Ichingcarpenter
Ichingcarpenter's JournalSouth Park's Nov 7th episode titled:' Obama Wins'
These guys make an episode in 6 hectic days right until the last moment to release it on Comedy Central.
400-Foot-Long Trailer Carrying Radioactive Material Is On Secret Mission to a dump site in Utah... (
How do you hide a 400-foot-long, 192-wheel trailer as it's slowly being hauled on a three-week-long secret mission over highways in Southern California, Nevada and Utah?
The reason for the sheer size and the sort-of secrecy: the cargo being hauled, as CBS News reports, is a "797,000-pound piece of 'slightly radioactive' steel from the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego." It's being taken to a dump site in Clive, Utah
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/11/05/164354496/shh-400-foot-long-trailer-hauling-radioactive-material-is-on-secret-mission
I was hopping the story was about ROMNEY.
Obama Campaign Deploys Cat Meme to Get Out the Vote in Ohio
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The Obama campaign is using a mailer modeled after online cat memes as part of their final get out the vote push in the crucial battleground state of Ohio. On the mailer, there is a picture of a cat peeking out from behind a laptop decorated with Ohio-themed Obama campaign stickers highlighting the push to get people to vote early.
A user on the social news site Reddit with the handle MollyBloom11 posted a picture of the mailer on the site last night. They were clearly impressed with the campaign’s understanding of internet culture.
http://politicker.com/2012/11/obama-campaign-deploys-cat-meme-to-get-out-the-vote-in-ohio/
'Dear Neighbor I Stole your Democratic yard signs Because'"
SARASOTA, Fla. - In one of the more unusual stories this election season, a thief who stole a woman's campaign yard signs, writes her a postcard explaining why he did it.
Snip
She then received a postcard in her mailbox. On the front of the card, there is a picture of Obama and Ronald Reagan. Under the picture of Reagan, the word, "Hero." Under Obama, the word, "Zero." On the back of the card, the person wrote this:
Ms Green,
My apologies for your Democrat yard signs, but I can explain. I live around the corner from you and when I see signs that support Democrats I fear for the safety of our neighborhood. When thieves drive through Sapphire Shores scoping out possible targets and see pro-Democrat yard signs they automatically assume that the subdivision is filled with retards and half-wits. The gangsters think it's easy pickings because they already know that if a person votes Democrat they probably don't have the sense to come in out of the rain, not to mention locking their doors or securing their valuables. It is common knowledge amongst burglars that Democrats are anti-gun and anti-Second Amendment so when they see campaign signs that promote Democrats they know the homeowners are not armed and therefore unable to protect themselves from attack.
http://www.mysuncoast.com/news/local/article_ce92c57a-27bc-11e2-ba0b-0019bb30f31a.html
Its gonna get crazier
Here's an idea: Let's hold an election party at a gunrange
Alabama Republicans plan to hold their election night party at a gun range, where participants will be able to shoot a few rounds as returns come in.
The state Republican Party is inviting supporters to the 52,000-square-foot Hoover Tactical Firearms for a "victory party" Tuesday night.
The suburban Birmingham business sells firearms and it has ranges where people can shoot their own guns or guns that are available for rent.
A party announcement says the shooting ranges will be available for two hours during the election event. There will also be a band and an appearance by Miss Alabama.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/11/05/shoot-while-wait-alabama-gop-plans-election-night-party-at-gun-range/#ixzz2BQAXutiA
Sorry about the link, I hope they have a lot of moonshine. NOTHING COULD GO WROG
Why Conservatives/Republicans Turned Against Science
A prediction: When all the votes have been counted and the reams of polling data have been crunched, analyzed, and spun, this will be clear: Few scientists will have voted for Republican candidates, particularly for national office. Survey data taken from 1974 through 2010 and analyzed by Gordon Gauchat in the American Sociological Review confirm that most American scientists are not conservatives. A 2009 study by the Pew Research Center found that only 9 percent of scientists self-identified as conservative, while 52 percent called themselves liberals. Only 6 percent of American scientists self-identified as Republicans. This state of affairs is bad for the nation, and bad for science.
