US Spy Agency Tipped Off the Associated Press to Another Media Outlet’s News Scoop

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

NationalCounterterrorismCenter-Seal_svgBy Elaine Magliaro

Here’s an interesting story for you: Yesterday, Ryan Gimm of The Huffington Post reported that the Associated Press “dropped a significant scoop on Tuesday afternoon, reporting that in the last several years the U.S. government’s terrorism watch list has doubled.” He noted that just a few minutes after the AP story was posted at 12:32 p.m., The Intercept published “a much more comprehensive article.” That may not seem like a big deal—but here’s how the AP apparently got “the scoop” about the terrorist watch list story.

According to Grim, our government had “spoiled the scoop” for The Intercept. Evidently, after “The Intercept approached the National Counterterrorism Center for comment on a story about the government’s terrorist watch list, the agency then alerted the Associated Press to the story.” Grim said that “spoiling a scoop” happens to be “an informally forbidden practice in the world of journalism.”

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Posted in Government, Media, United States, War on "Terror" | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Theme to “Game of Thrones” Redux

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Gene Howington

submitted by Gene Howington

It is no secret that I love “Game of Thrones” and the masterful craftsmanship of composer Ramin Djawadi’s score. It is also not a secret that I am not a person prone to regret. I do have one, however. The first instrument I played with any kind of training was the trumpet. I did this over the suggestion and objection of the band teacher in my school. There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think I should have gone with what he thought I’d have been best at: cello.  Why? First, in college I realized that as much of a girl magnet the guitar was that a properly deployed cello would have been devastating to women for miles around. (Thrown panties would have rained from the sky like Noah’s flood or perhaps, on a particularly good day, a Tom Jones concert.) Second? I could sit around the house today and play things like the following purely for the joy of it.  This is a cover of the “Game of Thrones” Main Theme by Break of Reality.  Enjoy.

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Posted in Music, Short Video | 34 Comments

The Thirteenth Post in the “Oh My Achin’ Head” Series: Two “Open Carry” Advocates in Michigan Publish a Pro-Gun Book for Young Children

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

MyParentsOpenCarryBy Elaine Magliaro

Brian Jeffs and Nathan Nephew are the two co-founders of Michigan Open Carry. They are also the authors of a new children’s book titled My Parents Open Carry, which tells the tale of a young girl and her family as they “turn an otherwise ordinary day into an open carry adventure!” Madeleine Davies (Jezebel) said this children’s book is “a MUST READ for any tiny gun nut.” She added My Parents Open Carry is “unsurprisingly” filled with misinformation. The book was published by White Feather Press.

Writing for The Guardian, Alison Flood said, “Sporting a cover image of a blue-eyed family with guns clipped to their belts, a new American children’s picture book is setting itself out as the solution for all those parents who ‘carry a gun and sometimes struggle with how to best explain the reasons’ to their children.”

Jeffs and Nephew said that before writing My Parents Open Carry they looked for pro-gun children’s books but were unable to find any. They added that their “goal was to provide a wholesome family book that reflects the views of the majority of the American people, i.e., that self-defense is a basic natural right and that firearms provide the most efficient means for that defense.” The authors also said that their book was “written in the hope of providing a basic overview of the right to keep and bear arms as well as the growing practice of the open carry of a handgun.” They said they feared that “our children are being raised with a biased view of our constitution and especially in regards to the 2nd Amendment.”

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Posted in United States | Tagged , , , | 18 Comments

City in Michigan Being Sued by ACLU and Two Other Groups for Violating First Amendment Rights of an Atheist

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro
Jim Fouts Mayor of Warren, Michigan

Jim Fouts
Mayor of Warren, Michigan

By Elaine Magliaro

In July, the American Civil Liberties Union in Michigan and two other groups filed a federal lawsuit seeking an injunction against the Detroit suburb of Warren because it banned an atheist booth from being set up in a municipal building. Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the Freedom from Religion Foundation joined the ACLU in the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, Southern Division. Their lawsuit says that Warren, a city with a population of approximately 140,000 people, allows a church group to “run a ‘prayer station,’ distribute religious materials, discuss religious beliefs and pray with visitors in a City Hall atrium but refuses to let atheist Douglas Marshall use the same space.”

The lawsuit says that Marshall’s request last April “to install a ‘reason station’ was rejected” by Jim Fouts, the mayor of Warren. It claims that Fouts violated Marshall’s First Amendment rights by endorsing “traditional religious beliefs over atheistic beliefs.” Dan Korbkin, the deputy director of the Michigan ACLU, said, “Once the government opens public space for use by private groups, it cannot pick and choose who can use the space based on the content of their message or whether public officials agree with that message.” He added, “The city cannot allow speech supportive of religion and reject speech supportive of atheism.”

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Posted in Atheism, Constitutional Law, Courts, Free Speech, Local Government, Religion, United States | 9 Comments

A Sunday Morning Video: Wild Baby Deer Loves Getting Its Belly Rubbed

Posted on August 3, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

Submitted by Elaine Magliaro

Posted in Short Video | Tagged | 3 Comments

Are Religious Discrimination Lawsuits the Religious Right’s “New Front” in the Birth Control War?

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

birthcontrolpillsBy Elaine Magliaro

Earlier this week, I published a post about Sara Hellwege, the pro-life nurse-midwife who is suing Tampa Family Health Centers (TFHC). TFHC refused to hire Hellwege because she said that she would not prescribe hormonal contraceptives to patients. In other words, Hellwege informed TFHC that she would not perform one of the requirements of the job for which she applying! But Hellwege may have an ulterior motive for what she is doing. Read on…

Rob Boston of Americans United for Separartion of Church and State wrote about Hellwege’s case in his article Access Denied: The Religious Right Opens Up A New Front On Its War Against Birth Control.

