Posted inCurrent affairs Science

“New Scientist” says Obama will win. I love science.

Ah, I love science. Especially when it supports my political leanings.  This week's issue of New Scientist (September 29, 2012) has an opinion piece by Jim Giles, a consultant for the magazine. It's title and subtitle: No contest. Don't believe the US presidential opinion polls. Barring a political earthquake, Barack Obama will be re-elected at a canter, says Jim Giles. Hey, makes sense to me. Here's some excerpts: FROM tabloids and broadsheets to left-leaning blogs and conservative talk shows, the US media has been united on one point in recent months: the presidential election is too tight to call.  ...But…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Entertainment

Tell DirecTV how you feel about not getting Pac-12 games

Five weeks ago I started telling DirecTV that I wanted them to offer the Pac-12 Network now. I've emailed customer service. I've had the Pac-12 channel finder notify DirecTV that I want to see every Oregon and Oregon State football game this season, not just the ones on channels (like ESPN) DirecTV does offer. Four weeks ago I blogged about how DirecTV's excuses for shutting its subscribers out of the Pac-12 Network were annoying.  They're much more annoying now. Last Saturday I missed the Oregon State-Arizona game, which, when I read about it in the freaking newspaper the next day,…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

More Republican reality-denying. Now, its polls.

The Republican Party has a problem with reality: it denies it. I'm not saying that all Republicans do this. But G.O.P. leaders sure do, along with a much higher percentage of Republicans than Democrats. Evolution and global warming are prime examples of G.O.P. head-in-the-sand'ness. Now political polls can be added to the reality-denying list.  Nearly every national poll shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney. Gallup, Ipsos and Bloomberg all have the president up by six points. The RAND Corporation puts Mr. Obama up by seven and a half. Only Rasmussen has Mr. Romney up nationally among likely voters, by two points. Swing…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Election seems to be slipping away from Romney

As of today... Gallup says Obama's job approval is 51% positive, 43% negative. Gallup says Obama is favored over Romney among registered voters by 50% to 44%. Five Thirty Eight says Obama has an 82% chance of winning the presidency, Romney 18%. Obama doesn't have a lock on the election. Romney could make a comeback. It's just increasingly difficult to see what could markedly change in Romney's favor between now and November. The debates? Good luck with that, Romney and Ryan. Obama and Biden are much more likely to extend their lead after the first few debates, in my decidedly optimistic progressive…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Good reasons to support Measure 80, Oregon marijuana legalization

If you're an Oregonian who is unsure about how to vote on Measure 80, which would regulate, tax, and manage marijuana sales/use for adults 21 and over in our state, have a listen to this segment of OPB's "Think Out Loud." (click on the MP3 file link below)  Oregon Marijuana Legalization Yesterday Roy Kaufmann (spokesman for Measure 80) and John Trumbo (Umatilla County Sheriff) had an intelligent, respectful, thoughtful discussion about marijuana legalization. Kudos also to the moderator, Dave Miller. Great job educating the public by all three, plus those who phoned in with cogent comments. I support Measure 80.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Marijuana tourism coming to Washington state?

There's a good chance Washington state will legalize the sale and use of marijuana this November. A few weeks ago a poll showed Initiative I-502 with 57% "yes" and 34% "no" among likely voters. Measure 80 here in Oregon looks less likely to pass.  It takes a more liberal approach to marijuana legalization, which seems to be one reason large donors haven't chipped in money to support the measure as they have in Washington and Colorado. This November, voters in Oregon and Washington will decide whether to legalize marijuana. The Washington effort is backed by some deep-pocketed national donors. But…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Romney gets a “pants on fire” for his redistribution lie

Mitt Romney's chance of being elected president is steadily declining. Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy. Not only do Romney's policies make no sense (insofar as they've been explained), but he's a habitual shader of the truth. More bluntly put, a liar. So says PolitiFact about his newest falsehood: a claim that "redistribution" has "never been a characteristic of America." That lie gets him a Pants on Fire ruling. We wondered whether Romney was correct to say that "redistribution" has "never been a characteristic of America." So we checked with historians and economists. Most agreed that Romney was ignoring the…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Romney video reveals his heartlessness

For a supposedly religious guy, Mitt Romney is remarkably uncaring and uncompassionate. This has been evident throughout his public campaigning, but it became super obvious when remarks to a bunch of rich donors he thought would be private popped up on You Tube.   This is the heart of Romney's heartlessness: There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Romney lies about Obama’s Libya response. Unfit to be president.

If there ever was any doubt that Mitt Romney is unfit to lead this nation, his ham-handed, lying, insensitive attempt to discredit Obama's response to the attacks on our consulates in Libya and Egypt proves it.  The gunfire at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, had barely ceased when Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney seriously mischaracterized what had happened in a statement accusing President Barack Obama of "disgraceful" handling of violence there and at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo. "The Obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Romney misleads about his pre-existing conditions policy

Another day, another Mitt Romney falsehood. It turns out that, contrary to what he said on yesterday's Meet the Press interview, Romney doesn't want to preserve the Obamacare prohibition on denying people health insurance coverage for pre-existing conditions.  This is what Romney said: “Well, I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform,” Romney said on NBC’s  ”Meet the Press.”  ”Of course, there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I’m going to put in place.  One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage.  But this isn't true. His campaign staff…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Romney doubles down on wrecking the environment

