April 1, 2012

Would striking down ObamaCare hurt the Supreme Court's credibility?

The president's biggest domestic achievement, along with his re-election chances, are on the line. But the high court has a lot to lose, too...

After three days of intense debate, President Obama's sweeping overhaul of the health-care system is now in the hands of nine black-robed justices. The Supreme Court's conservative judges clearly expressed their doubts about the law's constitutionality, leaving Obama's supporters fretting about ObamaCare's fate and the president's re-election chances. Meanwhile, liberals are warning that a decision by a conservative court to strike down a Democratic president's top domestic priority would hurt the court's credibility, cementing the perception that the law's scales are being tipped by politics, not justice. Is the Supreme Court's integrity at stake?

The rest of the story: http://theweek.com/article/index/226217/would-striking-down-obamacare-hurt-the-supreme-courts-credibility

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The whole country has a stake in this decision.......

April 1, 2012

Mental Athletes Increase Brain Size in 15th US Memory Championship

Nelson Dellis left Saturday’s US Memory Championship with gold medals around his neck and a trophy in his hand. He had broken new records, memorized 303 random numbers in five minutes, and recited the order of two decks of cards. The second-time champion was living proof that a 28-year old with an average memory can become the country’s greatest mental athlete.

The technique? Translating data into visual images and placing them into a “memory palace” – a place in your mind that you can walk through again later and gather the storage.

Dellis came to the competition with a new technique: he would turn a group of seven numbers into a single image. To him, the number 0093495, for example, represented an image of Olivia Newton slam-dunking a helmet while wearing spandex.

Using the same colorful imagery, Dellis and the other mental athletes memorized a 50-line poem, 99 names and faces, random words and numbers, and biographical information including zip codes and phone numbers – all under the pressure of a few minutes each.

Joshua Foer, a former memory champion and author of Moonwalking with Einstein, came to cheer on this year’s competitors, but says he no longer has the skills to win.

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/03/28/mental-athletes-increase-brain-size-in-15th-us-memory-championship-2/

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Gonna look into a pair of sound reducing headphones.....betcha that will improve my memory....right..

April 1, 2012

Violin, Ice Sculptures, and Beautiful Women....

Enjoy.............

April 1, 2012

Darrell Issa’s Push To Abolish An Antiquated Law...LOL

Memo to: Fellow Members of Congress

From: Darrell Issa, Republican of California

Re: Support for legislation to abolish an antiquated law.

I urge you to join us in sponsoring the Hall-Latta-Flake-Issa-Upton-Noem-Goodlatte Act.

For too long, science has been trotted out to justify environmental protection, when it is actually being used to mask tax-and-spend policies that sink our economy. With that in mind, I ask you to support the next logical step in our Republican Caucus’ crusade to abolish job-killing “environmental” laws and excessive regulations.

Please join us in cosponsoring H.R. 32174, a bill to repeal the Law of Gravity.

Congress never passed this law. No president signed it. No court reviewed it. Not even Al Gore voted for it. As Sen. James Inhofe has said of putative “global warming,” so-called gravity is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.”

Congress never intended that whatever goes up must come down — with the exception of taxes.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/04/01/455378/darrell-issa-push-to-abolish-an-antiquated-law/

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April 1, 2012

47 Senators Side With Big Oil And Vote To Kill 37,000 American Wind Jobs

Yesterday, 47 United States Senators voted to kill 37,000 American jobs, while giving $24 billion in tax breaks to big oil companies. It’s clear where these Senators’ loyalties lie: They would rather give handouts to the dirty energy of the past rather than invest in the clean energy of the future.

In a largely party-line 51-47 vote (four Democrats side with Big Oil, and two Republicans side with clean energy), the Senate failed to reach the 60 votes necessary to move forward on the Repeal Big Oil Tax Subsidies Act, sponsored by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ).

