Category Archives: Vintage

The NRA Meets Its Potent New Foe: Moms

Mother Jones

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For years, advocates of stricter gun laws have rallied at the barricades of the National Rifle Association’s annual meeting. But this year, as the gun lobby convenes in Indianapolis, there’s a new posse in town. They’re mothers, they’re survivors of gun violence, and some of them are both. And they’re dead set on disarming the NRA of its outsize political power.

They operate as Everytown for Gun Safety, a new organization combining the grassroots group Moms Demand Action, launched after the Sandy Hook Massacre, and Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. At a press conference in a packed downtown hotel conference room on Friday, the group unveiled a forceful new report and political ad.

“We are in Indianapolis to send the NRA leadership a message,” said Shannon Watts, the 43-year-old mother of five who founded Moms Demand Action. Americans can no longer abide by “a Washington lobby run by extremists,” she said.

“Not Your Grandparents’ NRA,” a heavily annotated 21-page report, makes the case that there’s a schism within the nation’s biggest firearms group. “Today’s NRA has remained true to its roots in some important ways,” it begins. “The organization’s gun safety and marksmanship programs remain useful contributions to the shooting sports and to public safety. And it is largely because of these nationwide programs that the organization is well known, and relatively well liked, in much of the country. This is the NRA most American gun owners know and trust.”

“It was painful for me, but it’s been even more difficult for my family,” said shooting survivor Antonius Wriadjaja Everytown for Gun Safety

Then the report presents a stockpile of evidence showing how the NRA’s leadership “puts Americans at risk” by fighting for the interests of gun manufacturing companies under the guise of defending citizens’ constitutional freedoms. The Everytown report documents how the NRA has made it easier for felons to get guns, has fought local gun laws, and even backed an Indiana measure that would have expanded Stand Your Ground to include using lethal force against uniformed police officers. Everytown also calls out the NRA for blocking doctors from discussing the safe gun ownership with their patients, as well as trying to keep military commanders from asking soldiers at risk of suicide about their personal firearms.

The new political ad, which airs in Indianapolis and Washington, DC, through the weekend, uses the pro-gun advocates’ own words to make the case against them. “The presence of a firearm makes us all safer,” intones 30-year-old Antonius Wiriadjaja, reciting the words of NRA figurehead Wayne LaPierre as he pulls up his T-shirt to reveal multiple scars. Wiriadjaja, whom I interviewed in Indianapolis, was shot in the chest in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, on July 5, 2013. The intended target was a young pregnant woman who was being hunted by her domestic partner; Wiriadjaja was a bystander caught in crossfire. Others easily could have been hit, he said. Though the woman was not injured, the shooting occurred in broad daylight with children nearby. “There were two little girls and their mother and an elderly man very close to me when it happened.” (The suspected shooter is in custody.)

Wiriadjaja maintains a blog where he details his recovery process with photos. “It was painful for me, but it’s been even more difficult for my family and friends to watch me go through it,” Wiriadjaja told me. “They’re hurting too. I wanted them to understand how I’m healing.”

Getting survivors to tell their stories may be one of Everytown’s most formidable weapons. “I’m a supporter of the Second Amendment, I’m a gun owner, and I’m paralyzed as the result of random gun violence,” Jennifer Longdon said. Her then-fiancé, who was armed at the time, was also gravely injured when someone in another car riddled their car with bullets in 2004. “He was a good guy with a gun,” she said, but it was no help.

Indiana state Rep. Ed Delaney spoke of the legions of responsible gun owners in his state. And he denounced the NRA leadership for using the premise that gun rights are under attack to get legislators to ease restrictions on guns. Just last month, lawmakers here passed a controversial bill allowing guns in school parking lots. “There is no threat to gun ownership in Indiana,” he said, anger rising in his voice.

