Coming tomorrow…no research allowed, or can you say NRA?

 

 

Stupid laws proposed this month: Creationism, Ayn Rand , Gun Control

   Good Day World!

Today’s topic is about conservative Republicans who don’t do themselves any favors by acting stupid. The GOP is desperately trying to re-brand from the obstructionist & plain stupid party to something better. Anything. The brand has gone toxic.

The talk about reaching out to all Americans – and not just angry white men – has fallen on deaf ears among the nation’s conservative-bitten lawmakers and politicians.

Enter reality…where in spite of themselves, conservatives just aren’t cutting the mustard and have introduced (and backed) anti-intellectual bills recently. They’re listed below.

For those Republicans who don’t drink the extreme conservative Kool-aid, it has to be hard watching their peers make absolute asses of themselves by denying scientifically proven facts.You can’t make this stuff up. It’s a damning indictment of how far conservatives haven’t come in the 21st Century! 

“Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal wants Republicans to stop being the stupid party — but apparently the memo hasn’t gotten out to state legislatures around the country.

February has been a banner month for truly silly and anti-intellectual bills in state capitals across the country. Well, mostly across the South and Midwest. Some of these bills are based on the idea that birth control is poison, and that students should not fail for arguing in biology class that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. Others would stop gun control efforts by making it a felony to try to enact gun control.

This is not the Onion: Here are some of the actual proposals.

1. Let corporations vote!

In Montana, state Rep. Steve Lavin introduced a bill that would allow corporations to vote in local elections, taking the idea that “corporations are people” to new heights.

Think Progress reports that the bill was tabled earlier this month. But under the proposal, “if a firm, partnership, company, or corporation owns real property within the municipality, the president, vice president, secretary, or other designee of the entity is eligible to vote.”

2. Criminalize gun control!

In Missouri, state Rep. Mike Leara believes even proposing gun control should be illegal. So he has proposed legislation that would make it a felony for “any member of the general assembly who proposes a piece of legislation that further restricts the right of an individual to bear arms, as set forth under the second amendment of the Constitution of the United States.”

“I filed HB 633 as a matter of principle and as a statement in defense of the Second Amendment rights of all Missourians,” Leara told Buzzfeed. “I have no illusions about the bill making it through the legislative process, but I want it to be clear that the Missouri House will stand in defense of the people’s Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.”

3. Birth control is poison

The full state Senate in Oklahoma will take up a measure to allow companies to strip birth control and abortion coverage from employer healthcare plans under a bill that unanimously cleared the committee level last week.

“Notwithstanding any other provision of state or federal law, no employer shall be required to provide or pay for any benefit or service related to abortion or contraception through the provision of health insurance to his or her employees,” the bill reads.

That would put the law in conflict with the Obamacare provision that mandates contraception coverage in employee group insurance plans, unless the company in question meets the religious organization that qualifies for an exemption.

The state senator who proposed the bill said the ide

a came from one of his constituents, identified as Dr. Dominic Pedulla. The Tulsa World calls him “an Oklahoma City cardiologist who describes himself as a natural family planning medical consultant and women’s health researcher.” He told the paper he stopped offering his insurance plan because it required contraception coverage.

“Part of (women’s) identity is the potential to be a mother,” Pedulla said. “They are being asked to suppress and radically contradict part of their own identity, and if that wasn’t bad enough, they are being asked to poison their bodies.”

4. Read Ayn Rand or stay in high school

The chairman of the education committee in Idaho’s Senate introduced a bill earlier this monththat would make students read — and pass a test — on “Atlas Shrugged” as a requirement for a high school diploma.

Then he backed away from the bill, saying he was just trying to make a point. The senator, John Goedde, told the Idaho Spokesman-Review he was “sending a message to the State Board of Education, because he’s unhappy with its recent move to repeal a rule requiring two online courses to graduate from high school, and with its decision to back off on another planned rule regarding principal evaluations.”

Why that book? It “made my son a Republican,” he said, then adding, “well, he’s not a practicing Republican. But it certainly made him a conservative.”

5. Meanwhile, make the teachers question science

In Kansas, the state Board of Education will vote on new science standards this year, so the legislative jockeying has begun. A bill before the House Education Committee would make schools include evidence against climate change in science classes.

According to the bill, science teachers would be required to “provide information to students of scientific evidence which both supports and counters a scientific theory or hypothesis.”

