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Her Goal is in Sight. Just Who Is Our Photo-Journalist Annie Lane?

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By Judi Curry

People do things for acquaintances if they don’t have anything better to do.. People do things for friends because they want to help and like to have many friends. People do things for those that they love without question or thought, because there are deep feelings for that person.

Sometimes, people do things for those they love even though their instinct is to pull back and find an excuse not to do what is asked.

Such was an experience I had today with our very own San Diego Free Press photo-journalist   [Read more…]

Global CO2 and Arctic Methane Release: An Environmental Disaster in the Making

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Part II: Awful Odds Global Warming Won’t Exceed 2 Degrees Celsius

by Frank Thomas / See Part 1 here

University of Utah Professor of Physics, Timothy J. Garrett is a climate scientist I admire for his original, remarkable research on climate warming.

It’s only disappointing this bright scientist seems to have thrown in the towel on the possibilities for effective, creative solutions to sharply mitigate climate warming (e.g., finding a way to remove CO2 from the atmosphere; developing advanced technology for storing excess CO2, using sun’s heat to increase the energy content of natural gas, lowering greenhouse gases (GHGs) emitted and gas used).   [Read more…]

What Happens If [Fill-in the Candidate’s Name] Wins the Runoff Mayoral Election?

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By Doug Porter

There will be two winners come Wednesday morning, since nobody outside of GOP Bossman Tony Krvaric’s opium dreams thinks any candidate will win more than fifty percent of the vote.  The accepted wisdom is that City Councilman Kevin Faulconer, a Republican who’d like voters to forget about that fact, will take “first place.”

Faulconer would prefer that we ignore the sources of his cash, since voter registration in San Diego is tilted in favor of the Democratic Party.  The local GOP is currently less popular than even Congress, with a mere 3% of newly registered voters willing to affiliate themselves with the Party of Lincoln.

What we’re really voting on is who makes it to the runoff election, which will take place at sometime in February… Or maybe March, depending on when this round’s votes are certified.

And it’s that runoff election I’ll be talking about today, in the hopes you’ll be further inspired to vote this time around. (Did I mention yet how important it is to vote?)   [Read more…]

Scott Peters Joins GOP’s 47th Effort to Scuttle Obamacare

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…the hilariously hypocritical attempt by Republicans to “fix” a law that everybody knows they would much prefer to burn on the steps of the Capitol while eating great balls of hashish and doing a frenzied goat-dance with their faces painted purple. 

By Doug Porter

Representative Scott Peters, who represents California’s 52nd Congressional District, is a moderate Democrat determined to prove to his borderline Republican district that he can play the bi-partisan game.

I get that. It’s just that you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. And Obamacare is that place.

Peters chose on Friday to join with House Republicans in passing legislation proposed by Rep. Fred Upton (R.-MI) that House Speaker John Boehner characterizes as a step towards repealing the Affordable Care Act.  Others call it the 47th vote to repeal Obamacare.   [Read more…]

What Mainstream Media isn’t Telling You About the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children in the US

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10 Surprising and Counterintuitive Facts About Child Sex Trafficking

<By Jodie Gummow / Alternet< There are fewer crimes in society that trigger greater public outrage than sex trafficking of children.   Trafficking is a serious problem in the United States, yet many of the stereotypes surrounding the issue and the counter-productive approaches to fixing the problem, make it increasingly difficult to address the real dilemmas and oppression of those children in need of help. At present, the commercial sexual exploitation of children has become a staple of often scary tabloid and other media coverage.  The sensationalist sex trafficking narrative commonly depicted in mass media by celebrities and activists doesn’t always reveal the full story of this complex and misunderstood phenomenon, which is often buffeted by data and themes that detract from potential remedies.  Here are 10 child sex trafficking statistics that you most likely didn’t read….   [Read more…]

Congressman Darrell Issa’s Obstruction of Obamacare Website Fixes Under Fire

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By Doug Porter

Once again, Vista’s GOP Congressman Darrell Issa is proving to the country that he’d rather be on the evening news than actually do any work in Washington DC.

Issa is so eager to get to the bottom of the Healthcare.gov “scandal” that he’s willing to stop the people working to fix it so he can grab a few headlines. After all, he’s got to do something in light of his Benghazi and IRS investigations going nowhere.

