Clipmarks | dmegivern's clips

Predictable Outcomes of Bush Policies (cartoon)

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:55:45 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.americanprogress.org

Bush's Predictable Policies

Chemicals in Common Products Affect Pregnancy

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 05:47:01 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.ns.umich.edu

Chemicals in common consumer products may play a role in pre-term births

ANN ARBOR, Mich.—A new study of expectant mothers suggests that a group of common environmental contaminants called phthalates, which are present in many industrial and consumer products including everyday personal care items, may contribute to the country's alarming rise in premature births.

Researchers at the University of Michigan School of Public Health found that women who deliver prematurely have, on average, up to three times the phthalate level in their urine compared to women who carry to term.

Tags: chemicals, hormones, premature, birth

Poverty Hurts

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 18:51:15 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Been waiting for science to confirm what I always knew & felt growing up in poverty. It's not just about the money, it's the pain that makes it traumatic. This article was life-validating.

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

Poverty Hurts

Clip Source: www.newsweek.com

The findings were unambiguous. As reported in the June issue of the journal Psychological Science, thinking about expenses and spending—lack of money in general—increased feelings of distress, especially for those who were excluded by their social group. It also led to diminished pain tolerance in the hot-water test. Put another way, people who were focused on financial need suffered more pain of every kind than people who felt financially empowered.

When the researchers looked at this the other way around, they found that inflicting pain or social rejection also increased volunteers' desire for money. There's the risk of a vicious spiral here: the very real pain of being poor and marginalized could actually exaggerate and distort the desire the desire for money, so that further rejection and hardship is even more painful, and so on. The result could be a kind of psychological inflation.

Tags: poverty, pain, suffering, social rejection, money

Caturday featuring Passed Out Husband

Sat, 02 May 2009 04:49:20 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: for Dulios

Clip Source: www.twitpic.com

Kitty says, "I tolerate far more than I should." Man says, "I tolerate far more than I should."

Wake me up, and you get the upside down kitty snuggle

They got him up, their mission always...accomplished

Yeah, that didn't last long. Typical kitty! Jackson Browne: I'm the Cat http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TVhlCm-NR8

Caspian

Who says kitties can't be like dogs?

Tags: caspian, arpad, cats

Every American Has a Right to Healthcare

Fri, 06 Mar 2009 17:27:04 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.youtube.com

Thom talks about healthcare and how it should be a right for every American in order to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

[Video]

Tags: healthcare, hartmann

Why Google, Palinit

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:03:15 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Seriously, conservatives have developed a search engine named palinit.com. Seriously

Clip Source: theimmoralminority.blogspot.com

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Palin supporters asked not to use Google for searches. Are now directed to use "PalinIt.com" instead. No I am not joking.

Here is what the description says.

Use www.PalinIt.com as your main internet search! Its the same great search you're accustomed to using,only you will be supporting Conservative Republican Organizations that share your vision for America. This is the free and easy way for people who share common values to raise money for a common cause.

Tags: palin, conservatives, life in a bubble

Palin's Advice to Natives: Its Your Fault

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:58:27 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: Faith-based insensitivity and condemnation. More of "you can have our prayers" when jobs and basic needs are needed

Clip Source: www.themudflats.net

Palin and her date, celebrity evangelical Franklin Graham, son of Rev. Billy Graham took his private jet to the village of Russian Mission this morning.

The point in all of Palin’s verbal gymnastics and Johnny-come-lately photo ops with an evangelical on each arm is this: none of this is Palin’s fault, the state’s fault, the government’s fault or due to the fact that the Rural Advisor position sat vacant for months after its last occupant left in frustration that she wasn’t able to schedule a meeting with the governor in the ten months

he probability that Palin would spontaneously decide that something needed to be done, without having been shamed into action by bloggers, independent media, the Native community, the Anchorage Daily News and other mainstream newspapers, Jay Ramras, Bob Poe, CNN, Mark Begich, Lisa Murkowski, talk radio, and countless others is slim at best.

