January 7, 2015

Ben Carson Caught Plagiarizing from SocialismSucks.net

Source: Mediaite

by Matt Wilstein | 7:43 pm, January 6th, 2015

After calling attention to passages from Sen. Rand Paul’s 2013 book Government Bullies that were lifted word-for-word from a Heritage Foundation study, BuzzFeed is at it again. This time, the site is highlighting portions of potential 2016 Republican presidential Dr. Ben Carson’s 2012 book America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great.

One source left un-cited by Carson was a website called socialismsucks.net, which apparently went online in 2002, but is currently down. But a cached page on Archive.org on the history of socialism, contains a multi-paragraph passage, including the section below, that is repeated verbatim in Carson’s book:

BuzzFeed also found passages lifted from The Five Thousand Year Leap by W. Cleon Skousen, a Liberty Institute press release from 2011, a CBS News article from 2010 and more.






Read more: http://www.mediaite.com/online/ben-carson-caught-plagiarizing-from-socialismsucks-net/

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Well, should Rand Paul be the GOP standard-bearer next year, I would think his choice of Veep to be obvious, with the slogan of the Paul-Carson ticket being, We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union...

January 7, 2015

Where is Meta-Discussion?

I don't see it listed.

January 6, 2015

High Noon on the Gulf Coast: Canada, Saudi oil set for showdown

Source: Reuters

By Catherine Ngai

NEW YORK Tue Jan 6, 2015 7:56am EST

(Reuters) - As a test of wills between OPEC nations and U.S. shale drillers fuels a global oil market slump, a brewing battle between Canadian and Saudi Arabia heavy crudes for America's Gulf Coast refinery market threatens to drive prices even lower.

While the stand-off between the oil cartel and U.S. producers of light, sweet shale oil has captured the limelight in recent months, the clash over heavier grades - playing out in the shadowy, opaque physical market - may put even more pressure on global prices that have halved since mid-2014.

Two factors will come into play over the next few weeks: From the North, new oil pipelines will pump record volumes of Canadian crude to the southern refineries, many better equipped to process heavy crudes than lighter shale oil.

From the Middle East, top exporter Saudi Arabia is offering crude at discounted prices in an attempt to defend its remaining share of the important regional market, which has shrunk by more than half in recent months.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/06/us-markets-oil-saudi-osp-analysis-idUSKBN0KF10X20150106

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Canada vs Saudi Arabia. I don't know who will win, but I've a samn good idea who the losers will be!

January 6, 2015

Scalise must go, already: Seriously, why does he still have a GOP leadership job?

Joan Walsh, writing in Salon...

Last summer, RNC chair Reince Priebus told the National Committee of Black Journalists he had a dream.

“If we work like dogs day in, day out — instead of getting 6% of black votes across the country … we can do a lot better,” Priebus told the group. “That’s our goal.”

It turns out he actually used that odd term – “work like dogs” – more than once in pitching his plan to expand black support for the GOP. “If we work like dogs…instead of 5% in the black community, can we get to 9 percent?” he asked NBC’s Chuck Todd. On the whole issue of the GOP’s demographic problems – with young, Latino, Black, gay and single women voters — Priebus pledged last year: “We’ll work like dogs to try to figure it out.”

Ironically, Republican leaders worked like dogs over the holiday season, but not to win black support. Instead they’re trying to hold on to a leadership role for Louisiana Rep. Steve Scalise, after it came out that he addressed former KKK grand wizard David Duke’s European-American Unity and Rights Organization (EURO), a white nationalist organization, in 2002. House Speaker John Boehner says he wants Scalise to stay as whip, and so does Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Meanwhile, Reince Priebus seems to be working like a dog to avoid commenting on the mess. Oddly, I can’t find any evidence of a statement on Scalise from the normally gabby media hound.

It’s particularly offensive that Scalise, who once pitched himself politically as “David Duke without the baggage,” is replacing the only Jewish member of House Republican leadership, or the House Republican Caucus generally (other than incoming freshman Lee Zeldin), Eric Cantor (h/t Rachel Maddow). Duke told reporters he founded EURO because white Americans were facing “genocide,” and the group’s Web site blamed Jews:

Full article http://www.salon.com/2015/01/06/scalise_must_go_already_seriously_why_does_he_still_have_a_gop_leadership_job/

Joan Walsh, intellectual hottie!

January 6, 2015

Rabbi Calls for Jewish Leaders to Defend Dershowitz Against Rape Claim

Source: Mediaite

by Evan McMurry | 8:04 am, January 6th, 2015

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a prolific political and cultural commentator who appears sporadically on cable news, wrote an op-ed in the New York Observer Tuesday morning calling on Jews everywhere to defend attorney Alan Dershowitz, who was accused of sexual assault in a recent civil suit against billionaire investor Jeffrey Epstein.

Boteach, as did Dershowitz himself, likened the accusation to the many scurrilous defamations the Jews have historically suffered, ranging from accusations of blood libel to Palestinian genocide, and added that Dershowitz has already been tested by the scores of death threats he receives for his defense of Israel. He called upon Jews to defend Dershowitz as if from these attacks.

“Where are the Jewish leaders to rise to Mr. Dershowitz’s defense?” Boteach asked. “I would like to believe that, at the very least, what Alan Dershowitz deserves is the gratitude of his community. And that means that you stand up for a man when he is down, especially when not a shred of evidence has been brought against him.”