It was not always this way. In the 1968 election, Richard Nixon won the votes of 31 percent of physicists, 42 percent of biologists, 52 percent of geologists, and 62 percent of agricultural scientists (compared with 43.4 percent of the popular vote). While these data do not include party affiliation, they suggest that the scientific community of the late 1960s was much more evenly divided between the two major parties than it is now, and, with the exception of physicists, slightly more conservative than the American voting public at large.
Why have scientists fled the Republican Party? The obvious answer is that the Republican Party has spurned science. Consider Mitt Romney's shifting position on climate change. As governor of Massachusetts in 2004, he laid out a plan for protecting the state's climate. As presidential candidate, he has said that climate change is real, but has questioned whether humans are causing it. His stance is consistent with the Republican Party platform, which unambiguously calls for expanding the production and use of the fossil fuels that drive climate change. In 2009, Paul Ryan accused climate scientists of "clear efforts to use statistical tricks to distort their findings and intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change," echoing false accusations leveled against climatologists at the University of East Anglia. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan exemplify the conservative turn against science, but what explains it?
It seems hard to believe today, but environmental protection used to be a bipartisan affair. In the early half of the 20th century, Republican and Democratic administrations pursued conservation, setting aside land as national forests and parks but leaving pollution control to local and state governments. By the 1950s, however, pollution became a national issue. Above-ground nuclear-weapons testing spread radioactive fallout globally, along with a fear of the consequences. Rachel Carson's 1962 book, Silent Spring, documented the adverse effects of pesticides, especially DDT. Less well remembered but equally important was the work of Clair Patterson, a geochemist at the California Institute of Technology, who showed that lead pollution from cars had reached Antarctica. By 1970 it was no longer plausible to argue that pollution was a local problem—a "neighborhood effect," as the economist Milton Friedman called it in 1962...........SNIP..........SNIP.
Much more at the chronicle of higher education:
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Conservative-Turn-Against/135488/
Major Dutch Paper Discovers: Romney avoided $100m taxes through the Netherlands.
Sorry for the translate, the dutch paper is a mainstream paper in the Netherlands and the story is breaking.
The tax loopholes of Mitt Romney also run through the Netherlands. The private equity fund Bain Capital, which presidential candidate participates, via the Dutch would route some 80 million euros in dividends have dodged.
Presidential candidate Mitt Romney benefiting from the private equity fund Bain Capital from an advantageous tax route that runs through the Netherlands. Netherlands for the American Bain, which Romney was established as a link in his extensive international web of trusts and holding companies.
Through its investment in 2004 acquired Irish pharmaceutical company Warner Chilcott via the Netherlands to run, know Bain dividends and capital gains to avoid. Since the shares in the Netherlands are housed, was approximately $ 389 million (303 million) in dividends Bain and sold for over $ 334 million (260 million euros) in shares.
This shows by Follow the Money for the Volkskrant examined filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Romneys tax returns, the U.S. tech blog Gawker revealed confidential documents from Bain, and data from the Dutch Chamber of Commerce.
According to tax Jos Peters, who advise large private equity firms occurs, Bain with the Dutch route about 80 million dividend managed to dodge. "Bain also saves a lot of Irish capital gains tax if the shares are sold," said Peters. Bain nor the Romney campaign has responded to repeated requests for a comprehensive response.
While Romney Bain in 1999 as an active investor left, he was there as part of his severance scheme still participate. So he invested in 2004 with his wife Ann Romney also competed in the Bain Capital Fund VIII. This in the Cayman Islands based fund has a significant interest in Warner Chilcott. Of the 37.5 million shares that Warner Chilcott Bain in September 2010 in its possession, there are 25.7 million in the Bain Capital Fund VIII.
