While I don’t think the ground hog’s prediction (at least not seeing his shadow round here) has come to pass, this is an interesting look at the holiday and a few others as well.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
General ‘Jerry’ Boykin Says Gun-Toting Jesus Will Lead ‘Mighty Army’ During Second Coming
General 'Jerry' Boykin Says Gun-Toting Jesus Will Lead 'Mighty Army' During Second Coming.
Are you ready for the “rough and ready” Jesus? One not feminized by the church?
And to think my tax dollars went to pay for the training and the salary of this “general.” God help us.
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Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State | Blog, Perspectives | BillMoyers.com
Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State | Blog, Perspectives | BillMoyers.com.
There is the visible government situated around the Mall in Washington, and then there is another, more shadowy, more indefinable government that is not explained in Civics 101 or observable to tourists at the White House or the Capitol. The former is traditional Washington partisan politics: the tip of the iceberg that a public watching C-SPAN sees daily and which is theoretically controllable via elections. The subsurface part of the iceberg I shall call the Deep State, which operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power. [1]
During the last five years, the news media has been flooded with pundits decrying the broken politics of Washington. The conventional wisdom has it that partisan gridlock and dysfunction have become the new normal. That is certainly the case, and I have been among the harshest critics of this development. But it is also imperative to acknowledge the limits of this critique as it applies to the American governmental system. On one level, the critique is self-evident: In the domain that the public can see, Congress is hopelessly deadlocked in the worst manner since the 1850s, the violently rancorous decade preceding the Civil War.
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Ten Examples of Welfare for Corporations and the Ultra-Rich | News & Notes, We’re Not Making This Up!, What Matters Today | BillMoyers.com
No wonder the rich get richer. They get government handouts.
Sample of the text:
There are thousands of tax breaks and subsidies for the rich and corporations provided by federal, state and local governments, but these 10 will give a taste.
1. State and local subsidies to corporations: An excellent New York Times study by Louise Story calculated that state and local government provide at least $80 billion in subsidies to corporations. Over 48 big corporations received over $100 million each. GM was the biggest, at a total of $1.7 billion extracted from 16 different states, but Shell, Ford and Chrysler all received over $1 billion each. Amazon, Microsoft, Prudential, Boeing and casino companies in Colorado and New Jersey received well over $200 million each.
2. Direct federal subsidies to corporations: The Cato Institute estimates that federal subsidies to corporations cost taxpayers almost $100 billion every year.
3. Federal tax breaks for corporations: The tax code gives corporations special tax breaks that have reduced what is supposed to be a 35-percent tax rate to an actual tax rate of 13 percent, saving these corporations an additional $200 billion annually, according to the US Government Accountability Office.
4. Federal tax breaks for wealthy hedge fund managers: Special tax breaks for hedge fund managers allow them to pay only a 15-percent rate while the people they earned the money for usually pay a 35-percent rate. This is the break where the multimillionaire manager pays less of a percentage in taxes than her secretary. The National Priorities Project estimates this costs taxpayers $83 billion annually, and 68 percent of those who receive this special tax break earn more than $462,500 per year (the top 1 percent of earners).
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Photo finish Friday: “Rock of ages”
“Well, Captain, she’s either the biggest lump of coal Santa ever brought, or one of the largest dilithium crystal piles I’ve ever seem. Would explain what powers those eight tiny reindeer.”
Filed under Photo by author, Photo Finish Friday, Uncategorized
Doctors Are Now Prescribing Books to Treat Depression | Smart News
Doctors Are Now Prescribing Books to Treat Depression | Smart News.
Sample of article:
William Nicholson once said, “We read to know that we are not alone.” And that sentiment, of reading to connect with the world and to feel less isolated, may be more than just a poetic thought. Doctors are now prescribing books to patients with depression, hoping that reading will help them find connections.
Leah Price at the Boston Globe reports on the a new program that launched in the United Kingdom this June:
If your primary care physician diagnoses you with “mild to moderate” depression, one of her options is now to scribble a title on a prescription pad. You take the torn-off sheet not to the pharmacy but to your local library, where it can be exchanged for a copy of “Overcoming Depression,” “Mind Over Mood,” or “The Feeling Good Handbook.” And depression is only one of over a dozen conditions treated. Other titles endorsed by the NHS include “Break Free from OCD,” “Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway,” “Getting Better Bit(e) by Bit(e),” and “How to Stop Worrying.”
Read more: http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2013/12/doctors-are-now-prescribing-books-to-treat-depression/#ixzz2pHkNT3OX
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Interview: Joe R. Lansdale : Under the Moons of Mars
Interview: Joe R. Lansdale : Under the Moons of Mars.
Sample of interview…
Interview: Joe R. Lansdale
How did you first come to discover the Barsoom books by Edgar Rice Burroughs?
Actually, as a child when TV was beginning to look for things to fill the air waves, every Saturday they showed Tarzan movies, or Bomba movies, or Flash Gordon, or Buck Rogers, or a combination there of. The Tarzan movies got me interested in the name Edgar Rice Burroughs, and Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers serials got me interested in S.F. adventures, so when I was eleven, and came across a Princess of Mars, and a little later Tarzan of the apes, I was hooked through the gills. I had always wanted to be a writer, seemingly from birth, but when I found Edgar Rice Burroughs, I knew I had to be.
What do you find appealing about the characters and milieu?
It was so different from my life, and at that age I pretty much felt the stories were real. The first person narrative of so many of the John Carter tales was what worked for me, more than the Tarzan novels, or any of the series that were not first person. The framing device of Burroughs receiving the story was another one of the things that pulled me in. I think from that moment on my favorite form of storytelling, and writing, was first person. When I look at the thirty novels I’ve written, most of them are in first person, and I think Burroughs influenced that. I write things, normally, very different from what Burroughs wrote, but he is still my sentimental favorite, and the narrative drive he had in his stories has stayed with me to this day. Oh, and add to the fact that John Carter was a Southerner, could live forever, and could go to Mars by just spreading is arms wide was way cool. I did that, you know, as I’m sure a lot of young boys did back then. Spread my arms hoping, just hoping, those stories, were as I suspicioned then, true. Now I realize if I had been swept across that vast void to Mars, I’d have been killed in moments by most anything I encountered. Dang it.
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Maps of Seven Deadly Sins in America | memolition
Maps of Seven Deadly Sins in America | memolition.
Looks like Washington, D.C. is blushing red in almost all these maps. Also, parts of the South show up often, too. Hmmm.
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Booker's Blog 