Boston:

Hormonal contraceptives include some of the most common types – birth control pills, patches, implants and vaginal rings. TFHC serves a primarily low-income population; many of the women who patronize the clinic come there for birth control. And if Hellwege had been on duty, they would not have been able to get most forms of it.

In short, Hellwege admitted upfront that she was not willing to do a good percentage of this job. The clinic, quite naturally, declined to hire her because she doesn’t actually want to perform many of the tasks they need done. According to Hellwege and her attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), she is a victim of religious discrimination!

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Posted in Conservatives, Constitutional Law, Courts, Fundamentalism, Health Care, Pharmaceuticals, Politics, Religion, Reproductive Rights, United States | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Heads Up, Louisiana Voters—The “Sarah Palin of the South” Is Running for Congress in the Sixth District

Posted on August 2, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro
Lenar Whitney

Lenar Whitney

By Elaine Magliaro

Meet Lenar Whitney. A Republican from Houma, Louisiana, Whitney is currently serving as a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives from District 53. She is also the Republican National Committee Woman from her state. On May 31st, Whitney announced her candidacy for congress in Louisiana’s sixth congressional district.

David Wasserman (Washington Post) is House Editor for The Cook Political Report. After speaking with Lenar, Wasserman described her as the “most frightening candidate” that he had met in “seven years interviewing congressional hopefuls.” Wasserman said that he had never met “any candidate quite as frightening or fact-averse as Louisiana state Rep. Lenar Whitney…” He added, “It’s tough to decide which party’s worst nightmare she would be.” Wasserman continued, “She clearly relishes poking Democrats in the eye, cites Minnesota’s Rep. Michele Bachmann (R) as a political role model, and takes kindly to the nickname ‘Palin of the South.’”

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Posted in Climate Change Deniers, Climatology, Conservatives, Louisiana, Politics, United States | Tagged , | 17 Comments

The NRA, School Advancement, and the Four Rs: Reading, Writing, Arithmetic…and Rifles???

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

NRALogoSubmitted by Elaine Magliaro

Recently, the NRA posted a video titled Everyone Gets a Gun on YouTube. In the video, Billy Johnson, one of the gun organization’s commentators, said that “competency with a gun should be a ‘necessary skill’ for children to be able to advance to the next grade in school, just like reading and writing.” Johnson argues that U.S. gun policy should be driven by the “need” people have to use guns.

Johnson:

Gun policy driven by our need for guns would insist that we introduce young people to guns early and that we’d give them the skills to use firearms safely. Just like we teach them reading and writing, necessary skills. We would teach shooting and firearm competency. It wouldn’t matter if a child’s parents weren’t good at it. We’d find them a mentor. It wouldn’t matter if they didn’t want to learn. We would make it necessary to advance to the next grade.

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Posted in Education, United States | Tagged , | 36 Comments

Pro-Life Nurse-Midwife Sues Tampa Family Health Centers for Not Hiring Her after She Said She Wouldn’t Prescribe “Hormonal” Contraception

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Elaine Magliaro

birthcontrolpillsBy Elaine Magliaro

In an article that she wrote for Slate titled Pro-Life Nurse-Midwife Who Won’t Prescribe the Pill Sues Family Planning Center for Not Hiring Her, Andrea Marcotte poses the following question:

Is “religious freedom” about being free to practice your faith, or just a generic cover story for any and all attempts to try to foist your beliefs on others?

Marcotte said that in “this era of Hobby Lobby vs. Burwell, it’s understandable that many on the right have decided it’s the latter and are eager to start testing the limits of how much leverage the expansive new definition of ‘religious freedom’ gives them to meddle with the private contraception choices of others.”

The nurse-midwife who is the subject of Marcotte’s article is Sara Hellwege from Tampa, Florida. She is a member of the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists. Hellwege applied for a job “at a family health center where prescribing people birth control is a job requirement.” According to a number of reports, Hellewege “informed her potential employers that she would not be prescribing any hormonal contraception.” When she wasn’t interviewed or hired for the job by the Tampa Family Health Centers because of her stated refusal to prescribe hormonal contraception, she decided to sue the clinic. The Christian right organization Alliance Defending Freedom is said to be handling her case.

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Posted in Conservatives, Courts, Health Care, Pharmaceuticals, Politics, Religion, Reproductive Rights, SCOTUS, United States | Tagged , , | 13 Comments

Jet Fuel From Seawater: No longer a pipe dream

Posted on July 30, 2014 by Chuck Stanley

by Charlton Stanley

Navy Research LabsThis did not exactly come as a news story to me. I had this discussion with one of my best friends from high school years ago. Normally, a discussion with a former next door neighbor doesn’t amount to much in the total scheme of things. Especially when the neighbors are a couple of teenagers. However, every October I watch the Nobel awards announcements for my friend’s name. Not yet, but maybe one of these days. At any rate, he told me about some of the technology advances not generally known to the public, and that it would only be a matter of time.

I might add that he is of the opinion that none of the current alternatives to fossil fuels are completely environmentally friendly. However, the survival of our civilization makes it incumbent on us to keep looking. In one of our discussions, I mentioned that we have a lot of water on the surface of the globe, and that water comprises the perfect fuel. Hydrogen is pure fuel, and oxygen the purest oxidizer. The only fly in the ointment is that little thing called the First Law of Thermodynamics. The chemical bond between the two elements is one of the tightest possible, and it takes energy to break it. Recombining the two is relatively easy. A physicist once quipped that hydrogen is the perfect fuel, but if somebody wants to set up a pure hydrogen service station, he would prefer to watch the results from the next county.

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Posted in Big Oil, Biology, Chemistry, Climatology, Education, Energy Policy, Investing, Physics, Uncategorized, USN | Tagged , , , , , | 68 Comments