Tag Archives: donation-leave

Joyous Tidings on the Good Governance Front!

Mother Jones

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Today brings some surprisingly positive news on the governance front:

The Supreme Court might invalidate software patents next year.
Congress might fix the doc fix for good.

Patty Murray and Paul Ryan might agree on a bipartisan budget that undoes a small part of the sequester cuts.

I don’t know that I’d put money on any of these—especially the first one, more’s the pity—but it sure represents an improvement over the past few months.

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Joyous Tidings on the Good Governance Front!

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Wooden Shjips’ "Ghouls" Takes You on a Psychadelic Journey

Mother Jones

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Track 3
“Ghouls,” from Wooden Shjips’ Back to Land
Thrill Jockey

Liner notes: Are you experienced? This echo-laden psychedelic rave-up simulates a thrilling journey into the great unknown.

Behind the music: Ripley Johnson launched this Bay Area band a decade ago, recruiting nonmusicians in an attempt to create new sounds. Featuring a more seasoned lineup, the band’s last album, West, pondered American mythology.

Check out if you like: Space travelers new (Melody’s Echo Chamber) and old (Syd Barrett).

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Wooden Shjips’ "Ghouls" Takes You on a Psychadelic Journey

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for December 3, 2013

Mother Jones

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1st Sgt. William Huston and Staff Sgt. Ronald Barker, paratroopers with Troop C, 2nd Squadron, 38th Calvary Regiment’s Long Range Surveillance, wait to reach altitude so they can jump static line with the new RA-1 parachute system at Fort Hood’s Rapido Drop Zone, Nov. 19. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Cody Barber, 11th Public Affairs Detachment.

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for December 3, 2013

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Thanksgiving Cat Blogging – 28 November 2013

Mother Jones

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Thanksgiving Cat Blogging – 28 November 2013

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Quote of the Day: Green Goo Edition

Mother Jones

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From Stephanie Mencimer, after whipping up one of the holiday offerings in The Romney Family Table:

My DC-bureau testers lost their nerve when presented with the green goo. Some claimed nut allergies (a likely story!). Fortunately, Caldwell, like me, hails from the Jell-O belt and was undeterred.

Fearless journalism indeed.

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Quote of the Day: Green Goo Edition

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Why Institutional Divestment Might Be One of Our Best Tools For Fighting Climate Change

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the TomDispatch website.

Apocalyptic climate change is upon us. For shorthand, let’s call it a slow-motion apocalypse to distinguish it from an intergalactic attack out of the blue or a suddenly surging Genesis-style flood.

Slow-motion, however, is not no-motion. In fits and starts, speeding up and slowing down, turning risks into clumps of extreme fact, one catastrophe after another—even if there can be no 100% certitude about the origin of each one—the planetary future careens toward the unlivable. That future is, it seems, arriving ahead of schedule, though erratically enough that most people—in the lucky, prosperous countries at any rate—can still imagine the planet conducting something close to business as usual.

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Why Institutional Divestment Might Be One of Our Best Tools For Fighting Climate Change

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So Far, Obamacare Has Taken Only a Modest Hit in Polls

Mother Jones

Yesterday I misread a poll question about Obamacare, initially thinking it was about whether people wanted to make changes to the law. Today, though, CBS has a poll question that really does ask this. Here it is:

This isn’t very different from Kaiser tracking polls in the past. In the most recent one, among people who expressed an opinion, 56 percent wanted the law kept as is or enhanced, while 44 percent wanted it repealed.

So far, Obamacare hasn’t really taken that big a hit in public opinion, and as the website problems continue to get fixed I expect that public opinion will improve. It’s still early days.

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So Far, Obamacare Has Taken Only a Modest Hit in Polls

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Etymology of the Day: Strategery

Mother Jones

My incidental use of the George Bushism “strategery” in a post this morning sparked a Twitter exchange which produced an interesting factlet: George Bush didn’t invent the word. Here it is in an 1845 short story by Mark Lemon, the founder of Punch, titled “Never Trust to Outward Appearances”:

The particular strategery spoken of here involves one Caleb Botts, who was negotiating to marry away his daughter Fanny for his own benefit, but eventually gets outsmarted. I just thought you’d all like to know.

UPDATE: Sorry. I’m reminded in comments that “strategery” was invented by Will Farrell in an SNL spoof of George Bush. As happens so often, fiction replaces reality in our memories.

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Etymology of the Day: Strategery

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Artificial ESP Comes to Twitter

Mother Jones

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Robert Waldmann is feeling creeped out:

An obvious twitter ‘bot followed me with tweets consisting only of advertising for, among other things, wasabi flavored ice cream. Now, I think you will agree that wasabi flavored ice cream is rather a niche product. You may not know that it exists (in Rome to which all roads lead). I hope with some (but rapidly declining) confidence that you don’t know that I really like wasabi flavored ice cream. HOW does a twitter ‘bot know I like wasabi flavored ice cream ??? I feel we have skipped artificial intelligence and gotten straight to artificial ESP.

How indeed? I’ll bet the answer is pretty interesting. I’m assuming, of course, that Waldmann hasn’t simply blanked out and forgotten that he wrote a tweet a couple of weeks ago about wasabi ice cream.

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Artificial ESP Comes to Twitter

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for November 14, 2013

Mother Jones

An AV-8B Harrier assigned to Marine Medium Tiltrotor Squadron 266(Reinforced), 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit, takes off from the flight deck of the USS Kearsarge, at sea, Nov. 1, 2013. The 26th MEU finished their eight month deployment to the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of responsibility aboard the Kearsarge Amphibious Ready Group serving as a sea-based, expeditionary crisis response force capable of conducting amphibious operations across the full range of military operations. U.S. Marine Corps photo by Sgt. Christopher Q. Stone/Released.

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We’re Still at War: Photo of the Day for November 14, 2013

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