kpete
kpete's JournalToday's Kids Run More Slowly-Children run the mile 90 seconds slower than kids did 30 years ago
Sure, your 13-year-old might run a mile faster than you could today, but could she beat your time at age 13? Not if she’s like most kids worldwide, a new study shows.
Children run the mile 90 seconds slower than kids did 30 years ago, according to research presented at an American Heart Association conference. Overall, kids ages 9 to 17 experienced a 5 percent decline in heart-related fitness.
“It makes sense. We have kids that are less active than before,” Dr. Stephen Daniels, a University of Colorado pediatrician and spokesman for the heart association, told The Associated Press.
It’s perhaps no surprise that American kids have slowed down: about one-third get the recommended daily allotment of 60 minutes of moderately vigorous activity. But this is the first to show a decline in global youth fitness, the American Heart Association said.
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MORE:
http://news.discovery.com/human/health/todays-kids-run-more-slowly-131120.htm
So apparently J. Edgar Hoover had a sex tape of Gerald Ford?
Sex in the Senate
Bobby Baker's salacious secret history of Capitol Hill.
By TODD S. PURDUM
November 19, 2013
Read more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/sex-in-the-senate-bobby-baker-99530.html#ixzz2lDBkUY15
“Any time I had a rich guy in town, my secretary called her to see if she could go out. She told me that of all the people she had met … the nicest one was Congressman Jerry Ford [R-Mich.]. [FBI Director] J. Edgar Hoover could not find out the happenings when the Warren Commission was investigating the killer of President Kennedy. … J. Edgar Hoover could not find out what they were doing. So, he had this tape where Jerry Ford was having oral sex with Ellen Rometsch. You know, his wife had a serious drug problem back then. … Hoover blackmailed … Ford to tell him what they were doing. That’s the reason I don’t like him. It’s just a misuse of authority.”15
Read MUCH more: http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2013/11/sex-in-the-senate-bobby-baker-99530.html#ixzz2lDBTibT6
Coke-Busted GOP Congressman Just Voted to Drug-Test Food Stamp Users
Trey Radel (R-Fla.), the freshman member of Congress arrested for cocaine possession late last month, backed a GOP plan to make food-stamp recipients pee in cups to prove they were drug-free and hence worthy of eating.Radel, a noted hip-hop expert and sex-themed web domain-name speculator, allegedly got stung trying to buy bumps of Big C from an undercover DEA agent in DC's tony-ish Dupont Circle. But a month before he sought to ride the white pony with the college kids in Northwest, he was neck-deep in the House's messy debate over whether to continue federal food-stamp benefits to needy families.
That debate culminated in Radel's vote for a bill that would have authorized states to withhold food stamps from applicants who didn't submit to a drug urinalysis. Which is pretty interesting, given that a similar plan in Radel's home state, championed by Florida Gov. Rick Scott, ended up as a disastrous waste of taxpayer money and a violation of impoverished welfare applicants' Fourth Amendment rights.
During Congress' debate over the pee-test amendment, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) presciently implied that his conservative colleagues were high as hell:
But tragically, Radel didn't pay attention, 'cause he was on that dust. (Allegedly.)
MORE:
http://gawker.com/coke-busted-gop-congressman-just-voted-to-drug-test-foo-1468175133?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&utm_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
What if . . . . .
What if . . . . .byteacherkenFollow
What if we stopped one day, looked at all the work we had done to try to make the world a better place than we found it, and instead realized despite all of our efforts, we had failed?
What if we supported political candidates, helped to get them into office, only to find many of them, far too many of them, coopted by the perquisites of office, concern for reelection, or wanting to be "players" and abandoned what we thought they had promised us?
What if we devoted our energy and our time and our passion to trying to make the government more responsive to we the people and less responsive to those who already have power and money, only to find economic inequality becoming ever more severe, and decreasing numbers of people retaining any hope for a better future for themselves or their posterity?
Would we feel like fools?
Or might we wonder how much worse it might already be had we not tried?
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MORE:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/19/1256887/-What-if
Boehner on Cocaine: One Law For Us, Another For Them
Boehner on Cocaine: One Law For Us, Another For ThemBy: DSWright Wednesday November 20, 2013 5:58 am
File:Trey Radel, Official Portrait, 113th Congress.jpg
If there were any group of Americans who were supposed to be for the tragically ridiculous “War on Drugs” it would be Republicans in Congress right?
Apparently not. Not only was GOP Congressman Trey Radel arrested for cocaine possession, the Republican Speaker of the House can not even bring himself to condemn him.
“Members of Congress should be held to the highest standards, and the alleged crime will be handled by the courts,” Steel said. “Beyond that, this is between Representative Radel, his family and his constituents.”
You have to be kidding.
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Not to mention the charges are pretty solid as he bought the drugs from a DEA agent.
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If Speaker Boehner has such a blase attitude towards the use of cocaine perhaps it is time to reexamine federal drug laws, otherwise he risks looking like an amazing hypocrite and moral coward.
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MORE (incl links):
http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/11/20/speaker-boehner-unwilling-to-condemn-member-of-congress-arrested-for-cocaine-possession/
Paul wants people to dream again” - “You don’t dream when you’ve got food stamps" (WRONG!)
NY Mag:
The substance of Ryan’s anti-poverty agenda remains yet to be announced, but the general spirit of the endeavor can already be discerned from Ryan’s previous remarks, and those of the allies helping him formulate it. Ryan believes that the main impediment facing poor people is the existence of government programs that give them money and health care – a problem his budget rectifies by cutting subsidies to the poor. Those subsidies, Ryan has said, amount to “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency, that drains them of their will and their incentive to make the most of their lives.”