Romney, in his' public financial disclosure report "that his shares in the Bain Capital Fund VIII 'over a million' worth. From the tax returns of Romney and his wife that the couple in 2010 and 2011, more than $ 2.05 million in dividends from the fund received. Their shares rose in the same period by more than $ 5.5 million in value.
Romney receives a significant portion of the proceeds from the Bain Capital Fund VIII in the form of shares. On March 10, 2011 Romney donated 19,799 shares of Warner Chilcott (with a market value of approximately $ 450,000) to a non-profit association of his son, The Tyler Foundation. This avoided Romney taxation in the United States. Gifts of shares to designated non-profit organizations are excluded from capital gains tax. Moreover, the gift tax deductible.
By making use of the so-called participation exemption in the Netherlands and Luxembourg do Bain dividends and capital gains to avoid the proceeds of his shares safely bring in tax haven Cayman Islands. The participation exemption means that the profit from a shareholding of more than 5 percent is not taxed in the Netherlands. Netherlands is partly why an attractive location for holding companies of multinationals and financial funds. "We are world champions participation exemption ', says Jos Peters, tax specialist at Merlyn.
In the United States, Mitt Romney for months under fire from the media and his political opponents of the Democratic Party on the limited amount of his tax payments. The criticism forced Romney in September about the tax paid by him to reveal. It was already known that he benefits from tax ingenious shortcuts through the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Luxembourg.
Netherlands came in that list not yet. Wrongly, it turns out.
Netherlands came rather as attractive tax junction in the news around include the shortcut tax of U.S. coffee chain Starbucks, which in England was great indignation.
goggle translate:
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=nl&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=nl&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.volkskrant.nl%2Fvk%2Fnl%2F2680%2FEconomie%2Farticle%2Fdetail%2F3342442%2F2012%2F11%2F05%2FRomney-ontwijkt-belasting-door-sluipweg-via-Nederland.dhtml&act=url
The Permanent Militarization of America
N 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower left office warning of the growing power of the military-industrial complex in American life. Most people know the term the president popularized, but few remember his argument.
In his farewell address, Eisenhower called for a better equilibrium between military and domestic affairs in our economy, politics and culture. He worried that the defense industry’s search for profits would warp foreign policy and, conversely, that too much state control of the private sector would cause economic stagnation. He warned that unending preparations for war were incongruous with the nation’s history. He cautioned that war and warmaking took up too large a proportion of national life, with grave ramifications for our spiritual health.
The military-industrial complex has not emerged in quite the way Eisenhower envisioned. The United States spends an enormous sum on defense — over $700 billion last year, about half of all military spending in the world — but in terms of our total economy, it has steadily declined to less than 5 percent of gross domestic product from 14 percent in 1953. Defense-related research has not produced an ossified garrison state; in fact, it has yielded a host of beneficial technologies, from the Internet to civilian nuclear power to GPS navigation. The United States has an enormous armaments industry, but it has not hampered employment and economic growth. In fact, Congress’s favorite argument against reducing defense spending is the job loss such cuts would entail.
But Eisenhower’s least heeded warning — concerning the spiritual effects of permanent preparations for war — is more important now than ever. Our culture has militarized considerably since Eisenhower’s era, and civilians, not the armed services, have been the principal cause. From lawmakers’ constant use of “support our troops” to justify defense spending, to TV programs and video games like “NCIS,” “Homeland” and “Call of Duty,” to NBC’s shameful and unreal reality show “Stars Earn Stripes,” Americans are subjected to a daily diet of stories that valorize the military while the storytellers pursue their own opportunistic political and commercial agendas. Of course, veterans should be thanked for serving their country, as should police officers, emergency workers and teachers. But no institution — particularly one financed by the taxpayers — should be immune from thoughtful criticism.