Mitt Romney had an opportunity to reverse course on a crazy policy position: let the Earth get sicker and allow the oceans to keep rising (from global warming).  But yesterday he repeated his mocking of Obama's goal to do the opposite: heal the planet and slow the oceans' rise. Environmental activists condemned Romney's remarks on "Meet the Press." Climate scientist Michael Mann, author of "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars," wrote in an e-mail to The Huffington Post, "It is disconcerting that a major party presidential candidate would show such wanton disregard for the health of our environment. Mr. Romney…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

GM doesn’t lose $49,000 on each Chevy Volt

Falsehoods about the Chevy Volt just keep on coming. Earlier this year Fox News and Charles Krauthamer lied about non-existent fires in Volts. Now renewable energy haters, global warming deniers, and the anti-Obama crowd are crowing about a Reuters story that claims GM loses as much as $49,000 on each Chevy Volt it builds. Problem is, this isn't true. Reuters admits that it divided the billion dollars or so in development costs by the number of Volts sold through August. That's crazy. After someone sent me an email about this supposedly shocking news, I replied to him with: Somebody makes…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Obama generated a post-convention bounce… in my mood

Oh, yeah, my progressive psyche is feeling much better now -- after watching the Republicans stumble through their convention while the Democrats soared in theirs.  Beforehand I'd worried that the G.O.P. could pull off a miracle: make Romney-Ryan appear both likable and sensible. Didn't happen. On Friday, a day after the Dem convention closed, a poll was released showing Obama crushing Romney on likability. Asked who was the more likable candidate, 52 percent of registered voters surveyed favored Obama compared to 29 percent for Romney. Among independents, Obama enjoyed a likability advantage of 50 percent to 22 percent for Romney. Obama…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Neuroscience agrees with Obama: “You didn’t build that”

This won't change many (if any) Republican minds, because mistrust of science has become a foundational G.O.P. position. Facts, after all, are inconvenient when unsupported assertions are the central presidential campaign strategy. Nonetheless, here's a passage that I came across this morning in Iain McGilchrist's fascinating book, "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World." McGilchrist is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and expert in how the human brain functions. Here he alludes to the impossibility of any man or woman being an island sufficient to him/herself. Or of building anything unaided, including a business. "You…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Romney wants our planet to get sicker and oceans to rise

There are countless reasons to vote for Barack Obama rather than Mitt Romney this November. Here's one of the great reasons: Romney wants our planet to get sicker and for the world's oceans to rise -- inundating highly populated areas, including Florida.  That's insane, but it's what he said when he mocked President Obama: President Obama promised to slow the rise of the oceans and to heal the planet. My promise is to help you and your family. How anybody could be for a diseased planet and coastal flooding is beyond me. Also, beyond Stephen Colbert, who had a great…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

Another “cougar” sighting turns out to be a house cat

Cougarphobic people, of which there are quite a few here in Oregon, have an irrational fear of cougars, a.k.a. mountain lions. I wish they'd get some therapy. This would be healthy both for them and the environment, since cougars are a valuable part of the natural ecosystem. One of the symptoms of cougarphobia is seeing cougars everywhere. I enjoy the periodic news stories about someone who SAW A COUGAR!!! Which turns out to be a house cat. Recently this happened again in Lynden, Washington. A "cougar" sighted four times near the Lynden fairgrounds turned out to be a very muscular…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Paul Ryan’s lies made him fail his V.P. “job interview”

Lyin' Ryan. Here's a great compilation of truth-telling about the lies Paul Ryan told at the Republican National Convention.  The last link is to a Jezebel post: "Why Lying is Bad: A Primer for Confused Republicans." Nicely done. Hopefully some right-wing commenters on this blog who habitually lie about global warming, Obama's policies, and other stuff will read the post. Excerpt: Yesterday at the Republican National Convention in Florida, vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan got up and made a rousing speech about democracy and the future and why President Obama is a great big bozo who's pooping in America's mouth and…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Ghastly Clint Eastwood “speech” makes Romney look bad

Cringe-inducing. Creepy. Disturbing. That's how I felt about Clint Eastwood's horrible twelve minutes on stage at the Republican National Convention before Romney spoke.  It's also how I feel about voting for Romney. So I'm glad Eastwood's performance was bad. It reflects poorly on Romney, who is supposed to be such a great manager, on top of all the details. Well, one detail he wasn't on top of was Clint Eastwood. This has to go down as one of the most embarassing prime time appearances at a major party political convention. Eastwood wasn't funny. He wasn't inspiring. He stuttered and stammered.…
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Posted inCurrent affairs

Regence of Oregon screws its individual policy-holders again in 2012

Yesterday the dreaded packet arrived from Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon, just as it does almost every year. Regence tries to hide what it's doing, but the truth is apparent: us individual policy-holders are getting screwed over again. OSPIRG lays out why Regence shouldn't get the big rate increases it asks for annually. I heartily agree. But a recent email from OSPIRG contains bad news that could have been even worse. State officials decided to trim Regence BlueCross BlueShield of Oregon’s proposal to raise rates for more than 52,000 Oregonians with individual health insurance plans, according to documents made public…
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Posted inCurrent affairs Sustainability

American Meteorological Society strengthens global warming position

You've got a choice, global warming deniers: scurry further into the shadows of unreality, or come out into the sun of truth. I recommend the latter, because there's less and less room to hide. The previously almost deserted corridors of minority scientific opinion (97% of climate experts agree humans are causing global warming) are steadily becoming even less populated. Now the American Meteorological Society has put more pressure on global warming deniers, strengthening considerably its previous position statement on the subject. Here's excerpts from the August 2012 Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society: The following is an AMS Information…
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