A few blocks from the Everytown press conference, the NRA was raising the curtain on “spectacular displays” of weaponry from “every major firearm company in the country,” banquets for its million-dollar corporate donors, and red-meat speeches from the likes of Sarah Palin, Oliver North, and Franklin Graham (who blamed Sandy Hook on godlessness).

There are plenty of responsible gun owners among the estimated 70,000 people enjoying the entertainment and weaponry on display in Indianapolis. Polls show that the majority of gun owners also believe in universal background checks for buyers—a policy the NRA leadership continues to vigorously oppose.

Indeed, some striking data from the Pew Research Center shows that the NRA leadership is glaringly at odds with the views of most of its members. (The NRA, of course, has its own data suggesting the exact opposite.) According to Pew’s polling from last year, three-quarters of Americans who live in a household where they or someone else is an NRA member overwhelmingly favor regulating private gun sales and sales at gun shows with background checks. A third of people from NRA households support a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. And 28 percent of gun owners believe that the NRA exerts too much influence over the debate about gun laws—as do 44 percent of all women.

If the well-financed and growing Everytown succeeds, those numbers may well rise by the next time the NRA convenes for its annual bash.

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The NRA Meets Its Potent New Foe: Moms

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College Doesn’t Pay Off for Everyone

Mother Jones

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Why has college enrollment edged downward in recent years? After all, the college premium is still pretty handsome, which makes a university degree a pretty good investment. Dean Baker thinks the answer might lie in how the college premium is distributed:

Work by my colleague John Schmitt and Heather Boushey shows that a substantial proportion of college grads, especially male college grads, earn less than the average high school grad. They found that the lowest earning quintile of recent college grads (ages 25-34) earned less than the average high school grad. The implication is that many young people may be reasonably assessing their risks of not being a winner among college grads and therefore opting not to get additional education. To get more young people to attend college it is important that most can predictably benefit from the additional education, not just that the average pay of college grads rises.

I’m not sure I buy this. Schmitt and Boushey present the chart on the right, and sure enough, the lowest ten percent of college grads (red line) earn less than the average high school grad. But this has always been true. What’s more, it’s actually less true today than in the past. Among both men and women, even the lowest-achieving college grad is relatively better off now than in 1980.

Even if the bottom 10 percent are still worse off than an average high school grad, I’m not sure how a rising trend could lead to lower assessments of the value of college paying off. It seems like there must be more going on here than that.

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College Doesn’t Pay Off for Everyone

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Cliven Bundy’s Daughter Slams Sean Hannity

Mother Jones

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Since Wednesday night, when the New York Times published Cliven Bundy’s observations about “the Negro”—including his musing that African Americans were better off as cotton-picking slaves than they are today—conservative pundits have scrambled to distance themselves from the Nevada rancher, whose recent standoff with federal officials over grazing fees on public land became a rallying cry for anti-government conservatives. Fox News host Sean Hannity, who had vociferously championed Bundy as a hero, kicked off his Thursday show by slamming Bundy for his “ignorant, racist, repugnant, despicable” remarks.

Bundy defended his initial comments on Thursday saying, “If they think I’m racist, they’re totally wrong…Again, I’m wondering are they better off under the old system of slavery or are they better off under the welfare slavery that they’re under now. You know, I’m not saying one way or the other.” And on Friday morning, he told CNN that he didn’t see a problem with using terms like “Negro” or “boy” for black people. “If those people cannot take those kind of words and not be (offended), then Martin Luther King hasn’t got his job done yet,” he told anchor Chris Cuomo.

Meanwhile, Bundy’s daughter, Shiree Bundy Cox, is striking back at conservatives who have turned tail on Bundy, especially Hannity. In a Facebook post Thursday night, she accused Hannity of abandoning her father and pandering to ratings. Here’s a snippet:

I’m sure most of you have heard the news about my dad being called a racist. Wow! The media loves to take things out of context don’t they? First off I’d just like to say that my dad has never been the most eloquent speaking person. Like someone said, he’s a Moses who needs an Aaron to speak for him. This is true. Second, however, is that the media has turned this into a circus side show. It’s like their trying to throw us off the real subject. Why was this ever even brought up? What does this have to do with land rights issues? Sean Hannity was all for reporting the happenings at the Bundy Ranch until this popped up. I wonder if someone hoped it would be that way…By the way, I think Mr. Hannity is more worried about his ratings than he really is about what my dad said. If he supports a supposed racist, what will that do to his ratings? He’s already lost his #1 spot on Fox.

