WASHINGTON (CNN) — The more often Americans go to church, the more likely they are to support the torture of suspected terrorists, according to a new analysis.
More than half of people who attend services at least once a week — 54 percent — said the use of torture against suspected terrorists is “often” or “sometimes” justified. Only 42 percent of people who “seldom or never” go to services agreed, according the analysis released Wednesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
"We were led to believe that we would see great change, immediate change, and all we're seeing is a prolonged effort, because just what happened in the 1930s with FDR.
"The more the government spent, the more the government regulated, the more the government put up tariff barriers -- trade barriers -- the more government intervened, the longer the recession occurred. And as a matter of fact, the recession that FDR had to deal with wasn't as bad as the recession Coolidge had to deal with in the early '20s. Yet, the prescription that Coolidge put on that, from history, is lower taxes, lower regulatory burden, and we saw the roaring '20s where we saw markets and growth in the economy like we never seen before in the history of the country.
"FDR applied just the opposite formula -- the Hoot-Smalley Act, which was a tremendous burden on tariff restrictions, and then, of course, trade barriers and the regulatory burden and tax barriers. That's what we saw happen under FDR. That took a recession and blew it into a full-scale depression. The American people suffered for almost 10 years under that kind of thinking."
The twisted idea that FDR was responsible for the Great Depression is standard right-wing nonsense,so we can just ignore it. However, Bachmann's latest specious rant is weirder than most of the stuff she usually delivers. It confirms, once again, that the Minnesota Republican is living in some kind of separate universe or at least one that is rapidly diverging from the one the rest of us are experiencing. This might explain Bachmann's belief that Jimmy Carter was president in 1976, but that is just a minor symptom.
It's hard to even know where to start with the latest screed. First, she posits that the economy under Coolidge was worse than the Great Depression. I guess the name "Great Depression" should be "Second Great Depression" if we are playing by her rules and far be it from me to argue against the idea that The New Deal created the Great Depression. I'd have to be crazy!
What really caught my attention is Bachmann's belief that FDR passed "the Hoot-Smalley Act" and that act "took a recession and blew it into a full-scale depression." First, I could have sworn that the name of the law was actually "Smoot-Hawley" but I've been wrong before. Second, I must have been absent the day they taught that it was responsible for the Great Depression because I am sure I would have remembered something that important. Lastly, the Smoot-Hawley bill was championed by Republicans and signed by President Herbert Hoover who, I am pretty sure, was Roosevelts's Republican predecessor.
Bachmann is blaming FDR for a law sponsored by Republicans, which was implemented three years before he took office.
There really ought to be an independent monitoring group that verifies what Congresscritters utter on the floor of the House and there ought to be penalties for every provable untruth uttered. Here are my suggestions for punishment but feel free to offer your own.FDA is updating its health advisory on the risks associated with eating all raw sprouts because of a recent E. coli O157:H7 outbreak associated with alfalfa sprouts. This advisory is also being updated to specifically include raw and lightly cooked mung bean sprouts. Since FDA issued its original health advisory on sprouts in 1999, there have been several reported foodborne illness outbreaks associated with sprouts. Persons in high risk categories (i.e., children, the elderly, and the immunocompromised) should not eat raw or lightly cooked sprouts.
Outbreaks of foodborne illness from all implicated raw sprouts have involved the pathogenic bacteria Salmonella or E. coli O157:H7 and have affected persons of all ages and both genders. Healthy persons infected with these bacteria experience diarrhea, nausea, abdominal cramping and fever for several days. Those persons who wish to reduce their risk of foodborne illness should not eat raw sprouts.
For people in high risk categories, an E. coli O157:H7 infection could lead to serious complications, including hemolytic uremic syndrome, which can result in kidney failure or death. Salmonella infection (i.e., salmonellosis) in these high risk groups can also cause serious illness. As stated in the 2002 Food Code, hospitals, day care centers, nursing homes and senior centers should not serve sprouts.
