Paul Krugman: Plutocrats and Prejudice (NY Times Column)
Every time you think that our political discourse can't get any worse, it does. The Republican primary fight has devolved into a race to the bottom, achieving something you might have thought impossible: making George W. Bush look like a beacon of tolerance and statesmanship. But where is all the nastiness coming from?
Andrew Tobias: Shouldn't We Pile On A LITTLE?
So much was made of the hit job on Planned Parenthood . . . and so much is being done to restrict access to reproductive health care . . . should the story of the Planned Parenthood case be simply a quick, "Never mind" and then dropped? (A Republican-impaneled Texas grand jury not only failed to indict Planned Parenthood they indicted the accusers instead.) Should it not stretch over more than a single news cycle?
The potato is a starchy, tuberous crop from the perennial nightshade Solanum tuberosum L. The word "potato" may refer either to the plant itself or to the edible tuber. In the Andes, where the species is indigenous, there are some other closely related cultivated potato species. Potatoes were introduced outside the Andes region approximately four centuries ago, and have since become an integral part of much of the world's food supply. It is the world's fourth-largest food crop, following maize, wheat, and rice.
As of 2007 China led the world in potato production, and nearly a third of the world's potatoes were harvested in China and India.
Source
Alan J was first and correct with:
India.
Jim from CA, retired to ID, said:
Russia
Randall wrote:
I don't know - Ireland?
Idaho?
I don't know - but I wanted to get in touch with you and let you know that my computer died!
Crashed!
Shit the bed!
SO. Anyway, Marty, if I "take the day off" again soon - it is likely that it is computer problems.
Deborah replied:
China and India (?) - who knew? I would've guessed Russia and Idaho if the great Googly-moogly hadn't told me otherwise.
Felix! Of course! Doh!
More rain. Hope you get some in SoCal.
Marian responded:
India
Joyce said:
Yes, yes, we have potatoes
Dale of Rainy Diamond Springs, Norcali answered:
India is today's answer. Tuber Boober. Women flashing at Mc Donald's whilst enjoying their fries!
Lois Of The Legumes responded:
When you think of potatoes, you think of Ireland, and when you think of Ireland you think of potato famines, and when you think of famines you naturally think of India and all of their potatoes! The great circle of life has been completed!
No en tiendo ni papa!
MAM wrote:
India
PS Like Joe S's littlle Felix!
Joe S replied:
India, who knew? No matter who produces potatoes, there are no finer potatoes than
Michigan potatoes. Period. End of discussion.
Patriot Act NSA Spying Unconstitutional Section 215 National Security Letters Must End
My name is Marc Perkel and I have decided to announce that I will not comply with the so called "Patriot Act" laws requiring me to disclose information about my customers. If I receive a national security letter I will immediately photograph it, post it online everywhere I can, and then make a video of me burning it. I will then await my arrest. If you want to put me in jail then come get me mother fucker.
CBS begins the night with a RERUN'Hawaii Five-0', followed by a RERUN'Criminal Minds', then '48 Hours'.
NBC starts the night with 'Dateline', followed by an hourlong RERUN'SNL'.
'SNL' is a RERUN with Elizabeth Banks hosting, music by Disclosure.
ABC fills the night with LIVE'NBA Basketball', then pads the left coast with local crap.
The CW offers an old 'Friends', followed by a FRESH'Monopoly Millionaires' Club', then an old '2½ Men', followed by another old '2½ Men'.
Faux fills the night with LIVE'UFC Fight Night', then pads the left coast with local crap.
MY has an old 'Rizzoli & Isles', followed by another old 'Rizzoli & Isles'.
A&E has 'The First 48', another 'The First 48', followed by a FRESH'The First 48: Extreme Rage', then another FRESH'The First 48: Extreme Rage'.
AMC offers the movie 'Unforgiven', followed by the movie 'The Bourne Identity', then the movie '21'.