As the Topeka Capital Journal notes: “The bill says instruction about ‘scientific controversies’ should be objective and include ‘both the strengths and weaknesses of such scientific theory or hypothesis.’ The only controversy identified in the bill is ‘climate science.’”

There is no specific sponsor on the bill, which carries the committee’s name. The committee is controlled by Republicans.

In Oklahoma, however, go right ahead and argue that humans and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time. On a 9-8 vote last week, the Oklahoma Common Education committee approved the so-called Scientific Education and Academic Freedom Act.

If the bill becomes law, it would make it illegal for biology teachers to fail students who write papers against evolution, climate change and other theories with near 100 percent approval in the scientific community.

“I proposed this bill because there are teachers and students who may be afraid of going against what they see in their textbooks,” said state Rep. Gus Blackwell to Mother Jones.” ( By David Daley, executive editor of Salon. MORE DAVID DALEY.)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Parting shots: woman shot by friend’s oven & man wounded by dog

Now and then it’s fun to rip bizarre stories from the nation’s news desks. These two come from Florida, the Sunshine and Gun Enthusiast State!

A Florida man was shot and wounded over the weekend by his dog, who walked away without charges, police said.Gregory Dale Lanier, 35, of Frostproof, Fla., told police Saturday that he and his dog were in their truck in nearby Sebring when the dog kicked a gun that was on the truck's floor, the Highlands Tribune newspaper reported.

The gun went off, shooting Lanier in the leg, Sebring police said.Lanier wasn't seriously injured, said Sebring Police Cmdr. Steve Carr, who actually said police didn't arrest the dog because the investigation was pending, the Tribune reported. He also said he had never heard of a similar case.

According to the police report, Lanier said he was driving along State Road 17 North when the dog kicked "the unloaded .380 pistol." It went on to say that Lanier was "surprised" to learn not only that the gun was loaded, but also that it was actually a 9mm weapon, not a .380.

The incident is only the latest in a string of bizarre shootings in Florida. Just last week, a woman in St. Petersburg was wounded when she was shot by a friend's oven.

Today’s Find: ‘Fantastic’ New Flying Frog - Has Flappy Forearms

   Good Day World!

 Every now and then I like to visit National Geographic online and check out the animals. Today’s topic is about the discovery of another animal you and I weren’t aware of (unless you’re an expert of course):

 Scientists have stumbled across a new species of flying frog — on the ground

 While hiking a lowland forest in 2009, not far from Ho Chi Minh City (map),Vietnam, "we came across a huge green frog, sitting on a log," said Jodi Rowley, an amphibian biologist at the Australian Museum in Sydney and lead author of a new study on the frog.

Photograph above courtesy Jodi Rowley

Rowley later discovered that the 3.5-inch-long (9-centimeter-long) creature is a relatively large new type of flying frog, a group known for its ability to "parachute" from tree to tree thanks to special aerodynamic adaptations, such as webbed feet, Rowley said. (Also see "'Vampire Flying Frog' Found; Tadpoles Have Black Fangs.")

Rowley dubbed the new species Helen's flying frog, in honor of her mother, Helen Rowley, "who has steadfastly supported her only child trekking through the forests of Southeast Asia in search of frogs," according to a statement.

The newfound species—there are 80 types of flying frogs—is also "one of the most flying frogs of the flying frogs," Rowley said, "in that it's got huge hands and feet that are webbed all the way to the toe pad."

"Females even have flappy skin on their forearms to glide," added Rowley, who has received funding from the National Geographic Committee on Research and Exploration. (National Geographic News is part of the National Geographic Society.) "The females are larger and heavier than males, so the little extra flaps probably don't make much of a difference," she said.

As Rowley wrote on her blog, "At first it may seem strange that such a fantastic and obvious frog could escape discovery until now—less than 100 kilometers [60 miles] from an urban centre with over nine million people."

(More information and article source)

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

Ghost Towns of the Pacific Northwest: Bordeaux, Washington

Good Day World!

Today’s topic is Ghost Towns of the Pacific Northwest. If you’re like me, you’ll enjoy checking out the old logging town of Bordeaux, Washington. We have a rich history of logging in Humboldt County and that’s what sparked my interest in other logging towns.