There have been four foodborne illness outbreaks associated with mung bean sprouts and two outbreaks associated with alfalfa sprouts in the U.S. between 2000 and 2002. All mung bean and one alfalfa sprout outbreak involved salmonellosis. The mung bean outbreaks have been associated with raw or lightly cooked sprouts. The most recent E. coli O157:H7 outbreak was associated with alfalfa sprouts in California.
Some segments of the sprout industry have made significant strides to enhance the safety of their products by following recommendations in the 1999 Sprouts Guidance. However, adherence to these guidelines has not been universal, and outbreaks have continued to occur in association with raw and lightly cooked sprouts.
The FDA offers the following advice to all consumers concerning sprouts:
- Cook all sprouts thoroughly before eating to significantly reduce the risk of illness.
- Sandwiches and salads purchased at restaurants and delicatessens often contain raw sprouts. Consumers who wish to reduce their risk of foodborne illness should specifically request that raw sprouts not be added to their food.
- Homegrown sprouts also present a health risk if eaten raw or lightly cooked. Many outbreaks have been attributed to contaminated seed. If pathogenic bacteria are present in or on seed, they can grow to high levels during sprouting even under clean conditions.
The FDA will continue to closely monitor the safety of sprouts and will take further actions as necessary, including the establishment of preventive controls to protect consumers. Consumers who have eaten raw or lightly cooked sprouts and are experiencing diarrhea or other symptoms of foodborne infections are advised to consult their health care providers.
Additional information is available at www.cfsan.fda.gov.
I think it is pretty rich that Governor Rick Perry of Texas is the first in line for his stockpile of Tamiflu. Not that I would ever think of punishing Texans for their idiot governor.When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year's emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.
Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse -- with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.
I'm a little late on this but this is very good news!
ScienceDaily (Apr. 14, 2009) — For the first time, scientists have isolated the parasite Nosema ceranae (Microsporidia) from professional apiaries suffering from honey bee colony depopulation syndrome. They then went on to treat the infection with complete success.
In a study published in the new journal from the Society for Applied Microbiology: Environmental Microbiology Reports, scientists from Spain analysed two apiaries and found evidence of honey bee colony depopulation syndrome (also known as colony collapse disorder in the USA). They found no evidence of any other cause of the disease (such as the Varroa destructor, IAPV or pesticides), other than infection with Nosema ceranae. The researchers then treated the infected surviving under-populated colonies with the antibiotic drug, flumagillin and demonstrated complete recovery of all infected colonies.
Here is another nail in the rightly deserved HFCS coffin:
Some research has suggested that consumption of high-fructose corn syrup, used as a sweetener in a wide variety of foods, may increase the risk of obesity and heart disease. Now, a controlled and randomized study has found that drinks sweetened with fructose led to higher blood levels of L.D.L, or “bad” cholesterol, and triglycerides in overweight test subjects, while drinks sweetened with another sugar, glucose, did not. Both L.D.L. and triglycerides have been linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.
The study was published online on Monday in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
h/t Susie
On top of finding out we tortured captives 6 times a day and put their children in boxes full of bugs.... The Senate Armed Service Committee has released its full report on detainee abuse by the US Armed Forces. I have only just read the executive summary on Balloon Juice and it is shameful, to say the least. People like Donald Rumsfeld, Ricardo Sanchez and Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller are shown for the criminals they are, not to mention George Bush.
I went through SERE training which teaches you what to expect if you are captured by an enemy that doesn't recognize the Geneva Conventions. When I think about George Bush and others authorizing techniques specifically designed to violate the Conventions without a second thought it just makes me sick. There are a lot of controls and safety mechanisms built into the SERE protocols that don't exist in the actual theater. It's no wonder captives died in our hands. What really bothers me is that the people authorizing and executing this are militiary people who should know better. Didn't they have a problem using these techniques against captives in Afghanistan, Iraq and GTMO?President Obama prbably realized when he shook hands with old Hugo that the "tea baggers" back home would have a kitten and accuse him of selling American babies to the devil. He made a point of saying...Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tore into President Barack Obama Monday for his friendly greeting of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying Obama is bolstering the "enemies of America."
