, a small school, and it's own post office.On February 11, 1884, a snow slide buried one of the boarding houses and other buildings in the camp killing several men. The men killed in the snow slide rest in Aurum Cemetry, captured in the second photo.But Aurum experienced a revival in 1887 and by 1888 the town once again had up to 50 residents. The revival peaked in 1898 but by 1906 the camp was all but abandoned. The last resident left in the mid 1920's and Aurum officially joined the White Pine County Ghost Town roll.-L. Martin, BLM Nevada
thedailywhat: Webcomic of the Day: A Timeline of...
Webcomic of the Day: A Timeline of Hipster-Bashing
(xkcd.)
Are hipsters still a thing?
we-are-star-stuff: An Introduction to M-theory In non-technical...
An Introduction to M-theory
In non-technical terms, M-theory presents an idea about the basic substance of the universe.
In the early years of the 20th century, the atom – long believed to be the smallest building-block of matter – was proven to consist of even smaller components called protons, neutrons and electrons, which are known as subatomic particles. Beginning in the 1960s, other subatomic particles were discovered. In the 1970s, it was discovered that protons and neutrons (and other hadrons) are themselves made up of smaller particles called quarks. Quantum mechanics is the set of rules that describes the interactions of these particles.
In the 1980s, a new mathematical model of theoretical physics called string theory emerged. It showed how all the particles, and all of the forms of energy in the universe, could be constructed by hypothetical one-dimensional "strings", infinitesimal building-blocks that have only the dimension of length, but not height nor width. Further, string theory suggested that the universe is made up of multiple dimensions. Height, width, and length constitute three-dimensional space, and time gives a total of four observable dimensions; however, string theories initially supported the possibility of ten dimensions – the remaining six of which we cannot detect directly. This was later increased to 11 dimensions based on various interpretations of the ten dimensional theory that led to five partial theories as described below. Super-gravity theory also played a significant part in establishing the necessity of the 11th dimension.
These "strings" vibrate in multiple dimensions, and depending on how they vibrate, they might be seen in three-dimensional space as matter, light, or gravity. It is the vibration of the string which determines whether it appears to be matter or energy, and every form of matter or energy is the result of the vibration of strings.
String theory, as mentioned above, ran into a problem: another version of the equations was discovered, then another, and then another. Eventually, there were five major string theories. Each theory is fundamentally based on vibrating, one-dimensional strings at approximately the length of the planck length. Calculations have also shown that each theory requires more than the normal four spacetime dimensions. The main differences between each theory were principally the number of dimensions in which the strings developed, and their characteristics (some were open loops, some were closed loops, etc.). Furthermore, all these theories appeared to be correct. Scientists were not comfortable with five seemingly contradictory sets of equations to describe the same thing.
In 1994, a string theorist named Edward Witten of the Institute for Advanced Study and other important researchers considered that the five different versions of string theory might be describing the same thing seen from different perspectives. They proposed a unifying theory called "M-theory", in which the "M" is not specifically defined, but is generally understood to stand for "membrane". The words "matrix", "mother", "monster", "mystery", "magic" have also been claimed. M-theory brought all of the string theories together. It did this by asserting that strings are really 1-dimensional slices of a 2-dimensional membrane vibrating in 11-dimensional space.
M-theory is not complete, but the underlying structure of the mathematics has been established and is in agreement with all the string theories. Furthermore, it has passed many tests of internal mathematical consistency.
To the critics, however, these mathematical developments still don't answer the nagging question: how do you test it? Since string theory is really a theory of creation, when all its beautiful symmetries were in their full glory, the only way to test it, the critics wail, is to re-create the Big Bang itself, which is impossible. But most string theorists think these criticisms are silly. They believe that the critics have missed the point. The key point is this: if the theory can be solved non-perturbatively using pure mathematics, then it should reduce down at low energies to a theory of ordinary protons, electrons, atoms, and molecules, for which there is ample experimental data. If we could completely solve the theory, we should be able to extract its low energy spectrum, which should match the familiar particles we see today in the Standard Model. Thus, the real problem is raw brain power: of only we were clever enough, we could write down M-theory, solve it, and settle everything.
Physicist and author Michio Kaku has remarked that M-theory may present us with a "Theory of Everything" which is so concise that its underlying formula would fit on a T-shirt. Stephen Hawking originally believed that M-theory may be the ultimate theory but later suggested that the search for understanding of mathematics and physics will never be complete.
Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, in the popular scientific book The Grand Design, take a philosophical position to support a view of the universe as a multiverse, and define it in the book as model-dependent realism which along with a sum-over-histories approach to the universe as a whole, is used to claim that M-theory is the only candidate for a complete theory of the universe.
The evolution of this theory can be summarized as: Principle -> Symmetry -> Action -> Quantum Theory. According to Witten, the fundamental problem has been that string theory has been evolving backwards. As Witten says, "string theory is 21st century physics which fell into the 20th century by accident". We were never "meant" to see this theory until the next century. Witten certainly believes we are on the right track, but we need a few more "revolutions" to finally solve the theory: "I think there are still a couple more superstring revolutions in our future, at least. If we can manage one more superstring revolution a decade, I think that we will do all right".
I was a physics major back at the dawn of time, so this stuff really interests me.
rapewhistled: we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years to hunt and eat and live a certain way...
we evolved for hundreds of thousands of years to hunt and eat and live a certain way and now we all are forced to live in cement buildings and sit at ur job from 9-5 and u wonder why everyone seems to have a psychological disorder
I miss being normal.
It’s overrated.
Social media lessons
Friend on Facbook: I wish there were something like a Saturnalia on Facebook-- a time when all restrictions were off, and you could post all your most inappropriate comments. I'm not talking mean or hurtful here, just the stuff that you can't post....Me: That's what Tumblr is for.
Oh. My. God. Must go help the dog look for men with beards and...
Oh. My. God. Must go help the dog look for men with beards and hats.
Only a third of charitable contributions go to the poor
Only a third of charitable contributions go to the poor:Matthews:
"The assumptions of the report are quite generous to givers. For example, when faced with donations that partially benefited poor people but also helped the non-poor (for example, donations to hotlines that get calls from people across the income spectrum), they counted half the donations as donations to the poor. But even so, the report found that only about a third of donations in 2005 were targeted at helping the poor."
Findings from the referenced study: about a third of all charity went to religion, and to be clear, that doesn't include religious service organizations like the Salvation Army – these are gifts to actual churches, synagogues, etc. Most of that is chewed up by pastoral salaries, building funds, and other stuff that doesn't have any effect on the condition of poor people. The next biggest ticket item is gifts to universities and other educational institutions, which, again, is mostly not spent on need-based scholarships.
Figuring out how much of each of these categories of giving actually goes to helping poor people is tricky, but the best information is that only a third of all giving actually helps poor people.
We probably ought to just get rid of the income tax deduction for charity and use the revenue to directly benefit the poor.
robotcosmonaut: Pong via massmirage Lol, yep, we had one if...
via massmirage
Lol, yep, we had one if these. I'll never forget the sound effects.
Wonkbook: Ben Bernanke's surprisingly excellent, radical speech
Wonkbook: Ben Bernanke's surprisingly excellent, radical speech:Klein:
Here's some real talk for the graduating class at Princeton University:
"'The concept of success leads me to consider so-called meritocracies and their implications. We have been taught that meritocratic institutions and societies are fair. Putting aside the reality that no system, including our own, is really entirely meritocratic, meritocracies may be fairer and more efficient than some alternatives. But fair in an absolute sense? Think about it. A meritocracy is a system in which the people who are the luckiest in their health and genetic endowment; luckiest in terms of family support, encouragement, and, probably, income; luckiest in their educational and career opportunities; and luckiest in so many other ways difficult to enumerate–these are the folks who reap the largest rewards.'
"As the kids say, BOOM. But who said it? Who went to Princeton and told the assembled victors of the meritocracy that, in effect, they didn't build that?
"Why, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke of course."
You don't say.
So This Happened | TPM Editors Blog
So This Happened | TPM Editors Blog:Marshall:
"To greet African leaders arriving for conference in Japan, event organizers force group of Penguins to dress up in 'African' costumes …"
Japan, seriously. O_o
Cicada update
They’ve moved into our neighborhood. I’ve been seeing bunches of them buzzing around the trees, and I can make out the sounds of individual bugs sometimes. Also, the din has increased to the point where you actually have to speak up a bit outside.
This is just so amazing.
Tickseed (Coreopsis pubescens). This flower is named for its...
Tickseed (Coreopsis pubescens). This flower is named for its seed case, which looks a bit like a tick. I believe this variety is called "Sunshine".
Rose campion (Silene coronaria). Similar to lamb's ear in...
Rose campion (Silene coronaria). Similar to lamb's ear in that it has silvery, furry leaves. But it also makes these pretty magenta flowers.
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