BBC -
[6:00AM] TOP GEAR: SEASON 16 SPECIAL
[7:30AM] TOP GEAR: SEASON 15 SPECIAL
[9:00AM] MAN VS. WILD - SEASON 3, Ep 11 - Bear's Ultimate Survival Guide, Part 1
[10:00AM] MAN VS. WILD - SEASON 3, Ep 12 - Bear's Ultimate Survival Guide, Part 2
[11:00AM] MAN VS. WILD - SEASON 4, Ep 1 - Alabama
[12:00PM] THE MATRIX
[3:00PM] THE MATRIX RELOADED
[6:00PM] THE MATRIX REVOLUTIONS
[9:00PM] DOCTOR WHO - SEASON 9, Eps 1 & 2 - The Magician's Apprentice / The Witch's Familiar
[11:00PM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - SEASON, Ep 20 - Cost of Living
[12:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - SEASON 5, Ep 21 - The Perfect Mate
[1:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - SEASON 5, Ep 22 - Imaginary Friend
[2:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - SEASON 2, Ep 1 - The Child
[3:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - SEASON 2, Ep 2 - Where Silence Has Lease
[4:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - SEASON 2, Ep 3 - Elementary, Dear Data
[5:00AM] STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION - SEASON, Ep 4 - The Outrageous Okona (ALL TIMES EST)
Bravo has 'Real Housewives Of BH', followed by the movie 'Bridesmaids', then the movie 'Bridesmaids', again.
Comedy Central has the movie 'Mr. Deeds', followed by the movie 'Get Him To The Greek'.
FX has the movie 'The Other Guys', followed by the movie 'The Heat', then the movie 'The Heat', again.
History has 'Pawn Stars', another 'Pawn Stars', 'American Restoration', another 'American Restoration', and another 'American Restoration'.
IFC -
[6:00AM] 1408
[8:15AM] SOAP
[8:50AM] SOAP
[9:50AM] SOAP
[10:25AM] SOAP
[11:00AM] SOAP
[11:35AM] SOAP
[12:10PM] SOAP
[12:45PM] SLEEPY HOLLOW
[3:15PM] 1408
[5:30PM] THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
[8:00PM] GHOSTBUSTERS
[10:15PM] GHOSTBUSTERS II
[12:45AM] GHOSTBUSTERS
[3:00AM] THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL
[5:30AM] PORTLANDIA-Going Gray (ALL TIMES EST)
Sundance -
[6:30AM] Mean Streets
[9:00AM] The Shawshank Redemption
[12:00PM] The Shawshank Redemption
[3:00PM] The Shawshank Redemption
[6:00PM] The Shawshank Redemption
[9:00PM] The Shawshank Redemption
[12:00AM] The Shawshank Redemption
[3:00AM] Rudy
[5:30AM] Right at Your Door (ALL TIMES EST)
SyFy has the movie 'Jaws: The Revenge', followed by the movie 'Jaws'.
Taj Mahal performs onstage at the Eccles Theatre during the premiere of the four-part PBS music documentary series "American Epic" at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Park City, Utah.
Photo by Chris Pizzello
The real-life stories of UFOs would be enough for the fictional "X-Files" FBI agents Mulder and Scully to spend a lifetime investigating.
With a nod to the new "X-Files" reboot (which airs on Fox on Mondays at 8 p.m. ET), the Central Intelligence Agency has released a trove of once classified documents on several real-life unidentified flying objects.
Not surprisingly, many of these UFO sightings emerged in the early 1950s. The space race was on, the Cold War fears had reached a fever pitch, and science-fiction movies like "The Flying Saucer" (1950) catapulted schlocky depictions of aliens and their flying machines into the popular consciousness. In fact, by 1953, UFO mania had reached such heights that the CIA marshaled a team of scientific consultants to investigate all of the reports and review the "Unidentified Flying Object Problem," according to a 1953 memorandum by the agency.
While most of these encounters were likely weird cloud formations, lightning or even missile tests rather than little green men, they still inspire countless conspiracy theories. From the flying frying pan of West Germany to the mysterious craft hovering over uranium mines in Africa, here are some of the CIA's most mysterious X-files.
Composer Ennio Morricone poses for the photographers as he arrives for the screening of the movie The Hateful Eight, in Rome, Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016.
