January 30, 2014

Sen. Jeff Sessions quotes Lady Gaga to prove pot hurts ‘the health of America’

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/29/sen-jeff-sessions-quotes-lady-gaga-to-prove-pot-hurts-the-health-of-america/



Sen. Jeff Sessions quotes Lady Gaga to prove pot hurts ‘the health of America’
By David Edwards
Wednesday, January 29, 2014 13:22 EST

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) invoked pop singer Lady Gaga at a congressional hearing on Wednesday in an effort to keep kids from having a bad romance with marijuana.

During a Senate Judiciary oversight hearing on the Department of Justice, Sessions told Attorney General Eric Holder that he was appalled that President Barack Obama had recently said marijuana was no more dangerous than alcohol.

~snip~

“I just hope you will talk to the president — you’re close to him — and being to pull back on this position that I think is going to adverse to the health of America.”

Lady Gaga recently became a talking point for conservative pundits after she told a radio host that she was “addicted” to marijuana. But only a year ago, conservatives were outraged over the pop star’s song “Born This Way” because they feared it could convince children to “embrace a homosexual or transgender lifestyle for a lifetime.”


--

This camper argues that Republicans hurt ‘the health of America’.

January 30, 2014

German Chancellor Merkel rebukes U.S. and England over phone surveillance

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/29/german-chancellor-merkel-rebukes-u-s-and-england-over-phone-surveillance/



German Chancellor Merkel rebukes U.S. and England over phone surveillance
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, January 29, 2014 16:11 EST

German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a strong rebuke to the United States and Britain on Wednesday over the sweeping digital spying revealed by fugitive IT contractor Edward Snowden.

In a major speech to parliament ahead of talks with US Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday, Merkel said Western powers sacrificing freedom in the quest for security were sending the wrong signal to “billions of people living in undemocratic states”.

“Actions in which the ends justify the means, in which everything that is technically possible is done, violate trust, they sow distrust,” she said. “The end result is not more security but less.”

Merkel, whose own mobile phone was allegedly monitored by the US National Security Agency (NSA), is planning to travel to Washington in coming months for talks with President Barack Obama.

January 30, 2014

20,000 displaced Palestinians in Syria face starvation

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/29/20000-displaced-palestinians-in-syria-face-starvation/



20,000 displaced Palestinians in Syria face starvation
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, January 29, 2014 16:19 EST

Besieged since June, nearly 20,000 people in Damascus’ Yarmuk Palestinian camp are so desperate for food that many eat stray animals, and some women have resorted to prostitution, according to residents reached via the Internet.

“Many here have slaughtered and eaten cats and dogs, and even a donkey,” said Yarmuk resident Ali, who was a university student when Syria’s revolt erupted in 2011.

“One man who killed a dog couldn’t find any meat to eat on its body, because even the dogs are starving,” he told AFP via Skype.

“What was unimaginable a few months ago is normal now.”

January 30, 2014

Jeffrey Sachs Offers Free Sustainable Development Course

http://cleantechnica.com/2014/01/30/jeffrey-d-sachs-offers-free-sustainable-development-course/



Jeffrey Sachs Offers Free Sustainable Development Course
Originally published on Ecopreneurist.

~snip~



Not all online courses provide all they promise you, but here’s one that should answer all your questions about environmentally sustainable, socially inclusive economic development. It will also challenge you to find out more.

Professor Jeffrey David Sachs, a well-known American economist and since 2002 Director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, teaches the course. It is one of the Coursera Massive Open Online Courses open to all interested adults and offered free of charge. Coursera offers 400+ courses in about 20 categories. Eighty-five universities from 16 countries contribute to the online series.

Jeffrey Sachs has twice been named among Time’s 100 most influential world leaders and the magazine sees him as “the world’s best known economist.” The New York Times, not known for hyperbole, calls him “probably the most important economist in the world.”

Professor Sachs introduces his participants to the interdisciplinary field of sustainable development by drawing on the most recent developments in the social, policy, and physical sciences. He believes that reaching sustainable development is the most urgent challenge facing humanity.


Link to courses: https://www.coursera.org/columbia

January 30, 2014

House passes bill cutting $8 billion from ‘food stamps’ program

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/29/house-passes-bill-cutting-8-billion-from-food-stamps-program/

House passes bill cutting $8 billion from ‘food stamps’ program
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, January 29, 2014 17:46 EST

The US House approved a five-year, nearly $1 trillion farm bill Wednesday reforming the federal government’s crop subsidy system but cutting food stamps to pare the deficit.

The mammoth bill, which has been some three years in the making and endured more than one collapse in negotiations in 2013, enjoyed bipartisan support in passing 251-166.

It now heads to the Senate where it could be voted on as early as Friday. It is expected to pass.

The White House said Wednesday that President Barack Obama would sign the 959-page bill should it reach his desk.

January 30, 2014

Arizona pastor offering tax-deductible exorcisms over Skype for $295 each

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/29/arizona-pastor-offering-tax-deductible-exorcisms-over-skype-for-295-each/



Arizona pastor offering tax-deductible exorcisms over Skype for $295 each
By David Edwards
Wednesday, January 29, 2014 16:20 EST

An evangelical pastor in Arizona has taken his exorcism business to the Internet.

Reverend Bob Larson told KNXV that he has performed over 20,000 exorcisms over the past 20 year. And thanks to the Skype video chat software, he can now offer the service to people all over the world for just $295 for a 60-minute session, according to The Huffington Post.

