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POPSEven more lies, damned lies and stimulus jobs So we've now seen reports of goosing stimulus job stats in Georgia, Illinois, Wisconsin, California, New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio, New Jersey, Virginia and Texas. (Ed Morrissey at Hot Air has more thoughts on the California story, as well as a round-up of some of the other state reports on stimulus chicanery.) At first the White House was owning up to "persisting errors" in the stimulus jobs data -- but when all the supposed errors seem to create the illusion of more jobs and are widespread from coast to coast, it sure looks like a deliberate ruse to hide the stimulus' clear failings. The White House needs to explain how this is happening before it turns into a full-fledged scandal.
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POPSAfter flurry of stimulus spending, questionable projects pile up
- $3.4 million for a 13-foot tunnel for turtles and other wildlife attempting to cross U.S. 27 in Lake Jackson, Fla. - $1.15 million to install a guardrail for a persistently dry lake bed in Guymon, Okla. - $9.38 million to renovate a century-old train depot in Lancaster County, Pa., that has not been used for three decades. - $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased. - $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn. - $173,834 to weatherize eight pickup trucks in Madison County, Ill. - $20,000 for a fish sperm freezer at the Gavins Point National Fish Hatchery in South Dakota. - $380,000 to spay and neuter pets in Wichita, Kan. - $300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money. - $1.5 million for a fence to block would-be jumpers from leaping off the All-American Bridge in Akron, Ohio. - $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally fr
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POPSBreyer State University If I had any intention of going back to college, I would not go to a traditional university like Ohio State. I would go to one of the more innovative and cutting edge universities that offered online courses—like Breyer State University.
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POPSSubstance or Teenage Angst? If the allegations are true it would be criminal to disregard them. Yet, the more I follow this story the more I lean to the idea that this is a case of a teenage girl who is confused and has taken steps that make it difficult for her to retract. The most disturbing news to come out of the whole drama is the inclusion of the lawyer who was elemental in the political debauchery surrounding the Terri Schiavo case. The conservatives in Florida seem to have a natural talent of stepping in a pile of dog poo and then flinging it at anyone close by. Considering the underlying mistrust of Muslims that brews among conservatives this incident has the earmarks of being capable of evolving into a major political slime-fest.
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POPSEPA Fails to Inform Public About Weed-Killer in Drinking Water Ah hell, let’s add the EPA to the list of evil corporations as well. Atrazine has become an issue of concern for environmentalists and consumer groups as the use of the herbicide has soared in the United States over the past few decades. "It is the responsibility of the EPA and Syngenta to inform the public of accurate levels of atrazine in their drinking water," said Jason Rohr, a specialist in ecotoxicology at the University of South Florida who studies the effects of atrazine in animals, and who served on the EPA's atrazine panel this past spring. No wonder Americans are getting fed up with what our government is doing and not doing. They are allowing corporations to poison us by allowing them to escape responsibility, they are allowing the EPA to not warn us of chemical poisoning. What is next? A healthcare system designed to cover up the causes of illnesses created by these ‘evil corporations’?
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POPSAttacking Alzheimer's with Red Wine and Marijuana "Could people smoke marijuana to prevent Alzheimer's disease if the disease is in the family? We're not saying that, but it might actually work," he said. "What we are saying is it appears that a safe, legal substance that mimics those important properties of marijuana can work on receptors in the brain to prevent memory impairments in aging. So that's really hopeful."
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POPS"Rich States, Poor States" New York and Ohio and relocated mostly to the nine tax-haven states with no income tax, including Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire and Texas. We also found that over these same years the no-income tax states created 89% more jobs and had 32% faster personal income growth than their high-tax counterparts. New Hampshire helps give the lie to the feeble counterargument. Those who disapprove of tax competition complain that lower state taxes only create a zero-sum competition where states "race to the bottom" and cut services to the poor as taxes fall to zero. They say that tax cutting inevitably means lower quality schools and police protection as lower tax rates mean starvation of public services. They're wrong, and New Hampshire is our favorite illustration. The Live Free or Die State has no income or sales tax, yet it has high-quality schools and excellent public services.
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POPSWhy Do Conservatives Like Stephen Colbert?
Confirmation bias is likely to be especially pronounced in satire because one of the things about satire — especially the deadpan, bald-eagle satire of Colbert — is that it is chock-full of ambiguity and uncertainty. This leaves lots of opportunities for a viewer to fill in the blanks — a kind of choose-your-own-truthiness, if you will. "The nature of satire, when you boil it down, is that messages are to varying degrees implied messages," explained Lance Holbert, a professor of communications at The Ohio State University who studies the intersection of entertainment and politics. "It requires the audience to fill in the gap, to get the joke. And it requires a certain bit of knowledge to fill in the gap. ... Certain types of humor are much more explicit. In satire the humor is very complex." LaMarre got interested in the question of how audiences interpret Colbert back in 2007, when she started puzzling over how several appearances by Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckab
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POPS"Rebuilding Gaza is the least we can do" John B. Quigley is a professor of law at the Moritz College of Law at the Ohio State University, where he is the Presidents' Club Professor of Law. In 1995 he was recipient of The Ohio State University Distinguished Scholar Award. Before joining the Ohio State faculty in 1969, Professor Quigley was a research scholar at Moscow State University, and a research associate in comparative law at Harvard Law School. He teaches International Law and Comparative Law and holds an adjunct appointment in the Political Science Department. In 1982-83 he was a visiting professor at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. He is active in international human rights work. He has published many articles and books on human rights, the United Nations, war and peace, east European law, African law, and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is fluent in Russian and French and highly proficient in Spanish, and Swahil
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POPSJim Cramer Says Jon Stewart Tried To Humiliate Him : It seems questionable that Stewart, whose show is so reliant on video clips, would promise not to use any, or that Cramer, even if he received such a promise, would be so unprepared to defend himself against videos that are circulating widely on the Internet. He also reverts to calling Stewart just a comedian, which is one of the remarks that got him into trouble in the first place.
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POPSFacebook users get worse grades Pay heed to the author of the survey -- this is not actually proof of a correlation between Facebooking and poor academic performance. But it raises interesting questions -- and if my own experiences procrastinating on facebook are any measure, there may be something to it.
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POPSphysicists discover important step for making light crystals a bose-einstein condensate is a collection of atoms cooled with laser light to a temp just above absolute zero-kelvin, -273 degrees Celsius, or -460 degrees Fahrenheit...the first BEC ever produced was 170 nanokelvin, or 170 billionths of a kelvin- researchers have since produced condensates as cold as 500 picokelvin - or 500 trillionths of a kelvin....there is quite a bit more at source....interesting-
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POPS14 Rare Color Photos From the FSA-OWI captions for the last two photos: James Lynch, a roundhouse worker for the Chicago and North Western Railway Company , Proviso Yard, Chicago, 1942. An instructor explains the operation of a parachute to student pilots, Meacham Field, Fort Worth, Texas, 1942. The best-known FSA photographs are in black and white. Less commonly seen are the color photos by FSA and OWI photographers, shot between 1939 and 1945. - Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA-OWI Collection.
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POPSTibetan glaciers rapidly melting The Water supply of nearly a billion people in South Asia in peril? Rather euphemistic way of describing it.! The effects will be devastating. A combination of drought, and Rivers that have become sewers never being purged, to say the least. There is no reason to believe that the melt will do anything but what it has continued to do so far...accelerate. Once scientists were often surprised. Now they are stunned. Why? They once had some fool idea they knew what they were talking about...but they were wrong. At least according to the reports we've had ACCESS to.
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