Ryan’s new line seems similar to the old one:
“Paul wants people to dream again,” Holloway said of Ryan. “You don’t dream when you’ve got food stamps.”
In fact, lots of people who survived on food stamps — like J.K. Rowling — went on to achieve great things.
The other emerging element of Ryan’s anti-poverty agenda is Jesus:
“You cure poverty eye to eye, soul to soul,” he said last week at the Heritage forum. “Spiritual redemption: That’s what saves people.”
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/11/paul-ryan-poor-people-need-jesus-not-food.html
You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/johnlennon/imagine.html
(mr. pete and i were on food stamps for 2 years when we first started out - 30 years ago,
BELIEVE YOU ME, WE HAVE ALWAYS BEEN DREAMERS!)
If this really comes to pass, it will be a major defeat for the Republicans in the short-term.
* HARRY REID SET TO GO NUCLEAR THIS WEEK: I reported yesterday that the Senate Majority Leader was set to change the Senate rules by simple majority this week“If the votes are there, we will probably do it this week,” the aide said, speaking anonymously to divulge internal plans. A second Democratic aide said Mr. Reid would go ahead once the Senate had wrapped up debate on a contentious proposal to combat sexual assault in the military.
I suppose it is possible that Greg Sargent is being used as a conduit to issue a credible threat, but the threat (and the reasoning behind the threat) seems credible to me. Harry Reid intends to "go nuclear" before Thanksgiving. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/11/19/harry-reid-is-set-to-go-nuclear/ According to Sargent's reporting, Reid will change the rules of the Senate in such a way that the filibuster will be unavailable to the Republicans for all but Supreme Court nominations.
If this really comes to pass, it will be a major defeat for the Republicans in the short-term. To see why, look at how many vacancies there on the federal courts of appeal (the numbers on senior judges is a best-estimate).
2nd Circuit: Active judges: 8 DEM, 5 GOP. Senior Judges: 6 DEM, 3 GOP. No vacancies.
3rd Circuit: Active judges: 7 DEM, 5 GOP. Senior Judges: 3 DEM, 9 GOP. Two vacancies.
4th Circuit: Active judges: 9.5 DEM, 5.5* GOP. Senior Judges: 0 DEM, 1 GOP. No vacancies.
5th Circuit: Active judges: 5 DEM, 10 GOP. Senior Judges: 2 DEM, 6 GOP. Three vacancies.
6th Circuit: Active judges: 5 DEM, 10 GOP. Senior Judges: 5 DEM, 8 GOP. One vacancy.
7th Circuit: Active judges: 3 DEM, 7 GOP. Senior Judges: 1 DEM, 3 GOP. One vacancy.
8th Circuit: Active judges: 3 DEM, 7 GOP. Senior Judges: 1 DEM, 8 GOP. No vacancies.
9th Circuit: Active judges: 18 DEM, 9 GOP. Senior Judges: 9 DEM, 7 GOP. Two vacancies, John B. Owens and Michelle T. Friedland nominated on August 1st, 2013.
10th Circuit: Active judges: 5 DEM, 5 GOP. Senior Judges: 4 DEM, 6 GOP. Two vacancies, Carolyn B. McHugh nominated on May 16th, 2013 and Nancy Moritz nominated on August 1st, 2013
11th Circuit: Active judges: 5 DEM, 3 GOP. Senior Judges: 2 DEM, 6 GOP. Four vacancies. Jill A. Pryor nominated on February 16, 2012 and Robin S. Rosenbaum nominated on November 7, 2013.
DC Circuit: Active judges: 4 DEM, 4 GOP. Senior Judges: 1 DEM, 5 GOP. Three vacancies: Patricia Millett, Nina Pillard, and Robert L. Wilkins nominated on June 4th, 2013.
Federal Circuit: Active judges: 7 DEM, 5 GOP. Senior Judges: 2 DEM, 4 GOP. No vacancies.
*judge was nominated by Clinton and renominated by Bush.
There are 19 total vacancies, all of which would be filled within a year. You can figure which courts would be the most important on your own. Just keep in mind that Senior Judges do hear cases. Their presence on the court helps determine the ideological makeup of the court. That's one reason why the Republicans have fought so hard against the three DC Circuit judges.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2013/11/19/201856/14
The Republican Party = the tea party. Basically.
The Republican Party is the Tea PartyThe Fix notes that "views of the Republican Party's ideological leaning are essentially the same as the tea party... Views of the GOP and the tea party are virtually the same across all demographics."
"In other words, if the tea party has moved the GOP to the right -- and it has -- it has done so to such an extent they are now viewed as ideologically very similar."
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Forty percent say the tea party is too conservative — about the same number as say the Republican Party is too conservative (43 percent). While 36 percent of Americans say the views of the GOP are “about right,” 35 percent say the same of the tea party.
Views of the GOP and the tea party are virtually the same across all demographics. Fifty-five percent of moderates say the GOP is too conservative, versus 52 percent who say the same of the tea party.
MORE:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/11/20/the-republican-party-the-tea-party-basically/
Harry Reid is set to go nuclear(as early as this week)
Source: Washington Post
Senator Harry Reid appears set to go nuclear — before Thanksgiving.
With Senate Republicans blocking a third Obama nomination to the powerful D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide tells me Reid is now all but certain to move to change the Senate rules by simple majority — doing away with the filibuster on executive and judicial nominations, with the exception of the Supreme Court – as early as this week.
At a presser today, Reid told reporters he was taking another look at rules reform, but didn’t give a timeline. The senior leadership aide goes further, saying it’s hard to envision circumstances under which Reid doesn’t act.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2013/11/19/harry-reid-is-set-to-go-nuclear/
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