South Carolina Fossils

Christopher Hitchens was right: Religion Poisons Everything.

From The Daily Beast:

When eight-year-old Olivia McConnell was perusing a menu at a restaurant that features all 50 of the official symbols of her home state of South Carolina, she noticed a glaring vacancy. South Carolina has a State American Folk Dance, a State Grass, a State Opera, even a State Lowcountry Handcraft, but—no offense to square dancing, Indian grass, Porgy and Bess, or sweet grass baskets intended—McConnell thought something was missing: a state fossil.

Let me stop right there.  Along with those official state symbols there are some others:

• Official State Reptile: the Loggerhead Sea Turtle
• Official Hospitality Beverage: South Carolina Grown Tea
• Official State Dance: The Shag

An official Hospitality Beverage?  Ok, let's get back to The Beast:

The third grader at Carolina Academy wrote a letter to her state lawmakers, Rep. Robert Ridgeway and Sen. Kevin Johnson, in a bid to give the woolly mammoth that honor. Olivia has sound reasons behind her nomination: One of the first discoveries of a fossil in North America was that of a woolly mammoth’s teeth, dug up by slaves on a South Carolina plantation in 1725; all but seven states have an official state fossil; and, most adorably, “Fossils tell us about our past.”

Sounds like Ms McConnell is an intelligent, insightful third grader.  Ridgeway and Johnson's bill passed the House 94-3 but it was stopped in the Senate and that ole time religion:

Sen. Kevin Bryant, a pharmacist and self-described born-again Christian who has compared President Obama with Osama bin Laden, voted to sustain a veto by Governor Nikki Haley of funding for a rape crisis center, and called climate change a “hoax,” proposed amending the bill to include three verses from the Book of Genesis detailing God’s creation of the Earth and its living inhabitants—including mammoths.

Of course he's a climate science denier.  Anti-science in one direction inevitably leads to anti-science in many others.  According to the Senate Journal, these are the verses from Genesis:

And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

That's Genesis 1:30-31, I believe.

After the bill was ruled out of order by the state's Lt Governor, another Senator objected to it.  Of course he's in not favor of teaching evolution unless you "teach the controversy" along with it From the Post and Courier:

The South Carolina Education Oversight Committee met Monday to review and approve the new set of science standards that the Department of Education will begin implementing by the fall of 2014 for students. Sen. Mike Fair, R-Greenville, argued against teaching natural selection as fact, when he believes there are other theories students deserve to learn.

"Natural selection is a direct reference to Darwinism," Fair said after the meeting. "And the implication of Darwinism. is that it is start to finish."

Fair argued South Carolina's students are learning the philosophy of natural selection but teachers are not calling it such. He said the best way for students to learn is for the schools to teach the controversy.

"To teach that natural selection is the answer to origins is wrong," Fair said. "I don't have a problem with teaching theories. I don't think it should be taught as fact."

Oh, so he's one of those guys.

So instead of celebrating a historical fact (that one of the first fossils found in North America was in deed found in South Carolina) and a scientific one (need I elaborate on this point?), and in doing so encourage an insightful 8 year old, faith poisoned the prospect - all to defend a scientifically indefensible position (that "evolution is 'just a theory'.")

Hitchens was right.

The Tribune-Review Gets It Wrong. Again

And the "it" is Climate Science.

Yea, I know.  Go figure.

Here's what we find in Scaife's Tribune-Review:

Breitbart-London reports that a soon-to-be-released study by none other than the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change radically reduces the previously estimated economic costs of “global warming.” Previous studies placed the costs at between 5 percent and 20 percent of world GDP. The new study slashes that cost to between 0.2 percent and 2 percent of world GDP. As Breitbart tells it, “all it would take is an annual growth rate of 2.4 percent for the economic costs of climate change to be wiped out within a month.” So much for the “moral challenge of our time.” [Bolding in original.]

Ok.  So that leads to this piece in Breitbart-London.  Which says:

The economic costs of 'global warming' have been grossly overestimated, a leaked report - shortly to be published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) - has admitted.

Previous reports - notably the hugely influential 2006 Stern Review - have put the costs to the global economy caused by 'climate change' at between 5 and 20 percent of world GDP.