Nor has the private sector infected foreign policy in the way that Eisenhower warned. Foreign policy has become increasingly reliant on military solutions since World War II, but we are a long way from the Marines’ repeated occupations of Haiti, Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic in the early 20th century, when commercial interests influenced military action. Of all the criticisms of the 2003 Iraq war, the idea that it was done to somehow magically decrease the cost of oil is the least credible. Though it’s true that mercenaries and contractors have exploited the wars of the past decade, hard decisions about the use of military force are made today much as they were in Eisenhower’s day: by the president, advised by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the National Security Council, and then more or less rubber-stamped by Congress. Corporations do not get a vote, at least not yet......snip
Aaron B. O’Connell, an assistant professor of history at the United States Naval Academy and a Marine reserve officer, is the author of “Underdogs: The Making of the Modern Marine Corps.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/05/opinion/the-permanent-militarization-of-america.html
The only Countries Great Britain has not invaded
A total of 22 ... from the telegraph.
Found the article
A new study has found that at various times the British have invaded almost 90 per cent of the countries around the globe.
The analysis of the histories of the almost 200 countries in the world found only 22 which have never experienced an invasion by the BritishThe analysis is contained in a new book, All the Countries We've Ever Invaded: And the Few We Never Got Round To.
Stuart Laycock, the author, has worked his way around the globe, through each country alphabetically, researching its history to establish whether, at any point, they have experienced an incursion by Britain.
The remainder have been included because the British were found to have achieved some sort of military presence in the territory – however transitory – either through force, the threat of force, negotiation or payment.
Incursions by British pirates, privateers or armed explorers have also been included, provided they were operating with the approval of their government.
So, many countries which once formed part of the Spanish empire and seem to have little historical connection with the UK, such as Costa Rica, Ecuador and El Salvador, make the list because of the repeated raids they suffered from state-sanctioned British sailors.
Among some of the perhaps surprising entries on the list are:
* Cuba, where in 1741, a force under Admiral Edward Vernon stormed ashore at Guantánamo Bay. He renamed it Cumberland Bay, before being forced to withdraw in the face of hostile locals and an outbreak of disease among his men. Twenty one years later, Havana and a large part of the island fell to the British after a bloody siege, only to be handed back to the Spanish in 1763, along with another unlikely British possession, the Philippines, in exchange for Florida and Minorca.
*Iceland, invaded in 1940 by the British after the neutral nation refused to enter the war on the Allies side. The invasion force, of 745 marines, met with strong protest from the Iceland government, but no resistance.
* Vietnam, which has experienced repeated incursions by the British since the seventeenth century. The most recent – from 1945 to 1946 – saw the British fight a campaign for control of the country against communists, in a war that has been overshadowed by later conflicts involving first the French and then Americans.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/9653497/British-have-invaded-nine-out-of-ten-countries-so-look-out-Luxembourg.htmlIt is thought to be the first time such a list has been compiled.
Synaesthesia and savant syndrome: are we all superhuman?
Richard Feynman, Vladimir Nabokov, David Hockney. What do these famous figures have in common? They are all synaesthetes. Feynman and Nabokov linked letters and numbers to colours, while Hockney perceives music in terms of colour and shape. Synaesthesia is condition in which stimulation of one sensory or cognitive stream somehow interacts with another sensory or cognitive stream in a way that it normally would not.
While most cases of synaesthesia are developmental and hereditary, it can be acquired later in life as a result of, for example, traumatic brain injury. Far from being disabling or disadvantageous, many people with synaesthesia have reported that these phenomena simply form a part of everyday life or even confer unexpected benefits.
One of the first cases studied at the St Louis Synesthesia Lab was that of Jason Padgett. He was working as a salesperson in a furniture store in 2002 when he was beaten up and suffered injuries to the head. He fell unconscious and his muggers continued to beat him.
"After the attack, Jason was able to see things in terms of mathematics," said Professor Brogaard. "Looking at moving or static objects, he would see complex geometrical shapes and figures with fragmented boundaries. He started drawing some of the things he was seeing and since then he’s won several prizes for his artwork.
?566
Prime number vectors by Jason Padgett
Read more: http://www.scienceomega.com/article/678/synaesthesia-and-savant-syndrome-are-we-all-superhuman#ixzz2BFSnkGsP
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