Got a good one today:

Avi Abrams (of Dark Roasted Blend) and a historian Steve O'Neill from Olympia, Washington, team up to bring a true gem of a ghost town. Steve writes: "There are places in the Pacific Northwest that are breathtaking. I'm an historian. Taught history for about twenty years. The Pacific Northwest is not as deeply rooted historically as other parts of the world, but there is a colorful, multilayered, interwoven fabric to this place that I've come to love."

The Story of Bordeaux, Washington: Loads of Pioneer Spirit, Multiplied by Hard Work, Sheer Guts, Greed and Industry
 For sixty years the logging town of Bordeaux, Washington prospered because it was located in the heart of Capital Forest where towering fir and cedar trees provided beams for buildings, spars for sailing ships and shingles for roofs. The 120 ft. straight, clear spars went to Maine to provide the masts for the fast clipper ships. Mumby cedar shingles were prized in the Midwest as the best quality for homes and businesses. After 100 years or more, the warehouses of Seattle and Tacoma are now offices and upscale restaurants with the original, massive, open beams milled from forest giants that once were common, but now are protected.

(Mumby Shingle Mill, 1904. The pond is where the train would dump the Cedar logs so they could be floated to the mill)

Logging towns were very similar to other historical examples of booming economies such as cattle towns filled with drunk cowboys or gold rush towns with newly rich miners trying hard to spend as much as they could, as fast as they could.
The town of Bordeaux as seen from above the saw mill, in 1918 at the time of the first World War. The mist escaping the building in the foreground was steam from a kiln that dried the timber. GO HERE TO SEE MORE GREAT PHOTOS & READ MORE HISTORY ABOUT THE AREA.

Time for me to walk on down the road…

AS IT STANDS: Remembering John Steinbeck, a great American writer

 By Dave Stancliff/For The Times-Standard
 My favorite author, John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. has a birthday coming up on Feb. 27th. If he were still alive he’d be going on 111 years-old. I’ve always felt a closeness to him through his books. He told stories ripped from the headlines of the day with a clarity and grace only a great writer could display.
While still in college (1977) I considered writing fiction, and wrote a screen play based on his book “Sweet Thursday.”  My creative writing teacher liked it so much he gave me two addresses to write to so I could ask permission to reproduce parts of the book. 
 I can’t remember the publishing house that had the rights back then, but I do recall that the second address was that of Steinbeck’s third wife, Elaine Scott. Long story short, rights to the book weren’t available at the time. Scott, however did send me a nice little letter and wished me well. She even thanked me for my service to the country. I had told her I was a Vietnam veteran going to college and I wanted to be a writer. Perhaps when she wrote me, she was thinking about her husband’s two sons by his second marriage who were also Vietnam veterans.
  I remember even earlier, when I was a junior in high school (1967), Steinbeck went to Vietnam, to cover the war for Newsday Magazine. He thought it was some kind of heroic adventure and was often criticized for being a Hawk. Years later he changed his position on the war.
The story goes that while working for Newsday in 1968, he visited one of his sons on the battlefield. In a case of life being stranger than fiction, Steinbeck was allowed to man a machine-gun on a firebase while his son, John Steinbeck IV (1946-1991) and members of his platoon slept. 
 For more interesting stories about John Steinbeck’s time in Vietnam you can refer to the August 2012 issue of Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine - “Steinbeck’s Dispatches From Vietnam.” (http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/Steinbecks-Dispatches-From-Vietnam-162922976.html.)
Steinbeck’s other son, Thomas (Thom) Myles Steinbeck, also served in Vietnam. He was trained by Armed Forces Radio and Television division at Fort Knox, but when he arrived in Vietnam on the second day of the 1968 Tet Offensive he was immediately reassigned as a helicopter door-gunner.
Elaine Scott’s letter so touched me that I didn’t care about not being able to sell the screen play adaptation. She was still a link to the man I had  admired since I read “The Grapes of Wrath” in high school.
While in high school I played Lennie in the stage play “Of Mice and Men,”  a drama about the dreams of a pair of migrant agricultural laborers in California. Just four years prior to that, the 1962 Nobel Prize citation called the play a “…little masterpiece.”