Photo by Gregorio Borgia
Once the flamboyant face of the brash, Super Bowl champion 1985 Chicago Bears, former quarterback Jim McMahon has come to be known more as a face of the horrors that football can wreak on an athlete's body and brain. He's got chronic pain in multiple joints, and suffers from early-onset dementia as a result of the pounding he took in his 15-year NFL career. Now, because of how he's been treating those conditions, McMahon could have a third association to his name: Advocate for medical marijuana.
McMahon lives in Arizona, where he takes state-approved marijuana to treat his pain and depression, as an alternative to the prescription painkillers he'd taken for years. McMahon said that the pills "did more harm than good," and that cannabis "has been a godsend." Now, he's coming out publicly as an advocate because the state of Illinois is debating a bill that would expand the list of approved usages for marijuana to include chronic pain.
McMahon is the second well-known former athlete in as many weeks to extol the virtues of cannabis as a substitute for harder, narcotic painkillers - former Portland Trail Blazer Clifford Robinson is starting a medical marijuana business as well. Additionally, former NFL tight end Nate Jackson, like Robinson, admitted in March of last year that he used marijuana as a painkiller in the NFL, and connected the dots explicity to the debilitating post-career conditions that McMahon has experienced.
These athletes and their stories are backed by increased evidence that cannabis has far fewer negative side effects than older treatments for conditions frequently experienced by athletes, and hopefully they're part of a rising tide toward removing the stigma of therapeutic marijuana use, both for athletes and in society as a whole.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal has a new publisher recruited and hired by the family of billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who secretly bought the newspaper last fall in a sale that has been heavily scrutinized over transparency concerns.
The owners said Thursday in a statement that Craig A. Moon has been appointed publisher of Nevada's largest newspaper, effective immediately.
Moon was the publisher of USA Today from 2003 to 2009. A career executive with Gannett publishing, he also led newspapers in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Florida.
No reason was given for the sudden replacement of Jason Taylor, who was publisher for just six months.
Jack White, left, Robert Redford, center, and T Bone Burnett, executive producers of "American Epic," pose together at the premiere of the four-part PBS music documentary series at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016, in Park City, Utah.
Photo by Chris Pizzello
The Texas Supreme Court ruled Friday in favor of high school cheerleaders who had argued that their free speech was trampled by their school district when it ordered them not to display banners emblazoned with Bible verses at football games.
The court acknowledged in its opinion that the Kountze school district, about 95 miles northeast of Houston, later allowed the banners. But the justices determined their ruling was necessary to protect the future display of religious-themed signs because the district has argued it retains the right to restrict them.
The banners carried various Biblical verses such as, "I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me."
The lawsuit now returns to the appeals court that ruled in 2014 that the cheerleaders' lawsuit was moot because of the district's policy change.
Carly Fiorina hears only what she wants to hear, apparently.
In Thursday's GOP undercard debate, the presidential candidate and former Hewlett-Packard executive clung to the notion that Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue for profit, an allegation that a Texan grand jury declared baseless on Tuesday. Fiorina, however, is having none of that.
"Here are the facts," she said in the debate. "Planned Parenthood engages in partial birth abortion, in late-term abortion. They alter those abortion techniques to harvest and sell body parts."
To be clear: There is no evidence that Planned Parenthood sells fetal tissue for profit. But the video at the center of the grand jury's investigation has proved a useful piece of evidence for Fiorina over the course of this campaign.
Despite facts that continue to point in the opposite direction of Fiorina's claims, she continues to put them out there. Which is exactly the practice for which she lampooned her Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, in Thursday's undercard debate.
French singer Charles Aznavour (R) and French President Francois Hollande attend the annual dinner of CCAF (Co-ordination Council of Armenian organisations of France), in Paris, France, January 28, 2016. The CCAF is the representative body of the French-Armenian Community. Picture taken January 28, 2016.
Photo by Christophe Ena
There were stays at boutique hotels featuring rooftop pools, private soirees at members-only, jacket-and-tie clubs and fundraisers at the Four Seasons, the St. Regis and the Mandarin Oriental.
In the world of ¡Jeb! Bush, the campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination has at times been a whirl of private planes and high-end affairs, according to the federal filings of Bush's campaign and his Super PAC, Right to Rise, which can raise unlimited funds for Bush as long as it does not coordinate directly with him.
