Cartoonists - Enough!

Toon: Sleepwalking in America, 2012 edition

The Postal Service is struggling, but not because of the mail

By Fredric Rolando,

Fredric Rolando is president of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

Would it startle you to learn that the U.S. Postal Service netted an impressive profit in the first quarter of this fiscal year? Probably so, given all that has been said about an agency supposedly bleeding billions of dollars as Americans abandon paper mail for the ease of the Internet.

Yet it’s true: Revenue from selling stamps and other products exceeded the costs of delivering mail by $200 million, the Postal Service’s chief financial officer reported in February. Much has been written about the Postal Service, an institution embedded in our Constitution and actually older than the country. It touches the lives of all Americans, and for six straight years it was named the public’s most trusted federal agency, according to the Ponemon Institute. Yet conventional wisdom about the Postal Service is strikingly misleading. I’d like to provide some context that’s rarely heard.

One prevalent myth is that delivering the mail to 150 million addresses six days a week, as more people turn to the Internet, puts taxpayers on the hook for multibillion-dollar losses. In fact, boosted by record worker productivity, the Postal Service is admirably weathering the worst economy in 80 years. In fiscal 2007 through 2010, if you subtract the related costs from the earned revenue from mail delivery (the Postal Service hasn’t received taxpayer money in 30 years), it had an operating profit of $611 million.

There is indeed red ink, but the reasons are unrelated to the mail. In 2006 Congress required that, within the next decade, the Postal Service pre-fund future retiree health benefits for the next 75 years — a burden no other agency or company faces. That accounts for 85 percent of all of the agency’s red ink since — and more than 90 percent of the $6.46 billion shortfall from the first half of fiscal 2012. Before pre-funding began in 2007, the Postal Service had annual profits in the low billions. It’s this unaffordable payment that the Postal Service is “simply not capable of making” next month, a spokesman said this week.

more

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-postal-service-is-struggling-but-not-because-of-the-mail/2012/07/19/gJQAmwAiwW_story.html?tid=pm_opinions_pop

Shooting suspect’s home booby-trapped

By Sari Horwitz and Debbi Wilgoren,

A heavily armed gunman clad all in black kicked in an emergency door at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., early Friday, hurled two canisters of an unknown gas and opened fire on the stunned audience, killing at least 12 people and wounding dozens of others, including children, who were watching the midnight premiere of a new Batman film.

Witnesses told police that the shooter, who wore a flak jacket and a gas mask, at first fired a handgun in the air, then leveled his weapons on people in the darkened theater, who initially thought his entrance was somehow associated with the movie, “The Dark Knight Rises.”

The gunman looked calm and said nothing as he walked up an aisle, firing as he went, witnesses said.

Law enforcement authorities identified the alleged gunman as James Holmes, 24, and said he was taken into custody in a parking lot behind the Century 16 theater after the attack.

more
http://www.washingtonpost.com/colorado-shooter-identified-as-james-holmes-24/2012/07/20/gJQAWkdrxW_story.html

Friday toon roundup- Banksters, Climate, Bachmann, and more

Banksters









Climate







Repubs









Zimmerman

Friday toon roundup- Rmoney's bad, bad week

Toon- Must Be Drunk

Ideology clouds how we perceive the temperatures

by John Timmer - July 19 2012, 9:00am EDT


Earlier this year, we covered some polling data in which people were asked what factor shaped their acceptance of climate change. Buried in the data were two apparently contradictory findings: there is a large partisan divide in acceptance of climate change, but most respondents said they base their acceptance on their personal experience of the weather. Assuming that hot weather shows no partisan bias, this doesn't make much sense—political beliefs shouldn't influence what we think about the weather.

And yet they do. That's the conclusion of a new paper that dives into extensive polling data to find out how people perceive different trends in the climate. The results show that not all weather events are created equal. When it comes to things like flood and droughts, most people seem to have accurately registered the recent trends in their area. But when the subject shifts to temperatures, the actual trends become irrelevant, and ideology and political beliefs shape how people perceive things. As the authors put it, "the contentious nature of the climate change debate has influenced the way in which Americans perceive their local weather."

That authors of the study used data from about 8,000 poll responses, obtained between 2008 and 2011. The surveys included questions about how people perceived the weather in recent years. For temperatures, they were asked whether they were higher, the same, or lower than in past decades. Similar questions were asked about the frequency of floods and droughts. The survey also asked for self-assessments of political leanings, and included several questions that got at core ideological beliefs (such as egalitarian or individualist tendencies).


more

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/07/ideology-clouds-how-we-perceive-the-temperatures/

Defending champion Nadal pulls out of London Olympics

By Associated Press,

MADRID — Defending champion Rafael Nadal pulled out of the London Olympics on Thursday with an undisclosed injury, leaving the tennis competition without one of its leading stars and robbing Spain’s team of its flag bearer for the opening ceremony.

Nadal won the French Open for a record seventh time this year but has struggled with left knee problems at times during the season. Shortly after winning his 11th Grand Slam title at Roland Garros, he lost to 100th-ranked Lukas Rosol in the second round at Wimbledon.

Nadal has not played since.

The third-ranked Nadal said Thursday he wasn’t in condition to compete at the Olympic tennis tournament — which also will be held at Wimbledon.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/defending-champion-rafael-nadal-pulls-out-of-london-olympics-because-of-lack-of-fitness/2012/07/19/gJQA71aovW_story.html

Wonder if Federer can pull it off again at Centre Court?

Scientists find medicinal plants caught in Neanderthal teeth

By Alan Boyle

Tooth scrapings from tens of thousands of years ago suggest that Neanderthals chewed on medicinal plants to soothe their upsets.

That's the conclusion drawn by an international team of researchers who conducted a chemical analysis on dental calculus from five sets of Neanderthal remains that were excavated inside El Sidron Cave in northern Spain. The calcified crud contained microscopic bits of plant material as well as chemicals associated with wood smoke.

The analysis indicated that the Neanderthals ate cooked plant food that was high in starch, and perhaps also nuts, grasses and green vegetables. One case was particularly intriguing: The scrapings from an individual known as Adult 4 contained chemicals known as azulenes and coumarins. Those are the sorts of chemicals that are found in yarrow and chamomile, two types of herbal remedies.

Yarrow is an astringent that's long been used to cleanse wounds when used externally, or counter internal bleeding when ingested. Chamomile may be best-known today as a soothing tea, but that's because it has a settling effect on colds, headaches, intestinal distress and menstrual cramping. Both plants have anti-inflammatory properties.

http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/07/18/12816708-scientists-find-medicinal-plants-caught-in-neanderthal-teeth