“America has disappointed him”

The One 35 Comments

A nation fails her leader;

I find nothing paradoxical about Obama’s recent pattern of behavior, nothing mysterious about the golfing, partying, traveling. It is quite obvious: Obama has given up.
He knows that his agenda is now limited to executive orders and bureaucratic regulation, and that even these measures are likely to be in the courts for years. He knows that his foreign policy agenda of engagement with the enemies of America will prove controversial and unpopular. He knows his staff has been ducking-and-covering ever since Lois Lerner announced the IRS had targeted Tea Party groups, and that they have been playing defense through Edward Snowden and Syria and Healthcare.gov and Crimea and the VA and now Bowe Bergdahl. He knows there is a chance that the Republicans will control Congress next January, and he has said, according to Politico, that this “would make his last two years in office unbearable.”

Nothing left to do but swing the wrecking ball.

Wynneing!

Political Animal 16 Comments

Andy Radia;

On Tuesday night, at the beginning of the Ontario leaders’ debate, Kathleen Wynne emphatically apologized for the gas plant scandal.
Then she apologized again. And again and again.
If she was hoping that would be the end of it, she was sorely mistaken.

Related – Hudak wins Ontario leaders’ debate, poll reveals

Y2Kyoto: Put A Monarch In Your Tank!

Y2Kyoto 10 Comments

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Toronto Star, 2014;

The dramatic decline in the monarch butterfly population in eastern North America is due largely to the steady loss of milkweed crops in U.S. breeding grounds, according to a new study that researchers say provides the first proof of the critical connection.
Scientists at the University of Guelph say they picked apart the various factors linked to the drop in migratory monarch butterflies and confirmed theories that the lack of milkweed is likely responsible for the plummeting butterfly population.

Environmental Working Group, 2013

In recent years, millions of acres of America’s native grasslands have been plowed under to grow corn for ethanol to blend into gasoline. And new research is clearly pointing to the federal ethanol mandate as a main driver of this tsunami of land conversion in the Midwest.

h/t Jamie Mac

70th Anniversary of D-Day

Historical Events Military 43 Comments

Lest we forget, 70 years ago today, around 156,000 Allied soldiers descended upon Northern France as part of Operation Overlord. Undoubtedly, it was one of the most ambitious military operations the world has ever known and the first step in the Western Allies’ march into Hitler’s Nazi Germany.
Thankfully their efforts have not been forgotten. 359 Canadians died on Juno Beach that day. Remember them. Remember them proudly.

Great Moments In Socialism

Great Moments In Socialism It's Probably Nothing 28 Comments

NYT;

The European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low on Thursday and, in an unprecedented attempt to stimulate the euro zone economy, said it would begin charging interest on deposits held by the bank.
The so-called negative deposit rate has never been tried on such a large scale and is a bid to push down the value of the euro and encourage banks to invest excess cash rather than hoard it in central bank vaults.

“Organic” Is The Latin Word For “Grown In Pig Shit”

Genetics 12 Comments

The Scientist; (link fixed!)

By 2001, Ug99 began appearing in fields in Kenya; in Ethiopia by 2003; Sudan and Yemen by 2006; and Iran a year later. It now plagues wheat plants in nine African and Middle Eastern countries. Should the pathogen establish a global presence, 90 percent of wheat varieties could succumb, with whole crops flopping over and rotting within weeks or months of infection. The annual global harvest of some 700 million tons of wheat would be decimated.
[…]
One way to hasten the development of a long-lasting stem rust-resistant wheat variety is to engineer plants’ DNA to carry resistance genes, creating what are known as genetically modified (GM) crops. But at many of the facilities that develop wheat varieties–primarily led by academic breeding groups, in contrast to the commercial domination of corn and soybean development–such transgenic approaches are taboo, as public opposition, regulatory expenses, and genetic complexity have kept wheat transgenics off the market. “We could do millions of things [with transgenics],” says Jorge Dubcovsky, a wheat geneticist and breeder at the University of California, Davis, “but we have our hands tied.”

Because people who use the word “denier” believe in something called “Frankenfood”.

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