“I have always wondered at the Jewish community in times of scandal,” he added. “We run from it like the plague.”

Boteach defended the attorney from the charges, despite the fact that “there is no way any of us can know if any of this is true.”

Read more: http://www.mediaite.com/online/rabbi-calls-for-jewish-leaders-to-defend-dershowitz-against-rape-claim/

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That last line floors me: Hey, i don't know if he's guilty, but let's defend him anyway. WTF???

January 6, 2015

Thousands flee intensifying India-Pakistan clashes

Source: Reuters

By Fayaz Bukhari

SRINAGAR, India Tue Jan 6, 2015 1:29am EST

(Reuters) - Thousands of Indians have fled from their homes as fighting between India and Pakistan spread along a 200-km (124 mile) stretch of the border in the disputed region of Kashmir.

Tension between the nuclear-armed rivals has risen since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called off peace talks in August and clashes along stretches of their border have been erupting intermittently since October.

At least 10 Indian and Pakistani soldiers and civilians have been killed in fighting over the past week.

About 6,000 civilians in Indian-controlled Kashmir fled from their homes late on Monday as fighting moved to civilian areas, said Shantmanu, the divisional commissioner of Jammu region. About 4,000 left after fighting began last week.

"We had a narrow escape and there is a war-like situation," Sham Kumar, 54, from Sherpur village told Reuters. "Pakistani troops are using long-range weapons. It is the first time we have seen such intense shelling."


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/01/06/us-india-pakistan-idUSKBN0KF0DR20150106

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I'm envisioning an archelogical dig some 5,000 years in the future, with at least one student asking how the nuclear holocaust that destroyed our civilization could have possibly started over possession of a sweater. (Hey, makes about as much sense as any Great Noble Cause.)

January 6, 2015

Serotonin map of brain could lead to better targeted antidepressants

Source: Raw Story

Haroon Siddique, The Guardian
05 Jan 2015 at 22:07 ET

Researchers hope to discover how the activity of serotonin in the brain is involved in different mental illnesses

Research that aims to map the activity of the serotonin in the brain could revolutionise the use of antidepressants and behavioural therapy for people with mental illnesses.

The neurotransmitter serotonin has long been associated with mood, with drugs that boost the chemical in the brain helping to alleviate the symptoms of common illnesses such as depression and anxiety, but scientists lack a deep understanding of how it mediates different mood disorders.

By understanding the biology of serotonin, the hope is that drugs can be created that only target cells relevant to a particular disorder and behavioural therapies can be made more effective, reducing the need for antidepressants.

Dr Jeremiah Cohen, an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute in Baltimore, said: “The ultimate aim is to understand the biology of mood and how groups of cells in the brain connect to produce our emotional behaviour. Most antidepressants operate broadly in the entire serotonin system. What we hope to do with this map is use drugs that are available or design new drugs that will target only the components of that system relevant to a particular disorder.”

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/serotonin-map-of-brain-could-lead-to-better-targeted-antidepressants/

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That would be great news to an OCD sufferer like me, as well as the millions of other Americans going through their own, specifific pain every day.

January 6, 2015

Pit bull rescued from Michael Vick's dog-fighting ring dies

Source: CNN

By Brandon Griggs, CNN

Updated 7:01 PM ET, Mon January 5, 2015

(CNN) Another of the dogs rescued in 2007 from NFL star Michael Vick's dog-fighting compound has died after spending her final years in an adoptive household in suburban Richmond, Virginia.

Gracie, a black pit bull, died Monday morning, according to Amy McCracken, executive director of the Richmond Animal League.

"This morning, little, old, bow-legged Gracie passed away and got her angel wings. Any words we write here could never begin to express the profound, positive and lasting impact that this little, black pit bull had on so many people who encountered her or heard the story of her suffering and triumph," said a post on the animal's league's "Gracie's Guardians" Facebook page.

"We are and will be forever grateful for this little, broken black dog and everything she personified."

The dog arrived at the Richmond no-kill shelter in 2007 and was quickly adopted by the group's board president, Sharon Cornett, who renamed her Gracie.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/05/living/gracie-michael-vick-dog-feat/index.html

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I'm having some trouble seeing my keyboard, so please forgive any spelling mistakes.

January 6, 2015

Bess Myerson, noted ex-Miss America, dead at 90

Source: CNN

By Todd Leopold, CNN

Updated 9:08 PM ET, Mon January 5, 2015

(CNN) Bess Myerson, the 1945 Miss America winner who became a celebrated media personality and public servant and then was brought down by scandal, has died. She was 90.

According to a statement from the Miss America Organization, she died in Santa Monica, California, on December 14. No cause of death was given.

Myerson's rise to fame was a classic rags-to-riches American success story: a bright Bronx girl from a housing project, the daughter of a house painter, who won the nation's most famous beauty contest and parlayed her renown into a media career. She became a model and spokesperson and spent many years on the game show "I've Got a Secret."

The path to celebrity was one followed by such pageant winners as Lee Meriwether, Mary Ann Mobley, Phyllis George and Vanessa Williams.

Read more: http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/05/us/feat-bess-myerson-jewish-miss-america-dead/index.html

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Was her death reported by a major news outlet at the time? If so, this thread should be locked. All I can say is that I've definitely heard of Ms Myerson, but had had no idea that she'd passed on.