Gingrich appeared on a number of morning talk shows comparing Obama to President Jimmy Carter for the smiling, hearty handshake he offered Chavez, one of the harshest critics of the United States, during the Summit of the Americas. [...]
Two Republican senators, Judd Gregg of New Hampshire and John Ensign of Nevada, joined in the criticism Monday, with Ensign calling Obama's greeting of Chavez "irresponsible."
"It's unlikely that as a consequence of me shaking hands or having a polite conversation with Mr. Chavez that we are endangering the strategic interests of the United States," Obama told reporters. "I don't think anybody can find any evidence that that would do so. Even within this imaginative crowd, I think you would be hard-pressed to paint a scenario in which U.S. interests would be damaged as a consequence of us having a more constructive relationship with Venezuela."That evidently wasn't enough for Gingrich, Ensign and Gregg who were still licking their wounds after the miserable results of the teabagging follies. They needed something, anything to attack the President with and this was all they could find.
"We had this debate throughout the campaign, and the whole notion was, is that somehow if we showed courtesy or opened up dialogue with governments that had previously been hostile to us, that that somehow would be a sign of weakness -- the American people didn't buy it. And there's a good reason the American people didn't buy it -- because it doesn't make sense."Why do you think the Republican leadership is promoting the idea of American weakness? Really, GOP find something important enough to get your shorts in a wad for...there are plenty of issues with more spit and substance. The U.S. President was photographed shaking hands with the twice-elected head of state of a large South American democracy at a forum for hemispheric leaders. That's it. The President didn't whisper nuclear secrets in his ear or kiss him on the lips. Enough already.
In fact, Senate Resolution 632 did a lot more than merely threaten to end this country. It stated that under the Constitution, the only crimes the federal government could prosecute were treason, piracy and slavery.
“Therefore, all acts of Congress which assume to create, define or punish [other] crimes … are altogether void, and of no force,” the Georgia Senate declared.
In other words, in the infinite, almost unanimous wisdom of the Georgia Senate, Michael Vick is being imprisoned illegally, Bernie Madoff should serve no time for stealing $60 billion and the Unabomber must go free. In fact, the federal penitentiary in Atlanta should be emptied of its inmates.
But wait, there’s more.
The resolution goes on to endorse the theory that states have the right to abridge constitutional freedoms of religion, press and speech. According to the resolution, it is up to the states to decide “how far the licentiousness of speech and of the press may be abridged.”
The resolution even endorses “nullification,” the legal concept that states have the power to “nullify” or ignore federal laws that they believe exceed the powers granted under the Constitution. That concept has a particularly nasty legacy. It helped precipitate the Civil War, and in the 1950s and early ’60s it was cited by Southern states claiming the right to ignore Supreme Court rulings ordering the end of segregation.
Finally, the resolution states that if Congress, the president or federal courts take any action that exceeds their constitutional powers, the Constitution is rendered null and void and the United States of America is officially disbanded. As an example, the resolution specifically states that if the federal government enacts “prohibitions of type or quantity of arms or ammunition,” the country is disbanded.
In other words, if Congress votes to restore the ban on sale of assault rifles, the United States is deemed to no longer exist.
The President released a strategic plan outlining his vision for high speed rail in America. The plan identifies $8 billion provided in the ARRA and $1 billion a year for five years requested in the federal budget as a down payment to jump-start a potential world-class passenger rail system and sets the direction of transportation policy for the future. The strategic plan will be followed by detailed guidance for state and local applicants. By late summer, the Federal Railroad Administration will begin awarding the first round of grants.All the rest of the developed countries and even China are going full speed ahead on building the infrastructure and making the investments in high speed rail. I have been envious of European rail for years. The trains in France are brilliant. England, unfortunately decided that private companies could do it better and de-nationalized their rail system and are paying for it dearly. British rail is not nearly the experience it used to be. We can do this. During his speech, Obama said, "It's being done. It's just not being done here. There's no reason why we can't do this. This is America. There's no reason why the future of travel should lie somewhere else, beyond our borders." He's absolutely right. I have always loved trains and taken rail in Europe every chance I got. I still remember the excitement years ago when Madam and I took the train from London to Edinburgh and then on to Inverness for New Year (Hogmanay). The scenery along the eastern coast of England is fabulous. Scot rail was a little primitive and we nearly froze on the unheated train but still had a wonderful time. My friend in London had given me a silver flask filled with single malt and brandy for Christmas which helped. There are multitudes of great rail adventures in Europe and even still in England (like the train from Settle to Carlisle).