U.S. residents can even deduct the donation to Larson’s International Missions Program from their taxes.

“In simple terms, an exorcism is the process of expelling an evil spirit from an individual who has become somehow invaded and demonized by that being, and sending it back to hell and freeing the person,” the reverend explained to KNXV.

January 30, 2014

I need a new frame of reference (and your opinion)

I've been looking for an easily understood and remembered way to think of how much a billion dollars is. A billion dollars is a shitload of money; it's a one followed by nine zeros: $1,000,000,000.

How many $25,000 jobs can you 'buy' with a billion dollars? $1,000,000,000 / 25,000 = 40,000. So one billion dollars can 'buy' 40,000 $25,000 jobs.

Let's give this a try with some big ticket items.

Here's a $35 billion dollar program that should be rethought: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11783348
35 x 40,000 = 1,400,000
Thirty five billion dollars = 1.4 million ($25k) jobs.

One more: We just floated our newest destroyer, the USS Zumwalt. The cost for this bad boy is $5.6 billion dollars or 7,840,000 ($25k) jobs.

Comments?

Thanks,
unhappycamper

January 30, 2014

CEO tells Daily Show ‘mentally retarded’ could work for $2: ‘You’re worth what you’re worth’

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/29/ceo-tells-daily-show-mentally-retarded-could-work-for-2-youre-worth-what-youre-worth/



CEO tells Daily Show ‘mentally retarded’ could work for $2: ‘You’re worth what you’re worth’
By Travis Gettys
Wednesday, January 29, 2014 8:33 EST

Would increasing the minimum wage leave the most vulnerable workers with fewer jobs? Financial commentator Peter Schiff thinks so.

The investment broker and talk radio host told Daily Show correspondent Samantha Bee that lifting the minimum wage to $10.10 per hour, as President Barack Obama announced he would do by executive order for federal employees, could have devastating effects.

“There’s a law in economics, supply and demand, that you learn in Econ 101, and if you increase the price of something, you decrease the demand,” Schiff said. “The higher you make the minimum wage, the more jobs are going to be destroyed.

The CEO of Euro Pacific Capital argued that government programs, not low wages, were trapping Americans in poverty, and claimed that paying workers twice as much would double the cost of some goods – such as fast-food hamburgers.

January 30, 2014

Google sells Motorola to Chinese tech firm Lenovo for $2.91 billion

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/29/google-sells-motorola-to-chinese-tech-firm-lenovo-for-2-91-billion/

Google sells Motorola to Chinese tech firm Lenovo for $2.91 billion
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, January 29, 2014 22:45 EST

Google agreed to sell Motorola to Chinese tech giant Lenovo for $2.91 billion, after a lackluster two-year effort to turn around the smartphone maker it bought for $12.5 billion.

The deal ends Google’s run as a handset maker after it biggest-ever takeover, which was announced in 2011 and finalized in 2012.

It also provides Lenovo footholds in smartphone and tablet markets where it is eager to gain traction while acting as a peace offering to Samsung and other partners that make devices powered by Google-backed Android software.

“It is win-win,” analyst Tim Bajarin of Creative Strategies in Silicon Valley said on Wednesday. “Google keeps the patents and the research group, and they keep partners off their back, while Lenovo gets what they need to get into the US smartphone market.”

January 29, 2014

The Navy’s Carrier Crunch: Even Without Budget Cuts, Deployments Will Drop

http://breakingdefense.com/2014/01/the-navys-carrier-crunch-even-without-budget-cuts-deployments-will-drop/



The USS George Washington, which may be decommissioned to save money.

The Navy’s Carrier Crunch: Even Without Budget Cuts, Deployments Will Drop
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
on January 28, 2014 at 5:04 PM

WASHINGTON: The Navy’s in a carrier crunch. US commanders around the world keep asking for carriers to cover trouble spots from Syria, Iran, and Afghanistan to the Western Pacific and the South China Sea, but the Navy doesn’t have enough to go around. And they may well lose another.

In recent years, amazingly, the Navy has managed to increase the number of aircraft carriers deployed overseas at any given time even as the total number of carriers in service decreased. But the price was high: extra-long deployments, stressed-out crews, and overworked ships requiring extensive and expensive unplanned maintenance. Now the Navy has decided it just cannot get as much work out of the carriers it has — just as the budget cuts known as sequestration may leave it with fewer carriers.

“I don’t see any way you can cut a carrier and defend the country,” Rep. Randy Forbes, chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on seapower, told my colleague Colin Clark last night. ”You would have to assume a great deal more risk than we have been willing to assume.”

“We currently are an 11-carrier navy in a 15-carrier world,” Forbes said, referring to repeated Navy studies that say only a fleet of 15 could meet global demand. But Forbes — a legislator — is citing the law, which requires an 11 carrier fleet: In fact, we’re down to 10.



unhappycamper comment: The trend of more pricy military hardware may have something to do with this.

Prior to the last Nimitz-class carrier built, Nimitz-class carriers cost around $4.5 billion dollars delivered, sans people and aircraft. The last one, the USS G.H.W. Bush, cost $6.8 billion due to the overtime required to get this thing christened before poppy popped.

Our latest wonder, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is gonna cost somewhere from $16 ~ $40 billion dollars(this camper's guesstimate) delivered, sans people and aircraft. This is just for the aircraft carrier; the support group usually has a sub or two, a coupla destroyers, a minesweeper or two and other support vessels.

And aircraft are not getting cheaper.



And that's part of the reason our military eats 57% of our discretionary budget.