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November 24, 2010 04:41 PM UTC

Wednesday Open Thread

  • 59 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

“We suffer more from imagination than from reality.”

–Seneca

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59 thoughts on “Wednesday Open Thread”

  1. Chris was the Rifle resident who became ill from emissions from a poorly maintained natural gas well across the road from her home. She seveloped a panoply of serious medical conditions, including a pituitary tumor. Her story was very well told by Deb Anderson, who produced and directed the Emmy-winning film, “Split Estate”.

    Chris has lost her struggle to regain her health. She passed away this week, succumbing to a third pituitary tumor. Her story is so tragic, it is difficult for me to contemplate the unbelievable injustice and the terrible agony she suffered for so long.

    Her memorial service will be held on Saturday Dec 11th at the Callahan Edfast Mortuary at 10:00 am in Grand Junction. The address is 2515 Patterson Rd, Grand Junction.

    God rest her soul.

     

  2. from PoliticsDaily

    Last April, four scientists at the University of California-San Francisco sent John Holdren, Obama’s top science adviser, a letter declaring their “concerns about the potential serious health risks.” The four scientists — a biochemist, a cancer specialist and two X-ray experts — noted, “This is an urgent situation as these X-ray scanners are rapidly being implemented as a primary screening step for all air travel passengers.” They maintained that that the dose of radiation delivered by these machines would appear to be safe “if it were distributed” throughout the traveler’s entire body. But, they contended, because most of the dose “is delivered to the skin and the underlying tissue … the dose to the skin may be dangerously high.” This quartet of scientists said that “real independent safety data” about these scanners “do not exist.” They insisted that the devices could cause breast cancer in a “fraction of the female population,” damage white blood cells, induce cancer within HIV and cancer patients, and cause “mutagenic effects” — that is, chromosome damage that could lead to cancer, particularly among older travelers. They also asserted that men are “at risk for sperm mutagenesis.” They added, “The risk of radiation emission to children and adolescents does not appear to have been fully evaluated,” and they suggested that pregnant women could be at risk. The four asked, “have the effects of the radiation on the cornea and thymus been determined?” And they raised the possibility of a glitch in the scanner’s hardware or software causing “an intense radiation dose to a single spot on the skin.”

    1. Probably NSFW even though she is wearing some sheer lingerie…but damn I hope she follows David’s advice when I’m going thru screening…

      http://www.tinynibbles.com/blo…

      Above is a video of a woman who, one day ago got on an international flight from Sea-Tac (Seattle) to Sri Lanka. She is an exhibitionist and an activist. She is still in transit, but before she got on her plane, she stripped down to transparent lingerie and recorded her volatile journey through TSA security. The video came out amazingly well and it is intense to watch. The woman is blogger Furrygirl; she did a blog post about the experience here but her site is currently down until she gets to a location where she can fix it. Meanwhile, you can  follow her here on Twitter. She does not get 100% naked, but her outfit is transparent and you can see everything.

      1. Where’s the bra bomber?  Instead it was a dude in jockeys.  Attention to detail, people!

        Now I would make a joke about how happy I am it worked out this way, but if the TSA uniforms were sluttier… well, we’ve all seen that porn set up.  I’ve never had an urge to make porn, but if forced I’d like my ten dollars*.  Please.

        *The internet has really cheapened that industry.  Sad really.

    2. …is frequency.

      I fly zero, once, or twice a year.  Am I going to worry about this?  Hell, no.

      But as we all know, some people practically live on airplanes.  If I was one of them, I’d be worried.

      One of the problems with claims like the quotes above is that we are talking really difficult to predict consequences because of the very low dosage and the thousands of other confounders in modern life. I’m as leary of this statement as I am of the TSA’s.

      I would suggest men place a dildo in their underwear, women in their…um,…..

      That should cause some panic.  

  3. Robert Decheine, who was a senior advisor on President Obama’s 2008 campaign, as well as chief of staff to two Democratic Representatives has been arrested for sexual solicitation of a minor.

    Mr. Decheine allegedly responded to who he thought was a fifteen year old online, but was actually a Maryland police officer.

    New Jersey Democrat, Rep. Steve Rothman immediately fired Decheine, who had been with him since 2003.  Previously he had been chief of staff to Democratic Representative Bill Luther of Minnesota.

    1. …if he was a Repub, I’m sure we’d be hearing all kinds of accusations of media bias and how he was framed by the liberal media. And how the Party stand by him, until they’d fire him late Friday evening after the press had gone home.

      Once the story broke, Faux News would run a graphic under the B-roll that identifies the perp as a member of the other political party, and would quickly go to another story about Natalee Holloway.

