US Politics Mega-thread - Page 360

On July 30 2013 05:52 farvacola wrote:
I think there is actually something very interesting at work in the success of conservatism on the radio. I think it makes perfect sense given how radio works.

Senior US government officials are to be briefed at the White House this week on the danger of an ice-free Arctic in the summer within two years.

The meeting, hosted by the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of the President at the White House, is being organised by the Joint Office for Science Support (JOSS) of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) on behalf of the Interagency Arctic Research Policy Committee (IARPC). The IARPC, charged with coordinating federal research on the Arctic Ocean, is chaired by the National Science Foundation, and includes among its members Nasa, the US Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon.

This is the latest indication that US officials are increasingly concerned about the international and domestic security implications of climate change.

Senior scientists advising the US government at the meeting include 10 Arctic specialists, including marine scientist Prof Carlos Duarte, director of the Oceans Institute at the University of Western Australia.

On July 30 2013 06:40 farvacola wrote:

In terms of reference, I'm thinking of a book from the 60's called Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man by Marshal McLuhan. In it, McLuhan outlines how the majority of media forms fall into either "hot" or "cold" categories; the temperature of a given form of media is related to how easy it is for an audience to find meaning or relate to what is being communicated in terms of participation. In other, oversimple words, "hot" means easy to participate, "cold" means requires active participation. Radio would be a very hot form of media because it does not rely on anything but direct, literal sound; there is very little need for interpretation when it comes to understanding what is being said. Television, on the other hand, throws sight and visual attention into to the equation, which complicates the transmission process, so it's more of a colder form of media.

That's a pretty shorthand summary of a somewhat outdated book, but I think it lines up with the success of conservatism on the radio in some ways. The essence of conservatism as a political ideology revolves around some sort of appeal to tradition, history, or the past; it is not a coincidence that the Tea Party is named as it is or that DC Republicans love Ronald Reagan so. Accordingly, simply saying "No" to new or progressive ideas is oftentimes the appropriate conservative message in the public political arena, and it is for this reason that a "hot" media form like radio, one that does not need to be complex nor constructed, does the ideology well. Conversely, liberal ideas tend to do better with more complex media forms like television or movies, because they not only have to affirm but also construct the supposed progressive path with which we are to follow.

Keep in mind that none of this is definite, I'm talking in a very general sense, and that there are exceptions to everything I said (conservatives do come up with new ideas, and there are definitely liberal panderings to base instincts and folks like FDR) but there are definitely places where the pattern lines up pretty nicely. Just watch MSNBC sometime and consider the weight of their "Lean Forward" commercials. They tend to ask way more of a viewer than anything Fox News ever puts on. Similarly, I don't think conservative punditry will ever lose radio while radio is alive (which, with satellite radio, might be a long time still). It is one of their best means of communicating ideas.

On July 30 2013 13:39 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:
Huge explosion reported in Florida at a Propane Plant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3QPzofR3xY

On July 30 2013 13:46 aksfjh wrote:

I was expecting an explosion like that West, Texas one.

CIA officials often assert that while the spy agency's failures are known, its successes are hidden. But the clandestine organization celebrated for finding Osama bin Laden has been viewed by many of its own people as a place beset by bad management, where misjudgments by senior officials go unpunished, according to internal CIA documents and interviews with more than 20 former officers.

Fifty-five percent of respondents to a 2009 agency-wide survey who said they were resigning or thinking about it cited poor management as the main reason, according to a 2010 report on retention by the agency's internal watchdog that mirrored the findings of a 2005 report. Although the CIA's overall rate of employee turnover is unusually low, the report cited "challenges" in the retention of officers with unique and crucial skills, such as field operatives.

The heavily redacted, unclassified report by the CIA's inspector general was turned over to the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau recently, two years after a request was filed under the Freedom of Information Act. Retired CIA officers who talk regularly with former colleagues say little has changed. CIA employees are generally prohibited from speaking to the news media and are grilled during periodic polygraph exams about any contacts with reporters.

"Perceptions of poor management, and a lack of accountability for poor management, comprised five of the top 10 reasons why people leave or consider leaving CIA and were the most frequent topic of concern among those who volunteered comments," the inspector general's report says.

CIA employees complained of "poor first-line supervision, lack of communication about work-related matters and lack of support for prudent risk taking," the report says.

The raw numbers in the survey were blacked out, but CIA human resources officials said in interviews that those who were considering leaving represented about 12% of the respondents. Other internal surveys suggest that most CIA employees have confidence in their managers, the officials asserted — but they declined to release the results.

The officials acknowledged that the inspector general's report identified long-standing concerns about the CIA's culture. In response, they say, they have placed new emphasis on training and evaluating managers. They touted three leadership courses that are required for senior officials as a condition of promotion, all of which were started before the report.

"I really think you would see a different result if the [inspector general] would come back and ask those same questions," said John Pereira, the CIA's chief of corporate learning.

The inspector general's report concluded, however, that "none of these initiatives include a mechanism for improving accountability for poor management."

Seven of 19 reviews of the CIA posted from 2010 to 2012 on Glassdoor, a website that allows employees to review their workplaces anonymously, cite bad management.