Cox, who is one of 14 children, also suggested that the controversy concerning Bundy’s racist comments had somehow been orchestrated to undermine her father’s cause:

Glenn Beck was never 100% on board with my dad, but now he has an excuse to distance himself even farther. Could there be people out there who want it that way? Get the un main stream media out of the way from reporting this situation in a positive light and the battle is more than won for the opposing side…Again I’d like to ask, “What does my dad’s opinion on the state of the Blacks on welfare have to do with the land rights issue?” Nothing! It’s a detouring tactic. It’s taking away from the real issues and what has been accomplished. The mainstream media want this to happen to make people deviate from the real important things and focus on a comment that has absolutely no relevance. It’s a tactic that has been used for decades. I hope people will see this for what it really is.

While she came down hard on his critics, Cox’s defense of her father was not so fierce: “Is my dad a racist. No, I really don’t think so. Could he have said what he means with a little more tact? Sure he could have. But most of all, should it even be an issue right now? Nope.”

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Cliven Bundy’s Daughter Slams Sean Hannity

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WATCH: Hillary Clinton Blasts Edward Snowden for Fleeing to Russia and China

Mother Jones

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Hillary Clinton didn’t have to directly deal with Edward Snowden’s leaks when she was secretary of state. Clinton had already stepped down from her post by the time the Guardian published its first revelations on the expansive scope of spying by the National Security Agency. But at an event at the University of Connecticut on Wednesday night, Clinton made it clear that she’s no fan of the NSA leaker, insinuating that Snowden had cooperated with countries hostile to the United States and unintentionally aided terrorist organizations. “I don’t understand why he couldn’t have been part of the debate at home,” she said.

Clinton questioned Snowden’s intentions in fleeing the country before offerring his information to the public. “When he emerged and when he absconded with all that material, I was puzzled, because we have all these protections for whistleblowers,” Clinton said, when the moderator asked if there had been any positive effects for security policy following the NSA leaks. “If he were concerned and wanted to be part of the American debate, he could have been. But it struck me as—I just have to be honest with you—as sort of odd that he would flee to China, because Hong Kong is controlled by China, and that he would then go to Russia, two countries with which we have very difficult cyber-relationships, to put it mildly.”

Clinton also suggested that Snowden had inadvertently helped terrorists. “I think turning over a lot of that material—intentionally or unintentionally, because of the way it can be drained—gave all kinds of information, not only to big countries, but to networks and terrorist groups and the like,” she said.

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WATCH: Hillary Clinton Blasts Edward Snowden for Fleeing to Russia and China

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No, New York Times, Keystone XL Is Not a "Rounding Error"

Mother Jones

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Tim McDonnell

The New York Times had an interesting story earlier this week that aimed to put the carbon footprint of the Keystone XL pipeline, widely derided by environmentalists as the coup de grâce for climate change, in a broader context. The main takeaway was that even if the pipeline gets built, the carbon emissions from the oil it will carry will be such a small slice of the global pie as to be practically negligible; one analyst quoted in the story dismisses Keystone’s carbon footprint as a “rounding error.”

The story is right about a couple things: For the Obama administration to take a strong stance on climate change, finalizing and enforcing tough new limits on emissions from cars and coal-fired power plants will likely have a much bigger impact than blocking this one pipeline (a final decision on the pipeline was delayed once again by the State Department last Friday). And in any case, according to the State Department’s latest environmental assessment, most of the Canadian oil that the pipe would carry is going to get dug up and burned one way or another, so blocking the pipeline won’t necessarily be a win for the climate.