This week he wants answers directly from White House Chief of Technology Todd Park, who already responded positively to an earlier request to appear, and he wants them Now.   [Read more…]

Let’s Ban Erections

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A response to Senator Lindsey Graham’s latest abortion proposal

By Judi Curry

I am tired of men – and stupid women – telling me what I can do – or not do – with my body. In the readings I have done I have never come across anything telling me that the legislature – or the Supreme Court for that matter – were appointed GOD (s) and until they can prove to me that they are the Superior Being, it is time that we women exert our own power to ban the very cause of fetuses – namely the ERECTION.

This is what I propose: Every time a man has an erection not for the purpose of conceiving a child, that penis be cut off. (The conception of a child must be agreed to by the female partner.) The removal must be done by a female mid-wife, female nurse practitioner, or the female receptionist at the front desk. If none of these are available, then it is permissible for the woman that caused the erection to remove it any way she sees fit. This does not have to be done in a licensed hospital; in fact, a back-street alley is preferable. I don’t think that a hanger would work to well, so maybe a dull knife that has not been sterilized would be the weapon of choice.   [Read more…]

Big Food Crushes Consumer Rights in Washington State

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Corporate foes of a genetic labeling measure outspent grassroots supporters by a 3-1 margin.

By Jill Richardson/ Otherwords

When you look at the numbers, how could Washington State’s ballot initiative to require the labeling of foods made with genetically engineered ingredients ever stand a chance?

I’m not talking about poll numbers. I’m talking about money.   [Read more…]

Veteran’s Day Should Mean Something More

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By Jessica Bartholow/Labor’s Edge Blog

Next week, America will take a day to honor the commitment of men and women who have served our country.  In California, this day is significant because it is home to more returning veterans than any other state in the Nation.

But for too many veterans, the November 11th holiday is nothing more than a gateway to a stressful holiday season filled with cold months, high utility bills and empty plates.  I know this because my dad is a disabled Veteran who suffered for years with untreated and debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).  We were never invited to a Veteran’s Day parade or a pancake breakfast, just left to find our own way, many times our basic needs going unmet.

While poverty among veterans is half that of the general public, there are 1.5 million young veterans, some with families, who live with incomes below the poverty line. Some of these veterans are disabled and have applied for help through the U.S. Department Veterans Administration (VA), where they will wait an average of 320 days for the VA to process their disability claims.   [Read more…]

What to Do with Your Leftover Halloween Candy

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If you are like me and purchased your Halloween candy at CostCo, and not wanting to run out in case your gremlins were going to trick you so you bought two GIANT bags, you probably are wondering what to do with the left-over candy.  After all, how many pieces of candy can YOU eat before you say “enough!”

I’ve got the answer for you! While listening to the news the other night I heard that a group of dentists were collecting the left-over candy to send to our troops overseas.  At first I started laughing, because who would expect a dentist to collect candy for any reason?  

But after meeting Dr. Ana Simerlein and her office manager Kathi, I have some answers to pass on to you.   [Read more…]

Climate Impacts Poised to Decimate Human and Earth Systems, says Leaked IPCC Draft

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Leaked draft of UN panel’s global review of future impacts from global warming predicts system break-downs across the board.
By Jon Queally / Common Dreams

A draft of a global scientific review on how human and natural systems are expected to respond to the growing threat of climate change has been leaked and its contents—though not wholly unexpected to those who have followed climate science news in recent years—are nonetheless both alarming and devastating.

Titled, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, the leaked document is the draft version of the second installment of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s latest review of the global scientific consensus on the global warming and climate change.   [Read more…]

Putting Insurance ‘Rate Shock’ Into Perspective

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By Joan McCarter / Daily Kos

Ryan Lizza interviewed Jonathon Gruber, an M.I.T. economist who was instrumental in designing both Mitt Romney’s health-care plan in Massachusetts and President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Based on the estimates economist Gruber gave Lizza for who the “winners” and “losers” in Affordable Care Act will be, University of Michigan professor and senior Brookings fellow Justin Wolfers made this chart:   [Read more…]

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