March of Progress

I thought that I would post this cartoon this morning. Funny. Thoughtful. On point.[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WheresTheOutrage/~3/I9BxaeMV9Nc/

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Sunday Madness

The very latest breaks from the Sunday shows right here at LiveWire.[...]

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Office building in Philly to be heated by waste
water

Very glad to hear about this.

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Romney to Welfare Mothers: 'You Need to Go to
Work'

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Republicans have spent the last week attacking President Barack Obama after a Democratic CNN contributor said that Ann Romney, who is the mother of five, had "never worked," but it turns out that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has also said mothers on welfare "need to go to work."

"I wanted to increase the work requirement," Romney told an audience in New Hampshire in January. "I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work."

"And people said, ?Well that?s heartless.? And I said, ?No, no, I?m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It?ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.'"

Last week, CNN contributor Hilary Rosen charged that the candidate's wife had ?actually never worked a day in her life.?

?She?s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing,? Rosen added.

Ann Romney responded by saying that her "career choice was to be a mother."

"And I think that all of us need to know that we need to respect choices that women make," she explained.

"Look, I know what it?s like to struggle,? Ann Romney continued, possibly referring to her battle with multiple sclerosis. ?And if maybe I haven?t struggled as much financially as some people have, I can tell you and promise you that I?ve had struggles in my life. And I would love to have people understand that Mitt and I have compassion for people that are struggling and that?s why we?re running. We care about those people that are struggling."

(H/T: Think Progress)

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http://crooksandliars.com/david/romney-welfare-mothers-you-need-go-work

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How To Ignite The Second Electrical Revolution

by Elisa Wood, via Renewable Energy World

The electric industry is good at building things. That?s how it solves problems. Is there a threat of blackouts? Develop a new natural gas-fired plant. Worried about climate change? Build wind and solar power. Does electricity cost too much? Install a transmission line to import cheaper power.

But build-to-solve represents only half of the equation in the new world of smart grid. The other half, the part that stumps the industry, is solve-without-building.

Rather than adding more energy, smart grid tries to wring maximum efficiency out of the system by changing the way we consume electricity.  But it turns out, trying to direct human energy behavior makes cat herding look easy. To get people to pay attention to their energy use, utilities and private companies are experimenting with alluring gadgets and social motivators.  So far, success has been minimal.  Thomas Edison?s light bulb has been such a smashing success for the last 100 years, none of us want to turn it off.

So what will it take?

The Edison Foundation recently looked outside the industry for some answers, inviting Dan Pink, best-selling author of ?DRIVE: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us? to speak at last month?s Power the People 2.0 conference in Washington D.C.

Consumer motivation has become a common conference topic. But Pink?s talk was different. He stepped back and took a broader view and asked: How do we motivate the people who are trying motivate the consumer? Pink calls this ?the science of how people do extraordinary things.?

The power industry?s creative thinkers need to bust out of their intellectual silos to ignite the ?second electrical revolution,? according to Pink. But smart grid represents a particularly difficult problem for them because the industry is trying to invent gadgets consumers are not demanding.  The electric grid needs the gadgets and needs consumers to use them.  But consumers would rather think about their next iTunes download or where to buy the tastiest strawberry. How do you get consumers to want a smart plug or home energy display just as much?  Some in the industry say smart grid is doomed because it is not born of household demand but of the power industry?s need.

Pink has another view. He asked members of the audience to raise their hands if they own an iPad. Half did. Then he asked how many of them knew they needed one two years ago. Only one hand went up.

Therein lines Apple?s genius; its ability to give the world something it didn?t know it was missing. Can the power industry do the same with smart grid? It must first recognize that this is a skill more likely to be found in artists than engineers. ?I think the cognitive skills of artists today are the most important  cognitive skills in the economy,? Pink said. ?We need scientists that think like artists and artists that think like scientists.?

The electric industry also needs to reconsider the way it motivates creative employees. ?It turns out a lot our intuitions about motivation are not quite right,? according to Pink. In fact, it?s downright ?Newtonian? to assume that ?when you reward behavior you get more of it, and when you punish behavior you get less of it.?

So forget the big bonus for the genius idea.  While people need to be paid reasonably to perform well, big bonuses only motivate them to achieve short-term goals, like making a sales quota. ?Igniting the second electrical revolution is not simple, is not short-term, but is complex and long term,? he said.

So what gets creative thinkers moving? Free time, as Pink tells it. He cited studies and examples of  artists doing their best work without a commission and inventors achieving Nobel Prize-winning work off the clock.  The business community is beginning to catch on to this idea, and some are offering a regular day when their inventors and problem solvers are encouraged to stop their required tasks and just work on anything that intrigues them. Many of these free hours have produced astonishing findings, some that the companies have been unable to achieve any other way.

?Complex industries, like yours, complex ecosystems demand this kind of complex, silo-busting thinking. You?re going to get it, not through an elaborate system of incentives, but by hiring talented people and getting out of their way,? he said.

Perhaps, if Pink is right, and the electric industry listens, he?ll be able ask audiences in a few years how many own some amazing energy-saving device that no one has yet conceived, and many hands will fly into the air. Perhaps then the light bulb, as we know it, will finally be replaced.

Elisa Wood is a long-time energy writer whose work can be found at RealEnergyWriters.com. This piece was originally published at Renewable Energy World and was re-printed with permission.