The East Baton Rouge sheriff who used Louisiana's defunct anti-sodomy law to arrest a dozen gay men since 2011 now says he didn't know the law was invalidated by the Supreme Court.

"To our knowledge, the Sheriff’s office was never contacted or told that the law was not enforceable or prosecutable," a statement from the Sheriff's Office claims. It was issued Sunday after The Advocate newspaper in Louisiana exposed the illegal undercover sting operation.

That explanation doesn't appear to satisfy Metro Councilman John Delgado.

“Does he know that slavery is no longer around?” an outraged Delgado told The Advocate newspaper in Louisiana. “Does he know that we have cars and no longer horse and buggies?”

The newspaper now reports that Delgado is demanding apologies be issued to the 12 men who were arrested, one as recent as this month.

According to local LGBT rights group Capital City Alliance, the sheriff has committed to no longer enforcing the obsolete law and will work with state legislators to have it removed from the books.

At first, a spokesman for Sheriff Sid J. Gautreaux told the newspaper that it didn't matter the Supreme Court ruled anti-sodomy laws unconstitutional a decade ago, it's still on the books in Louisiana, so they were still arresting men for it.

Doctors Increasingly Ignore Evidence In Treating Back Pain

The misery of low back pain often drives people to the doctor to seek relief. But doctors are doing a pretty miserable job of treating back pain, a study finds.

Physicians are increasingly prescribing expensive scans, narcotic painkillers and other treatments that don't help in most cases, and can make things a lot worse. Since 1 in 10 of all primary care visits are for low back pain, this is no small matter.

What does help? Some ibuprofen or other over-the-counter painkiller, and maybe some physical therapy. That's the evidence-based protocol. With that regimen, most people's back pain goes away within three months.

But when researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston looked at records of 23,918 doctor visits for simple back pain between 1999 and 2010, they found that doctors have actually been getting worse at prescribing scientifically based treatments.

Doctors were recommending NSAID pain relievers and acetaminophen less often. Instead, they were increasingly prescribing prescription opioids like OxyContin, with use rising from 19 percent of cases to 29 percent. Over-the-counter painkiller use declined from 37 percent to 25 percent. Other studies have found that opioids help only slightly with acute back pain and are worthless for treating chronic back pain. ...

In 2007, I signed on to the email lists of several influential magazines on the right, among them Townhall, which operates under the auspices of evangelical Stuart Epperson’s Salem Communications; Newsmax, the organ more responsible than any other for drumming up the hysteria that culminated in the impeachment of Bill Clinton; and Human Events, one of Ronald Reagan’s favorite publications. The exercise turned out to be far more revealing than I expected. Via the battery of promotional appeals that overran my email inbox, I mainlined a right-wing id that was invisible to readers who encounter conservative opinion at face value.

Subscriber lists to ideological organs are pure gold to the third-party interests who rent them as catchments for potential customers. Who better suits a marketing strategy than a group that voluntarily organizes itself according to their most passionately shared beliefs? That’s why, for instance, the other day I (and probably you) got an advertisement by way of liberal magazine The American Prospect seeking donations to Mercy Corps, a charity that helps starving children in the Third World. But back when I was getting emails every day from Newsmax and Townhall, the come-ons were a little bit different.

On July 31 2013 01:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Link

Is anyone surprised?

On July 31 2013 01:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Link

Is anyone surprised?

On July 31 2013 01:19 JonnyBNoHo wrote:

Link

Is anyone surprised?

On July 31 2013 02:03 farvacola wrote:
Methadone is highly addictive, and is an opioid. If you're referencing something more like tramadol, that makes more sense, but opioids in general can vary widely. Also Mohdoo is on point. Doctors are a part of the problem as much as they are victims of it.

On July 30 2013 22:49 Klondikebar wrote:
{CC}Stealth are you a bot? You managed to somehow keep up with a 24 hour news cycle...it's impressive albeit a but inhuman.

Also, of course he'll claim ignorance. It's the only thing he can do. Although he clearly doesn't understand how legislative, executive, and judicial branches differ in function. The legislative branch can write whatever laws it wants. They can put a law on the books that says all brunettes need to be in concentration camps. But when the judicial branch says it's a bad law, the executive branch isn't allowed to enforce it. It's like he didn't even graduate highschool...

And I know it's the deep south, but I guarantee you his higher ups are riding his ass *snicker* because the threat of lawsuits is probably pretty severe right now. And they'd lose badly.

On July 31 2013 02:22 Sermokala wrote:

You're an ass. The guys a country sheriff and he probably has a ton of work on his desk every day. His budget is constantly cut and he has to make do with inept cops who can't get a better job working for a city anywhere else and probably didn't graduate high school. Do you know how much a country cop even gets paid? Around where I live its $13 an hour to put your life on the line and it can't be any higher in some poor state in the south. If no one is there to tell him to stop doing something then how the hell is he suppose to know to stop doing it? Theres no reason for him to keep up on national news when he is intently focused on the local scene. He has no responsibility tword making the law or revising it in any way. its the fault of whoever is the country commissioner for not updating the laws on the books like he is suppose to.

You have no idea how police works and should have more respect for the people who protect you.