Tags: palin, alaska, natives, graham

Native Alaskans to Palin-You Just Don't Get It

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:52:37 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: open.salon.com

The Native people of Alaska have been fighting and fighting for generations to ensure rural communities thrive, thinking up solutions to get especially the young people to stay and contribute to the community. The boarding school times in which young people left "for a short time" were some of the most devastating to these communities.

What these communities need is infrastructure, jobs in the communities themselves.

Palin's reminder to villages: We're in a cash-based society now.

Does she think the village people are trading beads? Seriously, the amount of times Palin talks down to rural people in these remarks is nauseating.

Palin learned about this situation from the media, not from actually listening to the people of her state.

In early August, the Anchorage Daily News reported prominent Native leaders directly talking to Paling about these problems, and the solutions that including building infrasctructure.

The short-term problem is hungry kids and no heat.

Tags: alaska, palin, graham, natives

Krugman Asks Who'll Stop the Pain?

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:41:07 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.nytimes.com

Who’ll Stop the Pain?

my eye was caught by the following chilling passage (yes, things are so bad that the summarized musings of central bankers can keep you up at night): “All participants anticipated that unemployment would remain substantially above its longer-run sustainable rate at the end of 2011, even absent further economic shocks; a few indicated that more than five to six years would be needed for the economy to converge to a longer-run path characterized by sustainable rates of output growth and unemployment and by an appropriate rate of inflation.”

So people at the Fed are troubled by the same question I’ve been obsessing on lately: What’s supposed to end this slump?

What, then, will actually end the slump?

Let’s be clear: the Obama administration’s policy initiatives will help in this difficult period — especially if the administration bites the bullet and takes over weak banks. But still I wonder: Who’ll stop the pain?

Tags: krugman, depression, economy

Jefferson Davis Blind to Spy in His Midst

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:10:22 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Slave in Jefferson Davis' home gave Union key secrets

Story Highlights

William Jackson, a slave, learned key details inside the home of Jefferson Davis

Davis was president of the Confederacy; Jackson leaked key secrets to the Union

"Because of his role as a menial servant, he simply was ignored" by Southerners

Author said history must never forget the sacrifice of African-Americans in Civil War

William Jackson was a slave in the home of Confederate president Jefferson Davis during the Civil War. It turns out he was also a spy for the Union Army, providing key secrets to the North about the Confederacy.

He learned high-level details about Confederate battle plans and movements because Davis saw him as a "piece of furniture" -- not a human,

"Because of his role as a menial servant, he simply was ignored," Dagler said. "So Jefferson Davis would hold conversations with military and Confederate civilian officials in his presence."

Tags: slavery, civil war, jefferson davis

The True Meaning of Family

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:55:13 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

Family of 5 weathers economy with 7 housemates

Story Highlights

Household of 12 is surviving economic downturn

Homeowners say they were helped, so they are returning the favor

Individuals pitch in where they can and live harmoniously

One member of household says, "this is how people used to live"

The family started taking in people before the economy soured, and now they say they are weathering the downturn better than some, in part because of their unconventional living arrangement. iReport.com: Tell us how you're surviving

But even with a lifestyle Chris describes as "living paycheck to paycheck," the couple say they are fortunate to have a large house (it's more than 3,800 square feet) that has become a haven for those living there.

"People were there for us and helped us when we needed it," Chris said. "We wanted to do the same."

And although they may not all share blood, they are bound by respect and affection for each other, they say.

Tags: helpfulness, generosity, love

Prescient 1993 Review of Great Depression Series

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:40:00 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern
clipper's remarks: The author was reviewing the then newly released series, "The Great Depression." If you have not seen this series, this is the time to do so.

Clip Source: www.variety.com

Posted: Mon., Oct. 25, 1993

The Great Depression

If the past is indeed prologue, the first two hours of PBS' seven-hour exploration of the Great Depression weave a cautionary tale that could as easily have focused today on Ross Perot as Henry Ford, and on Ronald Reagan and George Bush as Herbert Hoover. History keeps repeating itself; the trick is in breaking the chain. And only the citizenry seems willing to try.

a sad combination of bad weather, bad leadership and the unwillingness of government to step in to help or at least shift away from its reliance on unregulated industry and trickle-down economics turned the unthinkable into the inevitable.