This bill would do two things: End several egregious subsidies to big oil companies, while extending industry-supporting incentives for clean energy. Among those incentives is the critical Production Tax Credit, which encourages investment in wind energy. As we’ve reported before, raising taxes on the emerging wind power industry by failing to extend this credit will kill 37,000 jobs. Indeed, we’ve already seen layoffs as manufacturing companies prepare for the worst.

http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/30/455722/47-senators-side-with-big-oil-and-vote-to-kill-37000-american-wind-jobs/

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Do we need 47 senators that vote against the American people........

April 1, 2012

Sinking Gingrich Calls for One More Debate

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[url=http://www.flickr.com/photos/41483660@N04/7034104801/]033012FinalGingrichD_500[/url]

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April 1, 2012

Kochs, Lies, and Videotape

This week as I premiered my new film, Koch Brothers Exposed — the result of a year-long investigation on how two billionaires are using their wealth to corrupt democracy — Koch Industries has launched an attack on the film and me. The Kochs intimidate, they menace; they have a letter from their lawyer borderline threatening the media if it reports what’s in the film — and they always try to change the subject so their behavior can stay in the shadows: not only are they unwilling to accept my offer of a debate or interview, they also refuse to testify about their interest in the Keystone XL pipeline and may have to be dragged kicking and screaming into revealing their secret contributions to groups doing election work. This time, the Kochs are using a technique I point out in the film: attacking to avoid dealing with the facts. They are dodging and distorting the truth to avoid confronting our findings on cancer, voting rights, civil rights, and more.

How? Let me count (some of) the ways:

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/2012/03/31/kochs-lies-and-videotape/?

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Dinosaurs are already extinct.........this type lives on......

April 1, 2012

The LSD-for-Alcoholics Story Deserves a Closer Look

A study published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, a British scholarly journal, has been picked up, repeated and amplified by many news organizations. Given the quality of the source research, I’m astonished that the headline, “LSD may help alcoholics to get sober” has been accepted without much reservation. The article is a meta-analysis of 6 studies of the effect of a single dose of LSD on subsequent drinking by people we are told are “alcoholic.” All the studies reviewed and compiled in this paper were performed prior to 1970. So even a cursory glance at this article tells us we’re talking about research that is about a half-century old. Assuming the research is valid and justifies some confidence that LSD is therapeutic for this syndrome, (and that assumption is wrong anyway) why should door-nail dead, 6-feet-under research that is disinterred after more than 42 years make such a splash?

I think the answer is twofold: First—the scourge of alcoholism is significant at a population level and at a deeply personal one. Everyone’s life has been touched usually in profoundly sad ways by problems caused by alcohol. As with many prevalent diseases that are painful and recalcitrant, any news item that purports to provide a solution will be cause for hope, and thus grab attention. (Sadly, all too often, it is a false hope.) Second: This news item resurrects a taboo drug, namely LSD. Only aging baby-boomers or their seniors will know that LSD was once available by prescription. In the early 60s it earned a seat of honor at the high-table of the DEA’s forbidden substances banquet. Because it is associated with the counterculture, and a bygone summer of love, an article about it might be nominated in the category of Best Revival, a la Hair. It’s titillating, so let’s swallow the message hook line and sinker.

The reading public may not know that there is a persistent group advocating for the therapeutic role of mind-bending drugs such as LSD. One online resource on this topic is the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies or MAPS (based in Santa Cruz, Calif.). The authors of the LSD study getting all the attention now were previously funded by MAPS to investigate any potential role of MDMA (‘ecstasy’) in psychotherapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. So the authors, while not having a commercial vested interest in this topic, may indeed have a professional stake in this subject. I can’t comment on whether support for psychedelic research, or the topic in general, makes up a significant part of the authors’ professional portfolio, but it is worth noting the authors’ involvement in the movement.

http://www.medpagetoday.com/GarySchwitzer/31677

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See my original post here ; http://www.democraticunderground.com/101471422

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