But the latest estimates, to be published by Working Group II of the IPCC's Fifth Assessment Report, say that a 2.5 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures by the end of the century will cost the world economy between just 0.2 and 2 percent of its GDP.

However, Reuters reports:

Many governments want sterner warnings of probable economic damage from global warming in a draft U.N. report due on Monday, saying that existing estimates of trillions of dollars in losses are only part of the picture.

A final draft before talks this week among governments and scientists in Japan projected that warming would cut economic output by between 0.2 and 2.0 percent a year by damaging human health, disrupting water supplies and raising sea levels.

But many countries reckon that is an underestimate because it excludes risks of catastrophic changes, such as a runaway melt of Greenland's ice, collapse of coral reefs or a drying of the Amazon rainforest that could cause massive economic losses. [Emphasis added.]

And so:

Trying to address the objections, an updated draft text from the meeting on Friday, obtained by Reuters, adds that impact estimates "do not yet account for catastrophic changes, tipping points, and many other details."

But there's a bit more to the story.  Reuters has this:

The projected 0.2 to 2.0 percent range for economic losses is based on warming of 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, more than a 2.0C (3.6F) ceiling set by almost 200 governments for limiting heatwaves, floods, droughts and rising seas.

The range was drawn from a sub-chapter co-led by Richard Tol, an economist at the University of Sussex in England who is often at odds with scientific colleagues for saying that moderate global warming may have economic benefits.

He said this week he had pulled out from the 70-strong team writing the draft summary, saying he viewed parts as alarmist.

Ah, well then.  An outlier economist who's at odds with mainstream climate science.  Climate Science Watch has more:

With respect to global GDP, the WG2 report offers cost estimates only up to 2.5ºC of warming. These impacts are negative, estimated to cost up to 2% of global income, which is acknowledged to be only a partial estimate. In fact, the costs of 2.5ºC of warming laid out in WG2 are something of a best-case scenario (or at least a reasonably good scenario), showing what will happen IF we take strong action to reduce carbon emissions. If we do not take action on climate mitigation, we could be experiencing around 4ºC of warming by 2100 according to the business as usual (RCP 8.5) scenario (WGI Annex II Table 7.5). That’s uncharted territory and possible even within the lifetimes of some who are alive today.

And The Stern Review so dutifully criticized by Breitbart London said, in 2006, of its GDP warnings:

Using the results from formal economic models, the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more.

So the .02-2% of GDP is if the world takes "strong action" while the 5-20% of GDP is if the world does nothing.  And yet Breitbart says that the former invalidates the latter.  I'd say it invalidates Breitbart London.

Now go back and read what the Trib wrote.  And while you're reading notice all the important stuff they've left out.  Once you've done that, you can decide for yourselves how valuable it is.

Fracking in PA Story on the 'Daily Show' Courtesy of Briget Shields

Local Pittsburgh fractivist, Briget Shields, spent three hours pitching a producer of the Daily Show -- time well spent!

(With bonus 'heros' vs. 'subs' and 'soda' vs. 'pop.')

Affordable Health Care Act (aka Obamacare)

I went onto the site yesterday to see about getting me some health insurance.  Had a good experience.

And let me just say that as a proud lefty, I am so proud to be a part of the dismantling of the God-fearing capitalist system now in place in Amur'ka.  Thanks to the socialist take-over of our healthcare system (and therefore our entire economy) by my socialist, Kenyan-born president, B Hussein Obama, I'm now paying $180 per month less for my healthcare (AND I get a lower deductible AND a dental plan to boot!).  All it cost was the God-given freedom all those regular Amur'kans felt entitled to.

So what's next on the progressive agenda?  Luckily, I've received the latest policy directives from the Soros Institute and according to that list, here's what we have to look forward to:

• The immediate seizure of all financial assets held by citizens 200% above the national median income
• The immediate seizure of all non-military, non-police issued firearms (items to be replaced by a guitar, flute and the sheet music for "Kumbaya" and/or "The Times, They Are A-Changin'")
• Immediate prison sentence for anyone speaking out against the above seizures (no trial, just immediate prison)
• Seized moneys will pay for among other things, the following new guv'ment programs; Mandatory birth control issued to all post-adolescent women, Mandatory guv'ment issued/guv'ment approved pornography mailed to all citizens, Guv'ment issued laptops, iphones, and compact cars  for all urban-dwelling, unemployed citizens, Mandatory loyalty oaths (to be signed and returned) declaring fealty to either the religious skepticism of Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, or Neil deGrasse Tyson or the Liberation Theology of Jeremiah Wright
• Automatic citizenship for anyone walking (or swimming or being smuggled) over the US-Mexican border (along with the standard issue guv'ment phone, laptop, car, porn and birth control)
• Strict term limits for all Republican/Tea Party legislators
• Reinstatement of the Fairness Doctrine
• Reagan International Airport to be renamed Cesar and Hugo Chavez International Airport

There it is, folks.  It's all on the Internet, so you know it's all true.

Happy Saturday!

PS If you don't get that this is sarcasm, you're not smart enough to read this blog.

Toomey, Casey and Porter

Hey, remember this?

It's about how Keystone Progress uncovered a supposed deal between Pennsylvania's two Senators (one R, one D) on some upcoming judicial nominees.

Well, the story's made it onto the Huffingtonpost:

Progressives in Pennsylvania are scrambling to derail a deal they say the state's U.S. senators are quietly trying to cut with the White House on a package of judicial nominees, which includes a conservative Republican aligned with groups opposed to abortion rights, gay rights and gun control.

Keystone Progress, a statewide progressive advocacy group, launched a campaign on Tuesday urging Sens. Bob Casey (D) and Pat Toomey (R) to abandon any plan to recommend corporate lawyer David J. Porter to serve on the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. Among other things, the group highlights that Porter heads the Federalist Society's Pittsburgh Lawyers Chapter, helped found a coalition that tried to stop Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation, and is a contributor and trustee at the conservative Center for Vision and Values.

Here's an interesting part:

The Huffington Post reached out to Casey and Toomey on Wednesday for comment on any potential deal involving Porter. Neither denied that a nominations package may be coming soon or that Porter may be part of it.

And then some context:

With more than 85 judicial vacancies still out there and the clock running down on Obama's presidency, it may be the new norm that the president is willing to tuck a socially conservative nominee or two into a broader package of judicial picks in order to move the process forward. The White House can't just push through its preferred Democratic nominees thanks, at least in part, to the "blue slip" rule in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Under that practice, which is more of a courtesy than a hard rule, any senator has the ability to unilaterally block a nominee from his or her home state. Some Republicans have been leaning on blue slips to prevent Obama's nominees from advancing, while committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has brushed off calls to do away with the custom.

The real test is when the Democrats no longer hold the Majority in the Senate and/or have a President the Oval Office.  Will they play by the same obstructionist rules that the Republicans are so adept at playing at now?

Somehow I doubt it.  And that's why I am no longer a member of the Democratic Party.

Senator Casey, What ARE You Thinking?

Received this from Keystone Progress last night:

Keystone Progress has learned that a backroom deal by Senators Bob Casey and Pat Toomey may result in President Obama appointing a Tea Party lawyer to serve as judge on the Western Pennsylvania District Court in Pittsburgh.

The nomination of David J. Porter is working its way to the White House as part of a deal between Pennsylvania’s two United States Senators. Senators Casey and Toomey are expected to jointly present Porter to President Obama any day now as part of a deal that will allow Casey to nominate people for 3 other vacancies.

Senator Casey, is this true?  But before we go any farther, who's David J Porter?

Well, he's a shareholder at Buchanan, Ingersoll and Rooney.  No big deal there, but he's also a trustee of the (let's be honest - right wing) Grove City College and a contributor to college's Center for Vision and Values.

Let's all take a moment to remember what the center is all about (from their own webpage):

Herein lies the difference between our approach to the pursuit of personal, political, economic, and religious freedom and the reigning viewpoint in higher education. We believe that God is sovereign. We believe that man is made in His image. We believe the Bible is indispensable to understanding the truth about our relationship to God, to our world, and to each other. These core beliefs ground human dignity and freedom in God’s revealed truth, a truth that animates our mission as we affirm the eternal relevance of Jesus’ challenge in John’s gospel, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”

That's John 8:32, by the way.

Then there's the membership in the Republican National Lawyers Association and the Pittsburgh chapter of the rightwing Federalist Society.