It shouldn’t surprise anyone that, as the chart above shows, the footprint of this one infrastructure project is much less than that of the entire US economy. But that doesn’t mean we should write off all that oil’s carbon footprint altogether. In fact, the Times story’s own such chart dramatically understates what that footprint will really be, using a statistic out of context that’s an order of magnitude lower than the latest official estimate.

The Times writes that the pipeline will be responsible for an annual 18.7 million metric tons of emissions, citing a 2013 letter from a top EPA administrator to senior State Department officials offering feedback on their environmental review of the pipeline. But in the letter, that figure isn’t presented as an estimate of the pipeline’s total footprint. Instead, it’s an estimate of how much greater the emissions will be as a result of the pipeline carrying oil sands crude, the exceptionally carbon-heavy oil that will run in the pipe, as opposed to an equivalent volume of conventional crude oil.

In other words, 18.7 million metric tons is only the difference between conventional and oil sands oil, the extra carbon boost that comes from using a dirtier fossil fuel, what the EPA letter calls “incremental emissions.”

The real number to look at is from the State Department’s final environmental analysis (last paragraph on page ES-15) released in January, and it’s much higher. According to that report, over its full lifecycle (from production to refinement to burning) the oil carried by the pipeline will emit 147-168 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions annually—more than the whole nation of Pakistan, according to Energy Information Administration statistics, and about as much as 41 coal-fired power plants.

The Times analysis is also problematic because it makes an erroneous apples-to-oranges comparison between country-level emissions data from the Energy Information Administration that counts only carbon dioxide, and Keystone emissions estimates that are given in terms of “carbon dioxide equivalent” and thus count other greenhouse gases like methane (although CO2 still accounts for the lion’s share). For a better apples-to-apples comparison, I only included the US in my chart (and not the other nations included in the Times chart), because an official estimate of carbon dioxide equivalent emissions is only available for that country.

Although even the State Department Keystone estimate is a small-ish chunk of total US emissions, it’s certainly nothing to sneeze at, especially when President Obama has repeatedly linked approval of the pipeline to a finding that it won’t have a major impact on climate change.

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No, New York Times, Keystone XL Is Not a "Rounding Error"

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John Boehner Speaks Up For Main Street Republicanism

Mother Jones

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I’ve always felt a little sorry for John Boehner. In another era—a non-tea party era—he would have been your basic Main Street Republican, willing to cut compromises to keep the country moving along in a tolerably orderly way. The kind of guy who would have taken his cues from the Middletown Rotary Club.

Speaking of which, Boehner spoke to the Middletown Rotary Club yesterday and let his hair down. For most Republicans, this would have meant getting caught making some kind of incendiary remarks about Obama thuggery and class warfare against job creators. In Boehner’s case, it meant some incendiary remarks about the, um, unrealistic attitudes of the more excitable members of his caucus:

On immigration: “Here’s the attitude. Ohhhh. Don’t make me do this. Ohhhh. This is too hard,” Boehner whined before a luncheon crowd at Brown’s Run County Club in Madison Township. “We get elected to make choices. We get elected to solve problems and it’s remarkable to me how many of my colleagues just don’t want to … They’ll take the path of least resistance.”

On Obamacare: “(To) repeal Obamacare … isn’t the answer. The answer is repeal and replace. The challenge is that Obamacare is the law of the land. It is there and it has driven all types of changes in our health care delivery system. You can’t recreate an insurance market over night.”

On the tea party: “I don’t have any issue with the tea party. I have issues with organizations in Washington who raise money purporting to represent the tea party, those organizations who are against a budget deal the president and I cut that will save $2.4 trillion over 10 years….I made it pretty clear I’ll stand with the tea party but I’m not standing with these three or four groups in Washington who are using the tea party for their own personal benefit.”