It is not unusual for U.S. presidential candidates to fly private or even sometimes stay in luxury hotels. But some disgruntled donors say they are unhappy with Bush's large outlays, which also include big spending on staff and tens of millions of dollars in ad buys.
Eleven of 16 major donors contacted by Reuters questioned whether it was money well spent, especially given how the one-time frontrunner has stumbled badly in the polls and is now facing questions about whether he should withdraw from the race.
In contrast to Bush, Senator Ted Cruz, who is running second in national polls of Republican voters, favors cheaper accommodation options like Holiday Inn and often flies on budget carriers, campaign finance filings through the third quarter show.
Chevron became the latest player in the oil industry to report a loss in the fourth quarter Friday, as the red ink from the oil bust spreads to bigger companies.
Chevron, the second-largest US oil company, announced a $588 million loss for the quarter ending December 31. Wall Street analysts had not expected a quarterly loss, Chevron's first since 2002.
Chevron's move into the red comes on the heels of fourth-quarter losses over the last week or so from large oil services companies, with Baker Hughes and Schlumberger both losing about $1 billion.
The increasingly grim results reflect the pain from plunging oil prices that has caused oil companies to cut capital budgets, prompting a chain reaction of belt-tightening among the service companies that drill wells and provide pumping tools.
In this Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016 photo, "child angel" dolls sit on a chair in Bangkok. Thailand. The dolls, which are said to bring good luck to their owners, became a media sensation this week after a leaked memo from a Thai budget airline gave pointers on how they could be treated like passengers if they have a paid-for seat. Thai people are superstitious, and the doll phenomenon has been analyzed as a modern version of a traditional totem containing real body parts, but as a fad it seems have more in common with Furby dolls.
Photo by Sakchai Lalit
A Detroit-area couple marketing body parts for medical training failed to disclose that heads and necks came from bodies infected with disease, according to a federal indictment unsealed Friday.
Arthur Rathburn and wife Elizabeth Rathburn of Grosse Pointe Park operated International Biological Inc., which rented out body parts for medical or dental training. They're charged in a 13-count indictment that alleges fraud and false statements.
"This alleged scheme to distribute diseased body parts not only defrauded customers from the monetary value of their contracts, but also exposed them and others to infection," U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said in a statement.
The Rathburns are accused of fraud for failing to inform medical groups on at least three occasions in 2011 and 2012 about diseased body parts, including hepatitis B and HIV.
Elsewhere in the indictment, Arthur Rathburn is accused of making false statements and transporting hazardous materials. The indictment said he falsely claimed eight human heads shipped in 2012 had been embalmed, yet human blood was found in the coolers.
Lowe Vintage Instrument Company's three stolen banjos, from left, a 1930 Gibson RB-11, Gibson TB-2, and a Fender Artist, were returned Thursday Jan. 28, 2016, at the store in Burlington, N.C. Ed Lowe says the banjos were stolen Wednesday while his son helped another customer. He says the thieves sold the banjos to an auction house in Greensboro, which then called Lowe to find out if he wanted to purchase them.
Photo by Sam Roberts
An Alabama family says an escaped snake at Disney's Animal Kingdom dropped from a tree and bit a boy, which led to the death of the boy's grandmother.
The family's attorney, Matt Morgan, said Thursday that the family plans to sue Disney World.
He says the grandmother saw the snake bite the boy, went into cardiac arrest and died a short time later.
Disney contends the snake was wild, not part of an Animal Kingdom exhibit, and that there was no call for an ambulance for the grandmother after the incident.
Disney also says after the boy was treated with a Band-Aid, the family returned to the park.
An immature bald eagle takes flight near the General George A. Custer House at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park south of Mandan, North Dakota on Thursday, Jan. 28, 2016. Two immature bald eagles were released by Terry Lincoln and Rod Fried of Dakota Zoo from the hillside above the Missouri River. Both eagles were rehabilitated at the zoo and came from different areas in North Dakota said Fried.
Photo by Tom Stromme
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wrote:
replied:
has returned to semi-retired status.