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http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/04/15/463817/how-to-ignite-the-second-elect
rical-revolution/

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Songs to Fight the Plutocracy By: "No More
Mourning"

By @KYYellowDog

Uploaded by mackleonardfilms on Jan 27, 2012

video details and more




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-to-fight-the-plutocracy-by-no-more-mourning

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TN: I Can Haz Creationism!

It hasn't been a good week here in TN. Charles Pierce, Hunter, PZ Meyers, and Suzie Madrak have all spilled virtual ink and probably actual tears about goings-on here. (Even I joined the chorus of Cassandra's.)[...]

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Open Thread: What We Now Know

Now We Know: Guilty by non-associationMitt Romney's campaign was quick to retaliate to the comments made by Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen when she criticized Ann Romney for having never worked "a day in her life." But should Rosen's comments be[...]

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http://www.docudharma.com/diary/29627/open-thread-what-we-now-know

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To Scott Walker: Publicly Instruct All Current
and Former Staff to Tell the Truth

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker - Political Reformist???Gov. Scott Walker is stonewalling demands for public discussion of his hiring and promoting of top staff in WalkerGate.

But?we are to believe from Republican statements?Walker's non-involvement in the criminal activity of the 2010 Walker for governor campaign conducted out of Walker's Milwaukee County executive's office is proven by his avid "help" voluntarily given to the criminal investigation, (his surrogates' attacks on the investigation notwithstanding).

All these people hired by Scott Walker and he has no idea they were campaigning on the Milwaukee tax payers' dime for his election to the governor's office he has coveted since before 2006?

Okay, since no question-and-answer session with the Wisconsin people is forthcoming, here is a modest proposal:

Scott Walker issues a public statement instructing all parties during his tenure in the Milwaukee county executive's office to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth to the John Doe prosecutors and presiding judge.

Kelly Rindfleisch

Kelly Rindfleisch, implicated up to her ears in the scandal and hired and promoted by Scott Walker, could offer the Wisconsin people who after all paid her salary ($96,000-a-year) the facts. One could say, Kelly Rindfleisch owes the truth to the people of Milwaukee County and Wisconsin.

The criminal complaint that Rindfleish?a GOP political operative?was brought in not to serve Milwaukee county but rather work in the then-secret 2010 Walker for governor campaign run out of the Executive's office can be easily dispensed with, if the truth is on Scott Walker's side.

Rindfleisch: "really, half of what I'm doing is policy for the campaign, its policy stuff but its for use over there" - via Jake's blog

Truth

Or, this whole narrative that Walker and his staff ran a 2010 Walker for governor campaign out of the executive's office has no basis in fact. How about that, a plain statement from Walker of his position to the people of Milwaukee County and Wisconsin?

Will you stand behind this assertion, Scott Walker? If you like, you could call it another example of your "cracking down on fraudulent use of government programs," as your public webpage states.

Check with the John Doe prosecutors, and the presiding judge. You can legally make an announcement asking that all personnel during Scott Walker's tenure tell the truth to criminal investigators. Some might even call it good government.

Instructions to tell the truth are not even unprecedented in political scandals.

Former President George W. Bush in 2005 said, "I have instructed every member of my staff to fully cooperate in this investigation" of the leak of the name of a CIA non-official cover (or NOC) agent.

So, to repeat, a simple announcement from Scott Walker that his former and current staff tell the simple truth.

Gov. Walker, can you do that?

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Men Like Sex, Secret Service Agents are Cheap
Edition

?They had arranged to have a bunch of prostitutes come by and one of the agents refused to pay a prostitute,? said author Ronald Kessler, one of the leading experts on the Secret Service. ?Yes, doubly good judgment there.? – New York Daily News

Well, it’s one way to “boost economic ties” with Latin America.

In some parts of Columbia, prostitution is legal. Let’s start there.

But, boys, seriously?

No one should think this is a first for the elite agents, however, getting caught with your pants down in our new media world is beyond negligent.

If you are so arrogant to think not paying for sex you propositioned is more important than keeping it quiet you deserve what you get. (Was it really only $47?)

The 11 Secret Service men were placed on leave, with 5 servicemen allegedly also involved, according to the AP.

From the New York Daily News:

?The agent said, ?I don’t owe you anything,? but gave the woman some money,? said King (R-L.I.),the head of the House Homeland Security Committee, who was briefed on the matter. ?I don’t know how much, and it was settled right there.?

Ah, but it was not settled, because an incident that has not been fully described created enough dust for the local police to be called, which precipitated a report being filed with the U.S. Embassy in Cartagena, Columbia.

Five American service members were also accused of misconduct stemming from the scandalous incident at the hotel, according to the U.S. military.

The entire event happened before Pres. Obama landed in Columbia.

Boys will be boys, but if you’re an advance detail for the president of the United States wanting a little strange on the side, nothing new about that, you’d best be able to keep it quiet and also realize that’s your first priority.

This incident, whatever the actual facts, is criminally stupid.

Ah, for the days of John F. Kennedy when everyone just winked, nodded and moved along instead of thinking sex was a crime, propositioned or otherwise.

Read The Full Article:
http://taylormarsh.com/blog/2012/04/men-like-sex-secret-service-agents-are-cheap-
edition/

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