None of which would actually disqualify him to a judgeship but we're not talking about that.  We're talking about the deal supposedly set by the Democratic Senator from Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, to get this guy on the bench.

By the way, Porter was then-Senator Rick Santorum's attorney when lil Ricky was facing all that trouble with his residency.  From Scaife's Trib:

U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum lives with his family at a Virginia house when Congress is in session, but state and federal laws allow him to keep his official voting residence in Pennsylvania, his lawyer wrote in a letter to Allegheny County.

Wasn't Santorum running for office then? And wasn't his opponent a guy named BOB CASEY?

I realize there's a tradition in legal circles not to criticize an attorney for who his/her client is.  Everyone's entitled to a vigorous defense.

But didn't both Senators Casey and Toomey vote against Debo Adegbile precisely because they didn't like his client (the Mumia Abu-Jamal)?

So my questions for Senator Casey:

• Who are your three candidates for those 3 vacancies?
• What happens if, when you propose any or all of them, the other republicans in the Senate filibuster them?
• Why would you make such a deal anyway?

Feel free to email me with anything on this.

If you feel strongly about this, feel free to sign the petition.

Uh-Oh. (Ex-) Mayor Luke's Computer.

In case you missed it, here's the a follow up to something the OPJ posted a few days ago:

First from The Tribune-Review:

UPMC wants to know whether former Mayor Luke Ravenstahl removed evidence from his city-issued computer related to the city's legal battle with the hospital giant over its nonprofit status, according to a motion UPMC filed in federal court on Monday.

Ravenstahl took his work computer home before leaving office and kept it for about 10 days, which UPMC said might violate an order Ravenstahl signed in December agreeing to preserve evidence in the city's case against UPMC.

And:

News reports “strongly suggest that Mr. Ravenstahl may have destroyed data from his computer during the week and a half that he took it home. His counsel has failed to provide any reasonable assurance that no such destruction occurred,” UPMC states in its filing with the U.S. District Court in Pittsburgh

For some background, we turn to The Post-Gazette:

Monday's court filing from UPMC is part of the health system's lawsuit against the city and Mr. Ravenstahl, filed last April in federal court. The suit claimed the mayor's office and the city violated the health giant's civil rights.

UPMC's suit came in response to the city's own March 2013 lawsuit against UPMC, a legal complaint that questioned the health system's nonprofit status, which gives UPMC significant property tax exemptions.

As part of its own case, UPMC asked for "limited discovery" of Mr. Ravenstahl's data and documents before he left office, a request that was denied by the case's presiding judge, U.S. District Court Judge Joy Flowers Conti.

The court did, however, enter a "preservation order" that "obligated the parties to use their best efforts and take all appropriate steps to preserve evidence that might be relevant to this case."

In Monday's court filing, UPMC attorneys said the health system is concerned that the November preservation order, signed the following month by the mayor, may have been violated when Mr. Ravenstahl took the computer home with him.

Apart from this whole computer mess, I want you to ponder the last sentence of that first paragraph:

The suit claimed the mayor's office and the city violated the health giant's civil rights.

Ok.  Yea.  That part.

But in fairness, in our system of justice everyone's entitled to a vigorous defense and so on.  And as part of Ravenstahl's vigorous defense there's this from the attorneys who are representing him  From the P-G:

"All I can tell you is that this is an overreaction," said Ronald D. Barber of Strassburger McKenna Gutnick & Gefsky, the firm that is representing the mayor and the city in the UPMC civil matter.

And, let's face it. That might actually be true.  But then there's this from the Trib:

Ravenstahl could not be reached. His attorney, Chuck Porter, said nothing was destroyed.

“He didn't trust the city administration, and there's no sinister reasons here,” he said. “Nothing was removed, nothing was deleted, no evidence has been destroyed. And that's the reality.”

He declined to answer questions about why Ravenstahl took the computer.

At this point feel free to go back to Maria's posting.  But again, let's face it.  It's completely possible that nothing was deleted, nothing was removed and so on.  Let's let the process play itself out.

An extremely important part of this story is found here in the Trib:

Peduto's office declined to comment.

And here in the P-G:

Mr. Peduto's office had no comment on the UPMC filing.

Good. Good.  GOOD. They should stay non-commenting and let the process move forward.