Stuff to make you think:
- Do you care? At least 16 members of Congress passed up on the government-sponsored health care plans, trying to be true to their campaign promises to repeal similar care for all citizens, a plan they try to ridicule as Obamacare. Some of them discovered other plans “available from the market” are expensive, don’t cover pre-existing conditions, and generally don’t meet their needs. Crooks and Liars explains:
Nevertheless, Republicans are discovering the truth: The status quo is unsustainable, unaffordable, and discriminatory. Now what will they do about that? And how will they appease their angry hordes of Tea Party members being stoked daily via email and fear campaigns?
- John McPhee, personally – If John McPhee isn’t one of your favorite authors, you haven’t read him. He had a book published last year, Silk Parachutes, that revealed information about John McPhee instead of other people, local markets, Alaska, the Great Basin, nuclear safety issues, or Bill Bradley. Still a great read, according to the Baltimore Sun.
- Chris Mooney notes that legislative proposals to hide or hamper the science that reveals global warming tends to come from the same sources as legislation to hide or hamper the science of biological evolution, or its teaching. Are you surprised?
- PBS’s Frontline warns us that multitasking doesn’t work, and our permanent digital connections damage our brains and thinking. Teachers ought to watch the thing. Librarians, especially school librarians, would be well advised to pay attention, too.
- David Robertson is a good David to Anthony Watt’s Goliath. Damon Runyon is reputed to have said that the race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.
- Thom Hartmann warns Americans against the Santa Claus politics Jude Wanniski created for Republicans.
- Arctic Ice disappears, and so does the evidence — Tim Lambert notes that those wacky pranksters at the Heartland Institute managed to find one small part of a chart to make a case that Arctic ice is increasing, even as Russia and China prepare to beat the U.S. to trans-Arctic shipping when the ice disappears. Whose side is the Heartland Institute on, again? It’s a new propaganda tactic: The Small Lie.
There are people who need to soak their crania. Back to work, here.
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 