      1. I think the facts speak for themselves in this case. He fell into a sting because he was trying to do so something bad, end of story.

        Being immediately fired seems the best course of action in a situation like this. That is really all the Dems or any of our elected officials can do to him. The rest is up to the criminal law system.

  4. When editors at the University of California Press pondered the possible demand for “Autobiography of Mark Twain,” a $35, four-pound, 500,000-word doorstopper of a memoir, they kept their expectations modest with a planned print run of 7,500 copies.

    Now it is a smash hit across the country, landing on best-seller lists and going back to press six times, for a total print run – so far – of 275,000. The publisher cannot print copies quickly enough, leaving some bookstores and online retailers stranded without copies just as the holiday shopping season begins.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11…

    I don’t know if I share the sentiment about Twain being a blogger if he was alive today, but I know he’d have a lot of smartass comments about Republicans at the ready….

        1. “O Lord our Father, our young patriots, idols of our hearts, go forth to battle — be Thou near them! With them — in spirit — we also go forth from the sweet peace of our beloved firesides to smite the foe. O Lord our God, help us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreds with our shells; help us to cover their smiling fields with the pale forms of their patriot dead; help us to drown the thunder of the guns with the shrieks of their wounded, writhing in pain; help us to lay waste their humble homes with a hurricane of fire; help us to wring the hearts of their unoffending widows with unavailing grief; help us to turn them out roofless with little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land in rags and hunger and thirst, sports of the sun flames of summer and the icy winds of winter, broken in spirit, worn with travail, imploring Thee for the refuge of the grave and denied it — for our sakes who adore Thee, Lord, blast their hopes, blight their lives, protract their bitter pilgrimage, make heavy their steps, water their way with their tears, stain the white snow with the blood of their wounded feet! We ask it, in the spirit of love, of Him Who is the Source of Love, and Who is the ever-faithful refuge and friend of all that are sore beset and seek His aid with humble and contrite hearts. Amen.

            1. Listening to NPR this morning I heard a story of a Ross Ranch in CO that has war survivors visit for some R&R. Incredible stories of tragic consequences of useless and stupid and expensive wars. The insanity of it all boggles any reasonable persons mind!

          2. A zillion years ago I read the lyrics to his song in a public speaking class with the assignment on poetry. I thought this was a good poem.

            In the front row was one of those chirpy smiling Baptists (not to demean all Baptists)and I read this to him, in effect. I remember him squirming and avoiding my eyes.

            Gott mit uns!

            “With God On Our Side”

            Oh my name it is nothin’

            My age it means less

            The country I come from

            Is called the Midwest

            I’s taught and brought up there

            The laws to abide

            And the land that I live in

            Has God on its side.

            Oh the history books tell it

            They tell it so well

            The cavalries charged

            The Indians fell

            The cavalries charged

            The Indians died

            Oh the country was young

            With God on its side.

            The Spanish-American

            War had its day

            And the Civil War too

            Was soon laid away

            And the names of the heroes

            I’s made to memorize

            With guns on their hands

            And God on their side.

            The First World War, boys

            It came and it went

            The reason for fighting

            I never did get

            But I learned to accept it

            Accept it with pride

            For you don’t count the dead

            When God’s on your side.

            When the Second World War

            Came to an end

            We forgave the Germans

            And then we were friends

            Though they murdered six million

            In the ovens they fried

            The Germans now too

            Have God on their side.

            I’ve learned to hate Russians

            All through my whole life

            If another war comes

            It’s them we must fight

            To hate them and fear them

            To run and to hide

            And accept it all bravely

            With God on my side.

            But now we got weapons

            Of the chemical dust

            If fire them we’re forced to

            Then fire them we must

            One push of the button

            And a shot the world wide

            And you never ask questions

            When God’s on your side.

            In a many dark hour

            I’ve been thinkin’ about this

            That Jesus Christ

            Was betrayed by a kiss

            But I can’t think for you

            You’ll have to decide

            Whether Judas Iscariot

            Had God on his side.

            So now as I’m leavin’

            I’m weary as Hell

            The confusion I’m feelin’

            Ain’t no tongue can tell

            The words fill my head

            And fall to the floor

            If God’s on our side

            He’ll stop the next war.

            1. This is an issue that should unite the country. In fact, there are rumblings of reducing military spending from both sides of the aisle. It won’t come fast enough, or the cuts deep enough, for this pacifist child.

              1. Invisible, it seems to most Americans.  I don’t think it’s been mentioned in the press if the reduce-the-debt commission brought this up, or to what degree if they did.