Additional funding for long-term planning and development is expected from legislation authorizing federal surface transportation programs.
The report formalizes the identification of ten high-speed rail corridors as potential recipients of federal funding. Those lines are: California, Pacific Northwest, South Central, Gulf Coast, Chicago Hub Network, Florida, Southeast, Keystone, Empire and Northern New England. Also, opportunities exist for the Northeast Corridor from Washington to Boston to compete for funds to improve the nation’s only existing high-speed rail service.
The next time you reach for a bottle of water instead of filling a glass out of the tap you might think a moment about this:
h/t SusieApril 6, 2009 — $1.79 might seem like a small price to pay for a bottle of water. But it costs the Earth far more than that.
Compared to a liter of tap water, producing a liter of bottled water requires as much as 2,000 times more energy, according to the first analysis of its kind. The study also found that our nation’s bottled water habit sucked up the equivalent of 32 to 54 million barrels of oil last year.
“The bottom line is that we should understand better the implications of our choices,” said Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, Calif. “It suggests more ways to reduce energy use than maybe we otherwise think of.”
As you probably remember President Obama wants to expand AmeriCorps in a big way and about a week ago, the Senate voted to expand national community service programs. This followed on the House passing a similar measure. When the President signs the bill AmeriCorps will grow from 75,000 to 250,000 potential slots.
As usual, progressive policy has the wingnuts going apeshit calling it a new "Hitler Youth" and such. As I mentioned in an earlier post the chief nutcase is not to be outdone, Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) calls the other wingnuttery and raises them a re-education camp or two.
This was Bachmann's response over the weekend to the Serve America Act:
"It's under the guise of, quote, 'volunteerism.' But it's not volunteers at all. It's paying people to do work on behalf of government. [...]
"I believe that there is a very strong chance that we will see that young people will be put into mandatory service. And the real concerns is that there are provisions for what I would call re-education camps for young people, where young people have to go and get trained in a philosophy that the government puts forward and then they have to go to work in some of these politically correct forums."
Like her buddy on the FOX Nutwork Glenn Beck, Madam Bachmann feels free to just make stuff up in order to incite the revolution she so dearly wants. First of all, the bills in both the House and Senate were largely bipartisan and recieved support from both sides. Secondly, AmeriCorps is a volunteer program and nothing in either the House or Senate bills require participation.
According to Environmental Defense, if every American skipped one meal of chicken per week and substituted vegetarian foods instead, the carbon dioxide savings would be the same as taking more than half a million cars off of U.S. roads.
Globally, we feed 756 million tons of grain to farmed animals. As Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer notes in his new book, if we fed that grain to the 1.4 billion people who are living in abject poverty, each of them would be provided more than half a ton of grain, or about 3 pounds of grain/day -- that's twice the grain they would need to survive. And that doesn't even include the 225 million tons of soy that are produced every year, almost all of which is fed to farmed animals.It makes one think about the cost of having so much meat in our diets.
From the Wall Street Journal
PITTSBURGH -- A 22-year-man who shot and killed three Pittsburgh police officers over the weekend had been stockpiling guns and ammunition, buying and selling the weapons online "because he believed that as a result of the economic collapse, the police were no longer able to protect society," according to a court report.
[snip]
The shootings came during a particularly violent three days across the U.S., with shootings that left 14 dead in Binghamton, N.Y., and six dead in Washington state, where a father shot five of his children, ages 7 to 16, using a rifle, and later, himself. It also follows just two weeks after four police officers were fatally shot in Oakland, Calif., in the deadliest day for U.S. law enforcement since Sept. 11, 2001. Last month, a North Carolina man shot and killed eight people before police shot him and ended the rampage, and a 28-year-old man killed 10 people, including his mother and four other relatives, across two rural Alabama counties before killing himself.
