A Bird-of-Paradise Grasshopper from Honduras. From National Geographic.
UP-FRONT PITTSBURGH NUGGET!!
It's RADical Days in the 'Burgh Again from the Allegheny Regional Asset District!!
What is RAD? The region's popular RADical Days event returns for the 10th time on September 24th with 50+ arts and culture organizations offering free admissions and performances. RAD offerings are spread out from Sept. 24th thru Oct. 15th.
CHECK the calendar to see when your favorite local institutions or activities are free to the public. Just a few of the biggies that are immediately coming up:
On Saturday:
Pittsburgh Opera doing favorite arias, 6-7:30 [free but reservations needed]
On Sunday:
Pittsburgh Science Center [Free. Normally, very expensive]
On Monday
Phipps Conservatory [Free. Again, normally pretty expensive]
Next Saturday
Frick Mansion and Art Museum
Heinz History Center
Next Sunday
Carnegie Museums
Children's Museum
Mattress Factory
Get the word out!!
UP-FRONT PUNDIT-OF-THE-DAY!!
How the GOP Became the Anti-Science Party (Leonard Steinhorn) from Pundit Wire
How is it? They stopped going to the Pittsburgh Science Center! No -- this article is an EXCELLENT look at this topic from a former speech writer with implications that touch many other aspects of GOP and Tea Party "thinking." The whole thing is worth checking out!
"... why are so many otherwise rational Republicans so seemingly irrational when matters of science enter the political arena? Four factors might explain. Factor one is a driving force behind so much of what the Republican Party does today, hatred of liberalism. ... Factor two in the Republican denial of science is the anti-intellectual populism that pervades much of the GOP. ... Among intellectuals it’s an article of faith to think critically, yet this is precisely what bothers Republicans who mistake this culture of critical thinking for an assault on American life, which they then take very personally. ..."
Thousands Riot in South China Over Land Grab: Report from Reuters
"Thousands of people have attacked government buildings in southern China in protest at land sales, a newspaper reported on Friday, the latest outbreak of trouble in the economic powerhouse of Guangdong. Witnesses in Lufeng city said the protests, in which around a dozen residents were hurt, were triggered by the seizure of hectares of land and their sale to property developer Country Garden for 1 billion yuan ($156.6 million), Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported."
Doesn't quite fit the standard "China Rising" meme one hears endlessly in the media.
Obama to GOP: If This is `Class Warfare,’ Then Get Ready for a Very Long Fight (Greg Sargent) from the Washington Post
"For any of you card carrying members of the professional left who had hoped to see Obama barnstorm the country and call out Republicans by name, well, you’ve now seen just that. As for the question of whether we’re going to see more of it, by all indications this is a fight that Obama intends to continue indefinitely. We are now seeing the professional left’s preferred script being put to the test."
The Social Contract (Paul Krugman) from the New York Times
"This week President Obama said the obvious: that wealthy Americans, many of whom pay remarkably little in taxes, should bear part of the cost of reducing the long-run budget deficit. And Republicans like Representative Paul Ryan responded with shrieks of “class warfare.” It was, of course, nothing of the sort. On the contrary, it’s people like Mr. Ryan, who want to exempt the very rich from bearing any of the burden of making our finances sustainable, who are waging class war."
The Agony of the GOP Establishment (Jonathan Chait) from New York Magazine
"If you're a Republican opinion leader, you want to promote Romney over Perry. At the same time, you have to account for the possibility that Perry might win the nomination anyway, which means that you can't say anything that could be used against him in the general election. You need to gently suggest to Republicans that Perry is too crazy to be elected president, without suggesting to swing voters that he's too crazy to be elected president."
The question is: would conservative GOP establishment types like David Frum, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker, even Peggy Noonan REALLY vote for Rick Perry in 2012?
Boehner Can’t Control his Caucus (Steve Bell) from the Frum Forum
"This was not perfidy on the part of the President, or some RINO conspiracy. This was the word of the House of Representatives, given and vouched for by the Speaker to the President. For members of his own caucus to publicly fail to help the Speaker keep his commitment shows that Republicans in the House (and in the country) are divided. ... If the United States had a parliamentary system, the Speaker would have to step down. His leadership of his own party has been repudiated by the right of the right. ... A quick survey of very experienced former senior members of House and Senate staff showed unanimity this morning– none of them could recall such a public humiliation for any Speaker of the House in the past four decades."
Obama’s Fighting Chance (Michael Tomasky) from the Daily Beast
"If Obama is dreading a run for re-election with the economy in the tank, these candidates must be easing his mind, says Michael Tomasky."
The More Perry Debates, the Worse He Gets (John Dickerson) from CBS News and Slate
"The Republican presidential debate in Orlando was sponsored by Google, but it was Gov. Rick Perry who was searching. The frontrunner's answers meandered. When fielding a hypothetical question about terrorists getting nukes in Pakistan, his response ribboned out like he was reading the first results that came up. Even when he read his attack lines on rival Mitt Romney from the notes on his lectern, it was muddy. With each successive debate in this campaign, his performance gets worse."
Rick Perry’s Natural Gas Cronyism (Steve McVicker) from the Daily Beast
"Exclusive: Documents from the Texas governor’s blind trust show he gave state jobs to friends from a natural-gas company he co-owned, raising more questions about his ‘crony capitalism.’"
SHOCKED! I'm shocked! A Texas governor sucking up to oil companies? I am so surprised!
Why a Two-Horse Race Is a Problem for Mitt Romney (Walter Shapiro) from the New Republic
"Perry’s problem on a debate stage appears to be the same one that bedeviled him as a student at Texas A & M—not always doing his coursework. Repeatedly, Perry’s on-message responses started strong and then petered out as if the candidate was desperately trying to remember those parts of the briefing book he merely skimmed. ... Romney and Perry are total opposites—stylistically, culturally, and, for the most part, ideologically. That is why a Tea Party loyalist increasingly disappointed with Perry’s readiness to be president will not automatically shift to Romney."
GOPers Perceive Perry As More Electable, But Polls Say Otherwise from Talking Points Memo
"It’s a political golden oldie. Should partisan voters go with ideological purity or the candidate with the best chance of winning? Unfortunately, that only works when you’ve correctly identified the most electable candidate, and it doesn’t look like GOP voters have done that yet."
Don't Believe Ron Suskind (Jacob Weisberg) from Slate
"His book about Obama is as spurious as the ones he wrote about Bush."
DOLPHIN NUGGET!!
Prosthetic Tail Dolphin's Story Made into Film (VIDEO) from CBS News
Something of an update here. I had posted the original story on this dolphin back in 2009.
"Now, Winter can swim like other dolphins. Her inspiring story has made an international splash. ... Friday, her story hits the big screen. "Dolphin Tale" chronicles Winter's amazing journey of survival."
The ironic aspect of this story is that the folks at Clearwater Aquarium saved this dolphin -- and, due to the amazing increase in traffic at the facility, the dolphin has ended up saving the financially distressed aquarium!
No comments:
Post a Comment