                We have over 700 bases around the world outside of America.  WTF?  And we aren’t an empire?  The founding fathers, so revered by cons, had a fucking revolution to avoid being part of an empire.

                Like all the austerity programs suddenly popular in Europe, these changes are being put onto the backs of the middle and (economically) lower classes. The rich get the benefits of our society, yet they aren’t being asked to shoulder the burden.

                1. I am glad I got to be part of the middle class during a good part of my life.

                  Disappointing to watch it wither as the one-percenters order bigger yachts so they can winter in Dubai.

    1. It took the jury 26 hours of deliberations (they’ve been going at it since Monday), but they convicted DeLay on all counts.

      IMHO the law was pretty clear, and DeLay conspired to break it; hopefully he gets to spend some time behind bars for his attempts to illegally influence the elections process in Texas.

      1. …I can only hope that they decided that “The Hammer” is fit enough to work on a Texas road crew, shoveling hot asphalt and picking up trash in the gorgeous Texas sunshine.

        They did keep the Austin Hill country back roads neat, clean and repaired while I was there…maybe he can view it as a new way to do public service!

    4. In 2002, a PAC that DeLay ran sent soft money to the RNC, then the RNC sent hard money to TX legislative candidates.

      I think that was a pretty common, and legal, practice by BOTH parties back in the day.

      No?

        1. HTAT was asking a question, and it’s a fair question. How is what DeLay did different from business as usual funneling money from one PAC or 527 or c3 or c4 or c6 to another, same as the Senate Majority Fund and Trailhead did back in the day?

          Someone who understands the law and the government’s case should be able to explain it, and someone asking the question should be able to do so without being insulted.

      3. In Texas, it’s illegal for corporations to give money directly to (state and local) candidates, and has been for a long, long time.  Post Citizens United, it’s (probably) legal for corporations to make independent expenditures in those races, but it’s still illegal for them to donate directly to candidates.

        DeLay took money from the corporations, bundled it as “PAC” money, and then sent it to the RNC with the understanding that it be sent to Texas legislative candidate campaign committees.  His PAC donated $190,000 to the RNC for this purpose – an amount that would be illegal under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act that went into effect the day after the 2002 elections.  (So no, it’s not “normal”.)

        As far as the charges, it’s money laundering because it was a pre-meditated deliberate circumvention of the anti-corporate donation laws of Texas.  And conspiracy because multiple people were involved.

      4. but it doesn’t stop it being the law.  Clearly the jury found that the “soft” money was meant for a specific purpose, a purpose that is illegal under Texas law.

        When you give illegal funds to a different entity to then give to another person, in an effort to hide the identity of the person giving the money, you’ve laundered that money.

        And yes, the jury part does matter.  Defining the first contribution as being directly related to the final contribution is why DeLay is guilty or not.  So the reason someone who didn’t follow the trial may be confused is because they didn’t hear the direct evidence, proving beyond a reasonable doubt apparently, that demonstrates that fact.

        1. it was politically motivated you see, and the jury was made up of 12 Democratic committeemen from the most liberal precincts in the jury pool, and they all watch Rachel Maddow every night and they think George W Bush is a war criminal.

          I’m sure DeLay’s lawyers didn’t know the first thing about jury selection and were fresh out of law school. Or maybe they were blind orphans and DeLay just hired them because he wanted to help out a charity law firm.

    2. None of us asked, and until you EARN your place at the table, you have no standing.

      What have you done for me lately?

      What has that media darling SP done for anyone lately?

      Get your proverbial head out of your ass.

        1. paraphrase from the piece you linked above.

          waste time chasing utopian pipe dreams.

          which can be translated to: “continue to be selfish motherfuckers”.

          Your commitment to self-delusion is extraordinary.

          2. You asked for my definition of a common sense conservative. I gave it to you. You then said nobody ever asked me for it. This makes you…

            a BIG FAT LIAR!

  10. Vitrol in Polsland tonight.

    That’s too bad.  I don’t know why but I think that many of us seem to have forgotten that the primary reason God gave us families and holidays was so that we could take out all our borishness and unseemliness among those least likely to ever abandon us.  And then, thankfully, by so doing we can appear to strangers and others in the general population to be rational, polite, and well-mannered.

    On a completely serious note.  Have a happy Thanksgiving everyone.  Spend as much time as you can in human interaction with your friends and family.  As Sherman Potter once noted, remember someone back home loves you . . . God knows why.

    2. Not that I haven’t let fly from time to time, but it seems so very personal now.  And frequent.  And the same persons repeatedly.

      Sometimes as I read a vitriolic thread I am perplexed as the the reason the vitriol started.  And some Polsters seem to hold grudges from way back.

      Life’s too short for that.  

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