As tragic and senseless as these murderous rampages are, I'm afraid this will become a more frequent occurrence in the near term. Insane people like Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann are setting fires under the people that need just a little push before they go into full blown crazy. People like Beck are repeating and repeating the completely false narrative that President Obama is going to take away all the guns, form a military police and turn us into a socialist dictatorship. It's like shouting fire in a crowded theatre. There are a lot of people with only a fingernail grip on reality and sanity and it takes merely a suggestion that feeds their paranoia to send them over the edge.
The economy already has a large percentage of the populace on edge, one in six Americans are either unemployed or underemployed and a goodly number of the rest are worried about their job. The media should be calling for calm and patience not "armed rebellion". The latest numbers from the FBI report that the applications for gun ownership are up dramatically which bodes very badly for an upturn in violence. It's a very simple equation. More guns plus more tension equals more violence.
Marion Nestle points out something interesting surrounding the pistachio recall which now involves 2 million pounds of nuts and involves 74 products so far. Just how was the Salmonella contamination discovered? It was first reported that Kraft foods found contamination in some of their trail mix and I was giving them credit for following HACCP protocols even though they are not required by the FDA for foods like trail mix. Only for sprouts, fresh juices, seafood, and eggs on the FDA side and for meat and poultry on the USDA side. Evidently, according to USA Today, a small nut company in Illinois, Georgia’s Nut, routinely tests for Salmonella and found the bacteria in nuts purchased from Setton Pistachio of California. Georgia’s Nut recalled products distributed in the Chicago area. This company also produces a trail mix for Kraft Foods. It notified Kraft Foods, which also promptly recalled its products.
It is evidently Georgia's Nut and not Kraft that follows a HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) protocol. HACCP is a science-based food safety procedure that requires analyzing where contamination might occur in production processes (hazard analysis), taking steps to prevent contamination at those critical control points, and using pathogen testing to make sure the steps were followed and the plan is working.
Kraft and other like food processors are only required to follow Good Manufacturing Processes, which are considerably less rigorous (Hello the peanut butter recalls ). Kudos go to Georgia's Nut for going beyond the requirements and catching this thing before people got sick.
Marion has long advocated HACCP requirements for all foods which seems like a better and better idea.
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
Cook the cauliflower florets in a large pot of boiling salted water for 5 to 6 minutes, until tender but still firm. Drain. Note: If you are using a green vegetable like broccoli, green beans, green onions, etc. then you need to refresh them with cold water after the blanching so that they will keep their color.
While the cauliflower or whatever cooks, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter in a medium saucepan over low heat. Add the flour, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon for 2 minutes to cook the flour. Pour all of the milk into the butter-flour mixture and stir with a whisk until it starts to bubble. This is nothing more than a light white sauce. Simmer, whisking constantly, for maybe a minute, usually once it starts to boil it will be at its maximum thickness. Off the heat, add 1 teaspoon of salt, the pepper, nutmeg, 1/2 cup of the cheese, and the Parmesan or a whole cup of cheese and skip the Parmesan. Stir until the cheese melts and it all comes together into a smooth sauce.
Pour a third of the sauce on the bottom of an 8 x 11 x 2-inch baking dish or a 9x12 if that's what you have. Place the drained cauliflower on top and then spread the rest of the white sauce evenly over the top. Combine the bread crumbs with the remaining 1/4 cup of cheese and sprinkle evenly on top. Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and drizzle over the gratin. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the top is browned. you can serve it hot or at room temperature but I prefer it hot.
You can use this as a one dish meal by just putting a nice salad on the side or as a side dish. Left overs will keep in the fridge for a few days and don't suffer too much when heated in the micro wave.
Try this with other vegetables and you will be glad to have this in your arsenal. You can gratin anything as long as you have the weapon of white sauce with cheese.