 There was an irony in his selection for the Nobel prize that most people weren’t aware of until last year. In 2012 (50 years later), the Nobel Prize opened its archives and revealed that Steinbeck was a "compromise choice" from a shortlist consisting of Steinbeck, British authors Robert Graves and Lawrence Durrel, French dramatist Jean Anouilh and Danish author Karen Blixen.
The declassified documents showed that he was chosen as the best of a bad lot. Committee member Henry Olsson wrote, "There aren't any obvious candidates for the Nobel prize and the prize committee is in an unenviable situation.”
Hard to believe isn’t it? One of the greatest of all American authors won a Nobel Prize by default. Steinbeck was controversial in his day for belonging to the League of American Writers, a Communist organization in 1935.
 Historians suggest that Steinbeck’s contacts with leftist authors, journalists, and labor figures influenced much of his writing. The Grapes of Wrath is a great example. Some critics found it too sympathetic to the workers' plight and too critical of capitalism but the book and the movie found a large audience in the working class.
“The Grapes of Wrath” was banned by school boards in 1939. Copies were actually burned in Salinas on two different occasions. According to the American Library Association Steinbeck was one of the ten most frequently banned authors from 1990 to 2004, with “Of Mice and Men” ranking sixth out of a 100 banned books in the United States.
As far as I’m concerned those are great credentials. Imagine, people are still trying to quiet his voice. It’ll never happen. Not as long as we are free.

While serving as a war correspondent in WW II, Steinbeck sustained wounds from shrapnel and some psychological trauma. The fact that he was able to overcome them and go on has always inspired me. How could it not?
His body of work, twenty-seven books, including sixteen novels, six non-fiction books, and five collections of short stories, will always stand as testimony of the human spirit. Once scorned in the communities where he grew up, he’s now a tourist attraction and proud locals are happy to claim him as a native son.
 As It Stands, Happy upcoming Birthday John…

British engineer plans Niagara Falls plunge to test ‘Tsunami Survival’ capsule

 Good Day World!

 Feel lucky? Today’s topic is about belief and luck.

I want to share a story about one chap, Julian Sharp (that’s him on the left), whose betting his life that his invention can take a person over Niagara Falls safely.

Would you put your life on the line to prove a product you made was safe? For me, it would depend on how badly I needed the money.

 A British inventor has made a “tsunami survival” capsule — and plans to test it by hurtling over Niagara Falls in it. Aerospace engineer Julian Sharpe, 50, believes his lifesaving pod will protect people from tidal waves, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, superstorms and many other natural disasters.

He says he has no qualms about riding the aluminum ball over the world-famous 167 ft. falls. The impact will be like being rear-ended by a car at around 20 mph, he claims.

He said: “We can tell people how strong it is but until we have proved that it has saved a life they might not believe what we say.” Julian, born in Carmarthern, south west Wales, now lives in Seattle. He hopes the capsules, holding up to six people, will sell for between £650 and £3,250. A prototype shown at the Yokohama Expo is to go into production soon. Source

Time for me to walk on down the road…

Let’s listen to the ‘Rest of the Story’ with classic Paul Harvey Broadcasts

            Good Day World!
 Today’s topic is Paul Harvey. I use to love listening to his broadcasts and thought it would be fun to share them with you.
Let’s turn the clock back for a moment and read about The Rest of the Story (TROTS) a staple of Paul Harvey from the time it was introduced in May 1976 though Paul Harvey's death in February 2009.
It usually aired Monday through Friday of each week in the early to late afternoon, and sometimes was repeated in the early evening. Each broadcast started with "You know what the news is, in a minute you're going to hear the REST of the STORY". This was followed by a 30 second commercial and then the story itself. Without the intro and commercial. they are approximately 3 minutes and 45 seconds long.
These were normally pre-recorded well in advance, while the daily morning and noon news was recorded earlier in the day (with the exception of the Saturday news which was recorded the day before). TROTS stories were written by Paul Harvey Jr. and were hosted by either Paul, or in later years by Paul Jr. as a substitute host. Following Paul's death, Doug Limerick was chosen to be the show's new host, but it was cancelled three weeks after Paul's death.
The reason why TROTS was unique was the fact that each story had a unique twist, and was "verified" to be true (though some question the validity of that statement). In any case, they were entertaining.
Classics Downloads Stories beginning with "A" 
Abbott and Costello
Abner Doubleday
A-Bomb Musician
Aborted Abortion
Abraham Lincoln
Abraham Lincoln 2 *
Abraham Lincoln 3
Abraham Lincoln *
Acid Lake *
Actor On Death Row
Actor Speech Impediment
Actor Willie *
Actress Biographer
Admiral Lord Nelson
Adolph Hitler 2
Adolph Hitler *
Aesop
Agatha Christie
Agnostic Inventor *
AIDS Cure
Albert Einstein,
More information  http://paulharveyarchives.com/
Time for me to walk on down the road…

Dreaming of solar powered cars or how someone converted a 100-year old electric car to solar

Good Day World!