This is all about pragmatism, a cri de coeur against the Foxification of the Republican Party. And I guess it means one of two things. Either Boehner doesn’t really care much about holding onto his leadership position anymore, or else he’s sensed that there’s a burgeoning Main Street backlash against the radicalism of the tea party wing of the modern GOP.

Boehner has always wanted to govern, and he’s never believed that compromise was surrender. That’s not the kind of pol he is. But he’s been hemmed in by the demands of the tea party, and now maybe he’s starting to think it’s time to bust out. The Middletown Rotary Club is probably more interested in keeping things on an even keel than in endless confrontation and hostage taking that does nothing except hurt the economy. They think immigration reform is good for business, and even if they don’t like Obamacare, they probably understand by now that it’s not a catastrophe and it’s time to make the best of it. Maybe they’re finally starting to find their voice.

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John Boehner Speaks Up For Main Street Republicanism

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The Housing Market Is Stalling, and Stagnant Wages Are to Blame

Mother Jones

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Although the economy has shown signs of life lately, growth is still pretty sluggish. The primary culprit appears to be housing: as Neil Irwin points out today, even after recovering from its Great Recession nadir, investment in residential property remains anemic compared to its average level over the past few decades. People just aren’t buying new houses—or refinancing old ones—fast enough to power a serious recovery.

The proximate cause for this is twofold. First, median incomes have been pretty sluggish: household income today is only about 2 percent higher than it was before the start of the recession. That’s just not enough income growth to get young couples confident enough to move out from their parents’ basement and strike out on their own. Second, as the Wall Street Journal reports, rising interest rates have killed off the refi market:

Mortgage lending declined to the lowest level in 14 years in the first quarter as homeowners pulled back sharply from refinancing and house hunters showed little appetite for new loans, the latest sign of how rising interest rates have dented the housing recovery.

….The decline in mortgage lending last quarter stemmed almost entirely from the slide in refinancing. Loans for home purchases were basically flat from a year earlier and down from the fourth quarter.

Mortgage loans were basically flat, which is bad enough. But refinancing is important too, since it puts money in people’s pockets, which they can use to either pay down debt or spend on consumer goods. Either one is good for an overleveraged economy. But now that’s coming to an end.

Housing is the single most important driver of economic growth. In the past, pent-up demand for new housing following a recession would eventually overwhelm financial trepidation, causing young families to start buying new houses. This time that hasn’t happened, and sluggish median incomes are almost certainly to blame (along with high debt levels among college grads, who are one of the prime markets for starter homes). The virtuous circle of rising incomes leading to new home buying—which in turn stimulates the economy and raises wages further—simply hasn’t happened. We are learning the hard way that there’s a stiff price to be paid when virtually all of the economic gains of a recovery go to the well off. Life may be good for them, but without broadly shared prosperity, the larger economy is stuck in a rut.

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The Housing Market Is Stalling, and Stagnant Wages Are to Blame

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Which Bundy Said It: Cliven, Al, Ted, or McGeorge?

Mother Jones

Cliven Bundy, everybody’s favorite Nevada land-fee delinquent, took it to another level this week by questioning whether black people were better off as slaves. Bundy insists his comments weren’t racist, just that he’s “wondering” if black people have traded traditional slavery for slavery to the US government, in the form of subsidies.

As Cliven Bundy’s words ricochet through the news cycle, it’s worth noting that he’s not the only Bundy who’s had some whack things to say in the annals of American history. Can you guess which Bundy uttered the truly…special…quotes below?

