Playinghardball
Playinghardball's JournalVice President Joe Biden Donates $50K To Pennsylvania’s Women’s Abuse Advocacy Groups
Vice President Joe Biden donated $50,000 to the Pennsylvania Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Philadelphia-based Women Against Abuse Tuesday, a month after winning the money at Pennsylvania’s biggest annual political gathering. The Pennsylvania Society during its 115th annual black-tie dinner last month presented Biden with the Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement. The award, which recognizes the leadership and philanthropic accomplishments of prominent figures with Pennsylvania ties, comes with a $50,000 contribution to be directed to charities of the recipient’s choice.
The two selected nonprofits will use the money to increase advocacy and awareness efforts and support intervention for victims of domestic violence, which they described as a public health epidemic that affects one in three women and one in seven men worldwide. As Vice President, Biden appointed the White House’s first Advisor on Violence Against Women and launched the “1is2many” initiative. an outreach campaign that uses technology to reduce date rape and domestic violence among teens and college students. Biden was the first sitting vice president chosen to receive the Pennsylvania Society’s Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement. Past recipients have included Andrew Carnegie, Dwight Eisenhower and Bill Cosby.
More here: http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/Vice_President_Joe_Biden_donates_50K_to_Pennsylvania_womens_abuse_advocacy_groups.html
Found on the Obama Diary
Rachel Maddow: Earthquake-rattled Texas town begs state to shut down fracking wells
In the segment below from Thursday night’s “Rachel Maddow Show,” Maddow told the story of a Texas town shaken by a series of earthquakes. Now, geological evidence is indicating that the natural gas mining technique hydraulic fracturing — also known as “fracking” — may be to blame.
Over the past year, a number of rail car accidents involving crude oil have dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil into neighborhoods, rivers and woodlands. Proponents of pipelines have capitalized on the accidents as an occasion to champion their method of moving crude oil from where it is drilled to where it is processed.
“Undercutting that argument, of course,” Maddow said, “is the mind-numbing number of pipeline spills that have also soiled big swathes of the country recently.”
“Sort of a ‘pick your poison,’ right?” she continued. “Do you want the exploding rail car behind Door Number One or the potentially exploding pipeline behind Door Number Two? Well, what they’re getting in Texas right now is an extra heavy dose of Door Number Two.”
Trans-Canada, the oil company that wants to build the continent-spanning Keystone-XL pipeline, opened the southern segment of that project on Thursday. A group called Texas Pipeline Watch opened its doors as well. The group is dedicated to tracking problems and safety issues associated with the oil pipeline.
Azle, Texas, located west of Ft. Worth, has recently begun to experience earthquakes for the first time in the town’s history. They started in November, with a small 2.6 magnitude temblor. It was a small quake, but for a town with no history of earthquakes, it was alarming to inhabitants.
Another quake followed the next day. Then, two more that night. Something was clearly amiss in the earth underneath Azle and it has only gotten worse since then.
More and see the video at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/24/rachel-maddow-earthquake-rattled-texas-town-begs-state-to-shut-down-fracking-wells/
Neil deGrasse Tyson: Republicans doomed to poverty because they’re ‘born into’ ignorance
Astrophysicist and celebrity science advocate Neil deGrasse Tyson recently, and at great length, discussed the importance of scientific literacy with Bill Moyers.
Moyers began by reminding viewers of a recent Gallup poll in which 46 percent of Americans espoused the belief that “God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years.” Moreover, a Pew Research poll showed that two-thirds of evangelical Protestants, “the bedrock of the Republican Party, reject altogether the idea that humans have evolved.”
Belief in the theory of evolution rose among Democrats to 67 percent.
Neil deGrasse Tyson attempted to explain this partisan divide in scientific literacy by discussing the role of the democratic process in science education. Because what’s taught in classrooms is handled at the state level, many Americans are “born into” ignorance.
He says this is a “self-correcting” phenomenon, because “nobody wants to die. We all care about health. Republicans, especially, don’t want to die poor. So educated Republicans know the value of innovations in science and technology for the thriving of an economy and business industry.”
So, he believes, eventually even they won’t want to see something “that is not science in a science classroom,” because that “undermines the entire enterprise that was responsible for creating the wealth that we have come to take for granted in this country.”
There is only so long, he says, that Republicans will allow the United States to “fad[e] economically.”
“Some Republican is going to wake up and say, ‘Look guys, we got to split these two, we have to, otherwise we’ll doom ourselves to poverty.”
It’s “just a matter,” he says, “of electing into office people who know…how money gets generated
He went on to discuss the many ways in which American students lag behind their counterparts in the rest of the world when it comes to scientific literacy, blaming the “culture of testing” for teaching students how to take tests instead of imparting basic knowledge about scientific principles.
Watch the entire interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson below.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/24/neil-degrasse-tyson-republicans-doomed-to-poverty-because-theyre-born-into-ignorance/
An incredible new video shows a match burning in super slow motion..
Check out the video...
We'll probably never witness one of these again....
The Upper Michigan Blizzard of 1938
Yes, but can your blizzard do this? In Upper Michigan's Storm of the Century in 1938, some snow drifts reached the level of utility poles. Nearly a meter of new and unexpected snow fell over two days in a storm that started 76 years ago tomorrow. As snow fell and gale-force winds piled snow to surreal heights; many roads became not only impassable but unplowable; people became stranded; cars, school buses and a train became mired; and even a dangerous fire raged. Fortunately only two people were killed, although some students were forced to spend several consecutive days at school. The above image was taken by a local resident soon after the storm. Although all of this snow eventually melted, repeated snow storms like this help build lasting glaciers in snowy regions of our planet Earth.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap140122.html
Don’t want to be hassled by creationist teacher? Give up Buddhism, Louisiana public school says
A public school in Louisiana allegedly advised a Buddhist family to change their beliefs if they didn’t want their child to face harassment from zealous teachers.
The American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Louisiana on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit against Negreet High School in Sabine Parish on behalf of two parents, Scott and Sharon Lane, and their son, “C.C.” The lawsuit claims the school has “a longstanding custom, policy, and practice of promoting and inculcating Christian beliefs,” including the teaching of creationism.
Sixth-grade teacher Rita Roark has told her students that the universe was created by God about 6,000 years ago, and taught that both the Big Bang theory and evolution are false, according to the lawsuit. She told her students that “if evolution was real, it would still be happening: Apes would be turning into humans today.”
One test she gave to students asked: “ISN’T IT AMAZING WHAT THE _____________ HAS MADE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” The correct answer was “Lord,” but C.C. wrote in something else. Roark responded by scolding the boy in front of the entire class.
When informed that C.C. was a Buddhist and therefore didn’t believe in God, Roark allegedly responded, “you’re stupid if you don’t believe in God.”
On another accusation, she allegedly described both Buddhism and Hinduism as “stupid.”
When the outraged parents confronted Sabine Parish Superintendent Sara Ebarb about the incidents, she allegedly told them “this is the Bible belt” and that they “shouldn’t be offended” to “see God here.” Ebarb advised that C.C. should either change his faith or be transferred to another District school where “there are more Asians.”
More at: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/23/dont-want-to-be-hassled-by-creationist-teacher-give-up-buddhism-louisiana-public-school-says/
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