The topic is there’s nothing new under the sun – or in today’s example – a 100-year old electric car that was converted to run on solar power.

 Imagine that? A 1912 Baker Electric car was retrofitted with a solar panel by Charles Escoffery for the International Rectifier Corp. back in 1960.

The panel cost $20,000. With the panel, the Baker could run at 20 mph for three hours. International Rectifier hoped to soon be churning out "noiseless, smogless" solar cars for $5000 each. It's 53 years later now, and still no sign of these classics on the road. Source:Newsweek (Mar 7, 1960) & M3GA.

Of the alternative fuel concepts, the oldest concept has been that of using solar power to drive our cars. The whole concept of solar cars was started in the early 1990’s when emission laws were being enforced all around the United States. Many colleges and universities started looking at the possibility of solar powered cars. But it was soon found out that for cars to run, the solar collectors needed were very large.

Solar powered cars run on electric power and this electric power comes from the solar collectors. Hundreds of photovoltaic cells are placed in the car and these cells can convert sunlight into electricity. This energy is then stored in solar collectors which in turn feeds the electric motor to run the car. Each photovoltaic cell produces about one-half volt of electricity and hence the need for hundreds of such cells.

The downside is that solar cars would not work properly on cloudy days as they do not get enough sunlight to produce the electricity. Also running solar powered cars during nights is limited and can run until the electricity stored in the battery is exhausted. Having larger batteries to store electric power is possible, but it would mean that there is no place for people to travel in the car.

I’m sure that one day the technology will be feasible, but until it is I’m sticking with Hybrids that use batteries and fuel.

Related articles: 

Which is More Efficient, Solar Powered EV or a Biofuel Powered Car?

SSUET’s students produce solar-powered car

Time for me to walk on down the road…

 

New Blog Series: ‘Why Politicians Are So Damn Funny!’

Head’s up readers!

As It Stands – this Blog – is proud to premier a new series called: “Why Politicians Are So Damn Funny!” today…

This series is exclusive to this blog and won’t be found anywhere else – unless other blogs, etc. pick it up and re-publish it, which is okay.

To jump-start the series I’m introducing Newt Gingrich’s latest lunacy where he clashed with Neocon Karl Rove (aka Darth Vader) over billionaires selecting Republican candidates. This is rich (pun intended):

We’re talking about the same Newt Gingrich, who failed at his attempt to become our next president - and who was bankrolled by Sheldon Adelson, the Vegas-based casino magnate, and his wife, Miriam, who donated a total of $20 million to the pro-Newt super PAC Winning Our Future last year. In a classic case of flip-flopping (Mitt Romney was probably proud of him) Newt revealed his latest tactic – don’t let rich guys buy nominations unless they’re the RIGHT rich guys of course.

Gingrich recently wrote this in the conservative publication Human Events:

I am unalterably opposed to a bunch of billionaires financing a boss to pick candidates in 50 states. This is the opposite of the Republican tradition of freedom and grassroots small town conservatism.

No one person is smart enough nor do they have the moral right to buy nominations across the country.

That is the system of Tammany Hall and the Chicago machine. It should be repugnant to every conservative and every Republican.

How can anyone take Newt seriously? Apparently a group of other maverick conservatives have joined up with him to attack Darth Rove’s Conservative Victory Project, a new initiative associated with the super PAC American Crossroads to ensure more electable congressional candidates.

In other words, Rove and other members of the Evil Empire are trying to clean up the current list of conservative Republican candidates who don’t drink the same Kool Aid as them. Extremists replacing extremists. Even worse than the blind leading the blind.

The laugher here is that neither side of this conservative schism is in touch with voter reality. No matter who they come up with, the candidate isn’t going to get enough angry white men votes to get into office. But what the heck? They do provide a few good laughs as they fumble around the political landscape and pollute it with their twisted dreams.

As It Stands, all of these ideological idiots have lots of money and time to imagine a world were no one challenges their wealth or political aspirations.