liberal N proud

liberal N proud's Journal

April 12, 2012

4 feet of hail in Texas?

The National Weather Service's office in Amarillo, Texas, posted this photo Wednesday night of what it said was deep hail

Sure, everything's bigger in Texas. But 4 feet of hail from one storm? That's what the National Weather Service, the Texas Department of Transportation and a local sheriff say happened Wednesday in an area north of Amarillo when hail piled up in drifts so wide they cut off a major highway.

The National Weather Service office in Amarillo even posted a photo on its Facebook page, but that wasn't enough to convince skeptics.

"Serious do not think this is 100% hail!!!" commented one person.

"It's a lite dusting of hail on some damn rocks," said another person, referring to the image of a firefighter standing next to what could be taken for boulders.

<snip>

"That was 4 feet of ice" that was compacted by rain and floodwater across a wide area, she added

http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/12/11160993-4-feet-of-hail-in-texas-reports-photos-cause-quite-a-storm?lite/

April 12, 2012

Really? - The Ann Romney Wars?

The War of Hillary Rosen is already effectively over, and the Romney campaign won it. Yesterday, in her capacity as a usually-ignorable CNN talking head,* Rosen took umbrage at the role Ann Romney was playing in her husband's campaign. "His wife has never actually worked a day in her life," she said. Ruth Marcus, whose take on the story is only slightly spoiled by her own friendship with Rosen, explains why clutching pearls and condemning the pundit is the wrong response.

Rosen’s fundamental point — that Ann Romney’s experience is far from typical, that she has not grappled with the economic and family issues that face many women today — remains true. You don’t have to be a combatant on either side of the Mommy Wars to recognize that Ann Romney’s privileged life experience is not typical. She’s never had to worry about the price of a gallon of gas as she filled up the Cadillacs. She is at the tail end of a generation that did not agonize over the choice of whether to stay home with the kids and from an economic platform that gave her the luxury of making that choice.

But even the best defense of Rosen is a discussion of Ann Romney, and not the underlying economics that the Obama campaign wants to talk about. And this is where presidential campaigns differ from other sorts of campaigns. In a pretty fantastic 2007 story, Jodi Kantor explained, quite bluntly, that Ann Romney had struggled to connect with people (in her husband's first race, she talked about her successful weight loss!) and became very well aware of the sort of stigma that comes with being the home-making wife of a rich man. She got better at it, but she kept up a lifestyle that few people can relate to.

These details can be joked about in a primary, or a governor's race. Things change when a candidate becomes a potential president, and his wife becomes a potential First Lady. It's like the pre-sainthood stage before the church is about to confirm your miracles. By March 2012, when Mitt Romney was clearly marching toward the nomination, Ann Romney's love of dressage had evolved from a joke to the grist for a long profile. Attack her, and you kick off a multi-news-cyle umbrage-fest. I guess this must be frustrating for liberals who think it's unfair for wealthy Republicans to present themselves as jess' folks as they campaign for supply-side tax cuts. Campaigns are unfair, guys.

Forgot the link: http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2012/04/12/the_ann_romney_wars.html

Poor little Ann can't stand the heat already!

April 11, 2012

Watch NASA Video: Riding the Booster

This is pretty cool, ride a solid rocket booster from launch to space and back to splash down.

NASA Video: Riding the Booster with enhanced sound
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid75927536001?bckey=AQ~~,AAAAEau6doE~,ONNhozg4vbDzH_Zx2R2TCPzyRuf6S-Jx&bctid=1548935984001

April 11, 2012

War on Women toon...

April 10, 2012

Free bras

April 6, 2012

Europe Is Baffled by the U.S. Supreme Court

Europe is scratching its head over possibility that the U.S. Supreme Court will strike down President Obama's signature legislative achievement. As the judiciary and the Obama administration trade legal barbs over the high court's authority, the idea that health care coverage, largely considered a universal right in Europe, could be deemed an affront to liberty is baffling.

"The Supreme Court can legitimately return Obamacare?" asks a headline on the French news site 9 POK . The article slowly walks through the legal rationale behind the court's right to wipe away Congress's legislation. "Sans précédent, extraordinaires" reads the article. In the German edition of The Financial Times, Sabine Muscat is astonished at Justice Antonin Scalia's argument that if the government can mandate insurance, it can also require people to eat broccoli. "Absurder Vergleich" reads the article's kicker, which in English translates to, "Absurd Comparison." In trying to defeat the bill, Muscat writes, Scalia is making a "strange analogy [to] vegetables."

Over in Britain, the opposition is more direct. The Guardian's Kevin Powell called the debate "surreal" in his Monday column. "Wasn't the point to make sure the richest and most powerful nation on the planet could protect its own people, as other nations do?" he wrote. "If Americans are promised not just liberty but life and happiness, is there not a constitutional right to affordable healthcare?"

http://news.yahoo.com/europe-baffled-u-supreme-court-220944850.html

April 2, 2012

1964 just called Romney a clown.

Mad Men episode just called Romney a clown.

The show set in the mid-sixties where the New York governor's aid just called Romney a clown.

I am sure the character was referring to Mittens daddy who would have been governor of Michigan, but nevertheless, the reference was there and couldn't have been coincidental.

April 2, 2012

Mitt Romney - Quantum Politician

is a Quantum Politician?

NY Times Opinion...
A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney

THE recent remark by Mitt Romney’s senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom that upon clinching the Republican nomination Mr. Romney could change his political views “like an Etch A Sketch” has already become notorious. The comment seemed all too apt, an apparent admission by a campaign insider of two widely held suspicions about Mitt Romney: that he is a) utterly devoid of any ideological convictions and b) filled with aluminum powder.

The imagery may have been unfortunate, but Mr. Fehrnstrom’s impulse to analogize is understandable. Metaphors like these, inexact as they are, are the only way the layman can begin to grasp the strange phantom world that underpins the very fabric of not only the Romney campaign but also of Mitt Romney in general. For we have entered the age of quantum politics; and Mitt Romney is the first quantum politician.

But the Romney candidacy represents literally a quantum leap forward. It is governed by rules that are bizarre and appear to go against everyday experience and common sense. To be honest, even people like Mr. Fehrnstrom who are experts in Mitt Romney’s reality, or “Romneality,” seem bewildered by its implications; and any person who tells you he or she truly “understands” Mitt Romney is either lying or a corporation.

Nevertheless, close and repeated study of his campaign in real-world situations has yielded a standard model that has proved eerily accurate in predicting Mitt Romney’s behavior in debate after debate, speech after speech, awkward look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy moment after awkward look-at-me-I’m-a-regular-guy moment, and every other event in his face-time continuum.

So this is how they are going to play off etch-a-sketch.

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