Here’s a favorite show from my former teevee machine days. Adam goes all over the country finding the most wonderful places to eat, and ends the show with a food challenge. This week, he’ s in Portland, Oregon. A great place to be…
Who will win the battle of Man vs Food this week? Man? Or food!?
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Glenn Beck has been bragging that he has “A Plan” for 2010 and the next 100 years. His plan is for the “Refounding” (Beck’s words not mine) of policies and principles and he envisions a “battlefield”.
The Tea Party influenced by Glenn Beck wants to take our government back to the good old days of 1776. This is the time of the original Patriots that Glenn Beck and the Tea Party members emulate. Their goal is to kick out the bums, create their own brand of government and to reduce the deficit. They speak about minimizing government by dismantling all “socialist” services provided by the government. This would include the elimination of Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, public roads and public water and sewer, just to name a few. You can read the Tea Party Pledge here with the translation of this pledge here.
What the members of the Tea Party don’t want to admit is that Glenn Beck’s real “Plan” is to line his pockets with their money by staging conventions with seminars throughout 2010, none of which will be free, and by selling his new book, “The Plan”. Yes, the “Plan” is for Glenn Beck to buy fancier cars and move into bigger houses all paid for by his followers at their expense.
There can be another “Plan” which would reduce the deficit without removing the taxpayer funded services. This “Plan” would be closer to how our government operated at the time following the “Revolution” and would include:
Since these benefits were not available at the birth of our nation, this other “Plan” includes reductions in these benefits by:
Oddly, I have not heard any member in Congress mention the above “Plan” as a means of deficit reduction. The Republicans have included dismantling Social Security and Medicare in their deficit reduction plan and there is no mention of dismantling their taxpayer paid benefits. If the Republicans and other members of Congress are serious about decreasing the deficit by reducing entitlements, let them start by eliminating their taxpayer paid benefits first before dismantling the social safety nets paid for by taxes that benefit Americans.
Thermionic emission is the heat-induced flow of ions from one surface to another across an electrical barrier. The classical example of thermionic emission is the transmission of electrons from a hot metal cathode (negative terminal) to an anode (positive terminal) in a vacuum which is known as the Edison effect. The electron was not identified as a particle until Thompson described it in 1897. In 1904, John Ambrose Fleming patented the first practical electron tube called the ‘Fleming Valve’. Edison’s labs had already demonstrated and patented this effect in 1883, but failed to exploit it.
Before the advent of semi-conductors, this was the foundation onto which electronics were built. A guy named Maxwell closed the gap before the Edison effect was even observed with his theories of electromagnetic fields.
This is our open thread. Please feel free to offer your own comments on this or any other topic.
We’re heading into Valentine’s Day weekend — who does the V Day thing? Do you go all out, or keep it low key?
Post your favorite YouTube tunes in comments. Enjoy!
The Galápagos islands are geologically young and famed for their vast number of endemic species, which were studied byCharles Darwin during the voyage of the Beagle. His observations and collections contributed to the inception of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection.
Galápagos marine iguana
This is our open thread. Please feel free to offer your own comments on this or any other topic.
Rachel goofs on moronic commentators from Fox and denier politicians about global climate change, and their hysterical declarations that it doesn’t exist because it’s SNOWING — IN WINTER.
Bill Nye the Science Guy helps out with a very easy to understand explanation of global climate change. He calls deniers UN-PATRIOTIC.
European Parliament has voted against the banking data exchange deal with the US, SWIFT.
European MP’s are p*ssed, because they felt the European Council has exceeded its powers and unnecessarily delayed the vote.
“It’s an extremely serious procedure” said Martin Schulz (S&D, DE). “When you tell us that the translations led to this delay, with all due respect, you’re trying to protect yourself”, he told the Council representative. “I think it is far more serious, we have not been involved and this is unacceptable”, he continued, adding that “the SWIFT agreement provides for quite serious infringements of private rights”.
Basically it is nothing more than a power game between the European Council and the European Parliament, which has received more powers due to the Lisbon Treaty.
Back to negotiations then.
This is our Open Thread, feel free to comment on this and on anything else on your mind.
Cabin fever setting in? :-D
HT: Zach
The myth of bipartisanship: Like toddlers, if President Obama endorses Republican ideas, then they’re against them.
Every Republican in the Senate voted against the stimulus — a stimulus that seems to be working for Americans. However, these same Republicans have no problem whatsoever taking credit in their home districts for stimulus funds. Time after time after time, they prove what hypocrites they are.
Then she went further with: “It’s already IN the bill!” Rachel and Ezra Klein make it pretty obvious that the Republicans have no interest whatsoever in fixing healthcare, even with their ideas included in the healthcare bill. They are interested in obstructing — first and last. They want to make sure the bill does not pass — in any form — so they might have a chance at winning the next election by pointing out what ‘failures’ the Democrats are. (The desperate needs of Americans be damned..)
Grow a pair, Democrats! Republicans will never vote for good policy, even if they think it’s a great idea — NOT EVER. That may be why they were sent to Washington, but that’s not why they’re there.
Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii was photographer to the Czar from 1907-1915. What made him unique was the development of color photography in an era when color film was but a dream. He was not able to produce prints, but projected his images using a lantern device. Here is an image from 1909:
Peasant Girls with Berries
The above image is comparable to images taken today. How did he do it? The answer is here.
If you are interested in pursing this further, look here. The images are really impressive and they offer a window into Russian life under the Czars in the period just before the 1917 Revolution.
This is our open thread. Please feel free to offer your own comments on this or any other topic.
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Awesome…
From Raw Story:
Stephen Colbert explains that it’s okay to call Sarah Palin a “fucking retard” because it’s satire.
On February 9, 1969, the Boeing 747 made its maiden test flight. While Boeing was an also-ran in the passenger aircraft industry along with Lockheed, Convair and Douglas – this aircraft delivered a statement that instilled Boeing’s position for 20 years as the prime provider of passenger aircraft. True, the other 7×7 machines were profit makers for Boeing, but non were an equal to the 747 (I would have to admit that ex fighter pilots loved the 727 which could execute 2-3 G turns).
Boeing’s newest effort is the 787 which has recently made its first test flight. In a sense, the 787 is the worlds first plastic airplane as it uses more composites than any other plane since the Stealth Bomber. The rational behind this approach is fuel efficiency.
This is our open thread. Please feel free to offer your own comments on this or any other topic.
This is not an endorsement of Boeing or any of its products.
Anthem Blue Cross increased its health insurance premiums in the Golden State by 39%.
Now that the Republicans in the Senate have their 41st vote, guarenteeing successful filibusters on any attempt at health care reform, insurance companies are quick to make the most of their captive customers.
One couple, this author knows, will see their premiums increase by $450 per month. The only way they can afford the extra premiums is to declare bankruptcy to wipe out their other debts and lose their home of 25+ years. Since one of the pair has a chronic, debilitating condition, they are unable to purchase health insurance on the open market.
On the other hand, the upper eschelon of Wellpoint, Anthem Blue Cross’ parent company, do quite well.
I guess when you’re making nearly $10,000,000 a year, an extra $5,000 for health insurance doesn’t seem like much. But when you’re making $60,000 and your premiums are already 20% of your annual income, an extra $5,000 is crippling.
This, then, is the system that the Teabaggers were willing to seceed from the Union to protect. One can only wonder how many Teabaggers in California are going to face this latest premium hike with the glee of a child opening presents on Christmas morning.
Your thoughts are welcome.