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return (rowcorrect + value && rowcorrect + value !== self.defaulting_flag ?
rowcorrect + value :
(row’answer’ + value && row’answer’ + value !== self.defaulting_flag ?
row’answer’ + value :
row’question’ + value
)
);
else
return ”;

},
get_possible_answers : function(row, is_correct)
var possible_answers = [];
var right_or_wrong = (is_correct ? ‘right’ : ‘wrong’);
if (rowright_or_wrong)
possible_answers.push(self.make_possible_answer(row, ”, is_correct));

for (var i = 0; i < 10; i++ )
if (rowright_or_wrong + i)
possible_answers.push(self.make_possible_answer(row, i, is_correct));

}
return possible_answers;
},
make_possible_answer: function(row, row_number, is_correct)
var right_or_wrong = (is_correct ? ‘right’ : ‘wrong’);
var answer =
answer: rowright_or_wrong + row_number,
correct: is_correct
;
for (var i = 0; i < self.possible_display_elements.length; i++ )
var display_element = self.possible_display_elementsi.name;
answerdisplay_element = self.pull_answer_value_from_spreadsheet(
row, display_element, row_number, is_correct
);

return answer;
},
make_quiz_data_from_spreadsheet_data: function(tabletop)
var i, j, sheetName, data;
var quiz = [];

// Find a sheet that _isn’t_ named “Results”.
for (sheetName in tabletop)
if (tabletop.hasOwnProperty(sheetName) && sheetName !== ‘Results’)
break;

}

data = tabletopsheetName.elements;

for (i = 0; i < data.length; i++)
var row = datai;
var possible_wrong_answers = self.get_possible_answers(row, false);
var possible_right_answers = self.get_possible_answers(row, true);

var right_answer_placement = [];
for (j = 0; j < possible_right_answers.length; j++)
right_answer_placement.push(
Math.round(Math.random() * possible_wrong_answers.length)
);

// IMPORTANT TO SORT THIS. rather than check if a value is in, we only check the first
right_answer_placement.sort();

var possible_answers= [];
var right_answers_placed = 0;
for (j = 0; j <= possible_wrong_answers.length; j++)
while (j === right_answer_placementright_answers_placed)
//push right answer
possible_answers.push(possible_right_answersright_answers_placed);
right_answers_placed++;

if (j === possible_wrong_answers.length)
continue;

possible_answers.push(possible_wrong_answersj);
}

var question =
question :
,
possible_answers : possible_answers,
rowNumber : row.rowNumber – 1
};
for (j = 0; j < self.possible_display_elements.length; j++)
var display_value = self.possible_display_elementsj.name;
question.questiondisplay_value = row’question’ + display_value;

quiz.push(question);
}
return quiz;
},
make_results_data_from_spreadsheet_data: function(tabletop, quiz_data)
var ret = make_default_how_you_did_htmls(quiz_data.length);

var data = tabletop’Results’ ? tabletop’Results’.elements : [];
for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++)
var index = datai.numberofrightanswers;
if (index) index = parseInt(index, 10);
if (!isNaN(index))
if (!retindex)
console.log(“Invalid number of correct answers: ” + index);
else
retindex = datai.html;

}
}

return ret;
},
append_question : function(question_index)
var question_data = self.quiz_dataquestion_index;
var question_container = $(‘<li class=”question_container row-fluid question_’ +
question_index +
‘”>’
);
question_container.append( self.build_question_element_from_row(question_data) );
question_container.append( self.build_possible_answer_elements_from_row(question_data, question_index) );
container_elem.append(question_container);
,
build_question_element_from_row: function(row)
var question_container = $(”);
for (var i = 0; i < self.possible_display_elements.length; i++)
question_container.append(
self.possible_display_elementsi.create_element(row.question)
);

return question_container;
},
build_possible_answer_elements_from_row : function(question, question_index)
var answers_container = $(”);

function bindClick(question_index, answer_index, possible_answer)
possible_answer.bind(‘click’, function()
// was it the right answer?
var was_correct = self.quiz_dataquestion_index.possible_answersanswer_index.correct;

// Add correct classes to possible answers
answers_container.find(‘.selected’).removeClass(‘selected’);
$(this).addClass(‘selected’);
$(this).removeClass(‘possible_answer’);
answers_container
.find(‘.answer_’ + answer_index)
.addClass(
was_correct ? ‘correct_answer’ : ‘wrong_answer’
);