The images of devastation are as remarkable as they are unforgettable. Soup lines. Hungry faces. Hopelessness in the eyes of children. Anger in the eyes of men.

the United States was the only Western industrial power with no safety nets for unemployment, relief and social security.

Tags: great depression, cautionary tale

Report Urges More Attention to Youth Mental Health

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 09:34:15 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: www.healthscout.com

Report Urges Broader Effort to Stem Emotional Disorders in Youth

Mental health tab costs U.S. about $247 billion a year, experts say

Problems such as depression, anxiety, conduct disorders and substance abuse are about as common among children and adolescents as limb fractures, according to the report released Friday by the National Research Council and Institute of Medicine. In any given year, it notes, about 14 to 20 percent of young people in the United States have a mental, emotional or behavioral disorder.

most mental, emotional and behavioral disorders in adults have their roots in childhood and adolescence. More than half of adults who've had such disorders report that they started in childhood or early adolescence

Initial symptoms often occur two to four years before the onset of a full-blown disorder. It's during this early stage that preventive programs can help, the report said

Tags: youth, children, mental illness, mental health

GOP Honored As "Reverse Robin Hood"

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 04:45:53 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: emptywheel.firedoglake.com

Senate Stimulus: Steal from the Poor to Give to the Affluent

ProPublica has done a comparison of the House and Senate stimulus packages. It shows, in striking fashion, how much the Grassley-Isakson-Coburn-Collins-Bad Nelson bill skews spending away from the poor--the most stimulative kind of spending, since these people need this money badly and would spend it right away--to the upper middle class:

There are other reasons to oppose including these two tax cuts in the stimulus. The AMT patch, which isn't really stimulative in the first place, would get passed and properly off-set in the budget appropriations process anyway. And the house flipping subsidy does little else than put money in realtor's pockets.

But the biggest reason is this: we're taking food, housing, and medical care away from those who desperately need it, to put more money in the pockets of the upper middle class.

The Senate "Moderates'" reverse Robin Hood: Steal from the poor and give to the affluent!

Tags: poor, affluent, rich, stimulus

Predicting Depressions-What are Banker's Salaries?

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 00:48:58 GMT

clipped by: dmegivern

Clip Source: broadstuff.com

Bankers excessive salaries as predictors of Depression

Chart shows excess wages over mean for financial sector from NYU- (hat tip Paul Kedrosky) as a predictor of recessions / depression it...well, the implications are clear.

As to why, once it starts the system dynamics are pretty unsubtle - as the Economist noted today, the main problem is that banking also suffers from adverse selection issues as well, as fear moves to greed in the boom time:

...as a boom takes its course, fear is supplanted in what a senior quant at an American bank calls the “Cassandra effect”. The more you warn your colleagues about the tail risks—the rare but devastating events that can bring the bank down—the more they roll their eyes, give a yawn and change the subject. This eventually leads to self-censorship. “The system”, he says, “filters out the thoughtful and replaces them with the faithful.”

Greed without Governance, allowed to build over N years, equals depression, and its absolutely predictable

Tags: economics, recession, depression, bankers, salaries

Clipmarks | dmegivern's clips

Predictable Outcomes of Bush Policies (cartoon)

Bush's Predictable Policies

Chemicals in Common Products Affect Pregnancy

Poverty Hurts

Caturday featuring Passed Out Husband

Every American Has a Right to Healthcare

Why Google, Palinit

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Palin supporters asked not to use Google for searches. Are now directed to use "PalinIt.com" instead. No I am not joking.

Palin's Advice to Natives: Its Your Fault

Native Alaskans to Palin-You Just Don't Get It

Krugman Asks Who'll Stop the Pain?

Jefferson Davis Blind to Spy in His Midst

Slave in Jefferson Davis' home gave Union key secrets

The True Meaning of Family

Family of 5 weathers economy with 7 housemates

Prescient *1993* Review of Great Depression Series

Report Urges More Attention to Youth Mental Health

GOP Honored As "Reverse Robin Hood"

Predicting Depressions-What are Banker's Salaries?

Bankers excessive salaries as predictors of Depression

Prescient 1993 Review of Great Depression Series