//track how many you got right the first time
cheater_answer_trackingquestion_index = was_correct;
if ( typeof(answer_trackingquestion_index) === ‘undefined’ )
answer_trackingquestion_index = was_correct;
cover.find(‘.question_’ + question_index).addClass(
‘first_guess_’ +
(was_correct ? ‘right’ : ‘wrong’)
);

self.update_how_you_did_element();

//show new slide
self.display_answer(self.quiz_dataquestion_index, question_index, self.quiz_dataquestion_index.possible_answersanswer_index);

// track that this was selected last
self.quiz_dataquestion_index.previously_selected = self.quiz_dataquestion_index.possible_answersanswer_index;
});
}

for (var i = 0; i < question.possible_answers.length; i++)
var answer_data = question.possible_answersi;
var possible_answer = $(” +
answer_data.answer +
”);
bindClick(question_index, i, possible_answer);
answers_container.append(possible_answer);
this.note_answer_images(answer_data);

return answers_container;
},
answer_images : {},
preload_answer_images: function()
for (var url in this.answer_images)
var img=new Image();
img.src=url;

},
note_answer_images: function(answer_data)
var image_elements = ‘backgroundimage’, ‘topimage’, ‘bottomimage’;
for (var i = 0; i < image_elements.length; i++)
if (!answer_data[image_elementsi]) continue;
this.answer_images[answer_data[image_elementsi]] = true;
}
self.possible_display_elementsi.name;
},
add_display_in_correct_place: function(container, place_in_display_elements, slide)
for ( var i = place_in_display_elements; i > 0; i– )
if (self.possible_display_elementsi – 1.finder(container).length )
self.possible_display_elementsi – 1.finder(container)
.after( self.possible_display_elementsplace_in_display_elements.create_element(slide) );
return;

}
container.prepend(
self.possible_display_elementsplace_in_display_elements.create_element(slide)
);
},
display_answer : function(question, question_index, answer)
var displayed_slide = question.previously_selected ?
question.previously_selected :
question.question;
var slide = container_elem.find(‘.question_’ + question_index + ‘ .question’);
slide.addClass(‘revealed_answer’);
for (var i = 0; i < self.possible_display_elements.length; i++)
var display_value = self.possible_display_elementsi.name;
if ( answerdisplay_value !== displayed_slidedisplay_value )
if ( !answerdisplay_value )
self.possible_display_elementsi.finder(slide).remove();
else if ( !displayed_slidedisplay_value )
self.add_display_in_correct_place(slide, i, answer);
else
self.possible_display_elementsi.finder(slide).replaceWith(
self.possible_display_elementsi.create_element( answer )
);

}
}
},

create_cover : function()
cover = $(‘#’ + self.container);
container_elem = $(”);
cover.append(container_elem);
container_elem.addClass(‘quiz_container’);
container_elem.css(‘padding’, ‘0px’);
,
update_how_you_did_element: function()
var right_answers = 0;
var user_answers = self.cheating ? cheater_answer_tracking : answer_tracking;
var unfinished = false;
for (var i = 0; i < self.quiz_data.length; i++)
if (typeof(answer_trackingi) === ‘undefined’)
unfinished = true;

if (user_answersi)
right_answers++;

}
var html;
if (unfinished && typeof(this.not_finished_html) !== ‘undefined’)
html = this.not_finished_html;
else
html = this.results_dataright_answers;

how_you_did_element.html(html);
}
};
return quiz.init(quiz_data, results_data, options);
};

$.fn.quiz = function(quiz_data, results_data, options)
if (!options) options = results_data; results_data = null;
if (!options) options = ; }
options.container = this.attr(‘id’);
this.quiz = $.quiz(quiz_data, results_data, options);
return this;
};
})(jQuery);

var quiz = jQuery(‘#quiz_container’).quiz(‘0AuHOPshyxQGGdF9CMUVJeFM2UkJDb0txOUNxemZ6U3c’);

Link: 

Which Bundy Said It: Cliven, Al, Ted, or McGeorge?

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Which Bundy Said It: Cliven, Al, Ted, or McGeorge?

My Life in the New American Minimum Wage Economy

Mother Jones

This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

There are many sides to whistleblowing. The one that most people don’t know about is the very personal cost, prison aside, including the high cost of lawyers and the strain on family relations, that follows the decision to risk it all in an act of conscience. Here’s a part of my own story I’ve not talked about much before.

At age 53, everything changed. Following my whistleblowing first book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People, I was run out of the good job I had held for more than 20 years with the US Department of State. As one of its threats, State also took aim at the pension and benefits I’d earned, even as it forced me into retirement. Would my family and I lose everything I’d worked for as part of the retaliation campaign State was waging? I was worried. That pension was the thing I’d counted on to provide for us and it remained in jeopardy for many months. I was scared.

My skill set was pretty specific to my old job. The market was tough in the Washington, DC area for someone with a suspended security clearance. Nobody with a salaried job to offer seemed interested in an old guy, and I needed some money. All the signs pointed one way—toward the retail economy and a minimum-wage job.

And soon enough, I did indeed find myself working in exactly that economy and, worse yet, trying to live on the money I made. But it wasn’t just the money. There’s this American thing in which jobs define us, and those definitions tell us what our individual futures and the future of our society is likely to be. And believe me, rock bottom is a miserable base for any future.

Continue Reading »

This article: 

My Life in the New American Minimum Wage Economy

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, G & F, GE, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on My Life in the New American Minimum Wage Economy

15 MB of Fame: Never-Before-Seen Digital Art by Andy Warhol

Mother Jones

Making art with a computer ain’t easy. Just ask Andy Warhol. The American icon mastered numerous art forms and shaped our culture with his work. But a newly-discovered collection of files from 41 floppy disks—yes, floppy disks—shows that he struggled with early digital design tools. Today, members of Carnegie Mellon University’s Computer Club and STUDIO for Creative Inquiry in Pittsburgh released a previously unseen set of images Warhol created in the 1980s using a Commodore Amiga 1000. (That used to be a type of computer, kids.)

The work was discovered after artist Cory Arcangel found a fuzzy You Tube video from 1985. In it Warhol sits next to Blondie singer Debbie Harry and uses the Amiga to paint her digital portrait. Jonathan Gaugler of the Carnegie Museum of Art says Arcangel was “relatively sure” the disks containing Warhol’s digital prints would be housed in the Warhol Museum. Sure enough, they were. But, Gaugler says, “It’s risky. Because reading them in a drive, there is a chance of wiping it just by trying.”

So the museum’s curator, Tina Kukielski, connected Arcangel with the Carnegie Mellon’s Computer Club, which wrote original code to safely read the data without damaging it. The process was captured in the upcoming documentary film series The Invisible Photograph, premiering May 10 at the Carnegie Library Lecture Hall.

Here are some of Warhol’s digital works, and stills from documentary showing how they were retrieved. Enjoy—while listening to Blondie if you can:

“Andy 2” Andy Warhol, 1985, ©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visuals Arts, Inc., courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum

Campbell’s Andy Warhol, 1985, ©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visuals Arts, Inc., courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum

“Venus”, 1985, ©The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visuals Arts, Inc., courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum Andy Warhol

Amber Morgan of the Andy Warhol Museum and Cory Arcangel in The Invisible Photograph, Part II – Trapped: Andy Warhol’s Amiga Experiments © Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh

Commodore Amiga computer equipment used by Andy Warhol between 1985-86 Courtesy of The Andy Warhol Museum

View this article: 

15 MB of Fame: Never-Before-Seen Digital Art by Andy Warhol

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta, Vintage | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on 15 MB of Fame: Never-Before-Seen Digital Art by Andy Warhol