Senator Richard Shelby (R-Alabama) placed a hold on 70 executive nominations…yes 70…meaning the Democrats need to muster 60 votes to proceed to a debate to proceed to another cloture vote, or wait until Shelby nicely releases the holds…and you wonder why people don’t trust the government with their healthcare?
Why would a Republican Senator put a blanket hold on nearly six dozen executive nominations?
I just spent the morning with the Phoenix leg of the Zig Ziglar Get Motivated! seminar. An afternoon of fellowship, leadership, and motivational speaking.
By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
Conservatives often moan about the inefficiency and waste that comes with big government. A lot of times they have a point; government can sometimes be mindnumbingly bureaucratic (or far worse). Anybody who’s had a bad experience with the DMV can probably attest to this.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that every single government program is evil. The “Cash-for-Clunkers” rebate program was a prime example of an effective, helpful government program.
More below.
Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.
Jessica Milgroom isn’t your typical graduate student. Rather than spending her days in the library of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, her research is done in the field-literally. Since 2006, Jessica has been working with farming communities living inside Limpopo National Park, in southern Mozambique.
When the park was established in 2001, it was essentially “parked on top of 27,000 people,” says Jessica. Some 7,000 of the residents needed to be resettled to other areas, including within the park, which affected their access to food and farmland. Jessica’s job is to see what can be done to improve resettlement food security.
But rather than simply recommending intensified agriculture in the park to make better use of less land, Jessica worked with the local community to collect and identify local seed varieties. One of the major problems in Mozambique, as well as other countries in sub-Saharan Africa, is the lack of seed. As a result, farmers are forced to buy low-quality seed because nothing else is available.
In addition to identifying and collecting seeds, Jessica is working with a farmer’s association on seed trials, testing varieties to see what people like best. In addition, farmers are learning how to purify and store seeds (see Innovation of the Week: Investing in Better Food Storage in Africa).
Weevils, the farmers tell Jessica, are worse than ever, destroying both the seed and crops they store in traditional open-air, granaries. But the farmers are now building newer granaries that are more tightly sealed and help prevent not only weevils but also mold and aflatoxins from damaging crops.
Today, farmers and breeders alike have a greater respect for Mozambique’s indigenous seed varieties. According to Jessica, one of the biggest accomplishments of the project has been getting breeders and farmers to talk to each other. “It’s been interesting for both groups,” says Jessica, “and it needs to be a regular discussion” between them.
The barriers erected by prejudice always amaze me, after they are gone. I have fought for women’s rights, for civil rights for blacks and for gay rights. But it is the latter which has claimed my greatest outrage. I think it is because I have been more seriously threatened as a gay person-as a lesbian.
In Manhattan, 2 cops called me faggot, forced me into an alley and pushed me around. I think they wanted to hurt me real bad. My friends intervened by refusing to leave the entrance to the alley so the cops no longer had the privacy to wreak their vengeance.
Despite repeated statements by voices on the US political Right about the need to torture terrorist suspects in order to get actionable intelligence, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – the Crotch Bomber – is singing like a bird from his US Federal prison cell near Detroit.
Mike Allen & Kasie Hunt at Politico have this:
The “underwear bomber” has begun cooperating with FBI counterterrorism agents and has provided “useful, current” intelligence, a law enforcement source told POLITICO. The source said: “It started last week, and has continued for several days. … We have been following up. The intelligence is not stale.” He certainly sees that there are incentives provided by the criminal justice system to cooperate.
Like many of you, I like to watch movies. Even today, there are still a lot of feel-good, old-fashioned hits that make your heart warm. Things like Slumdog Millionaire and National Treasure.
In National Treasure – the sequel, that is – there exists a scene in which the main character kidnaps the president; its necessary to “find the treasure.” It’s one of the scenes I remember, not because it’s particularly memorable or even good, but because of what the scene expresses. The movie respects the president. He’s fundamentally a decent guy or gal who’s going to do the right thing in the end. For that, the president deserves our respect. And in National Treasure, he gets it.
Perhaps a lot of more sophisticated persons might view these sentiments as naive. But I’m sure many viewers of Fox News have the same, old-fashioned beliefs. With regard to George Bush in particular, I’m sure many of them believed that he was decent man trying to do the right thing for our country. Whatever his mistakes, he deserved our respect.
Which is why it so disturbs me to watch Fox News today. The channel’s attitude is consistently disrespectful to our president. Fox commentators are free – are encouraged, in fact – to ridicule and malign the leader of our nation. They operate from the assumption that Barack Obama is not a decent man and that he does not want to do the right thing for the country. They seem to think that our commander-in-chief is an enemy or something, just because he happens to be a Democrat.
That’s bad. It’s bad for the president. It’s bad for our country, because a polarized nation with a paralyzed leader is always in a state of weakness. Think about Iran today. It’s even bad for Fox News and the Republicans, because when they do come up with legitimate criticism – the president’s not going to listen anymore. They’ll have long lost all their credibility.
Maybe I’m just an old-fashioned type of guy, but I think that our president deserves respect.
–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
This is the first in a two-part series about my visit to the Kyeema Foundation in Maputo, Mozambique. Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.
Although avian influenza and H1N1 have dominated the news for the last few years, many other serious diseases can ravage livestock and rural communities. Newcastle disease, which can wipe out entire flocks of chickens and can spread from farm to farm, is especially devastating for rural farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
Vaccines for Newcastle used to be hard to come by in Africa. They were imported and usually expensive, putting them out of reach of small farmers. And even when they were available, they required refrigeration, which is not common in many rural villages.
Today, however, thanks to the work of the International Rural Poultry Center of the Kyeema Foundation in Mozambique, villages have access not only to vaccines, but also to locally trained community vaccinators (or para-vets) who can help spot and treat Newcastle and other poultry diseases before they spread.
With help from a grant from the Australian Government’s overseas aid program (AusAID), Kyeema developed a thermo-stable vaccine that doesn’t need to be refrigerated and is easier for rural farmers to administer to their birds. Dr. Rosa Costa, Kyeema’s director in Mozambique, explained that vaccinations take place three times a year and farmers are taught-with cleverly designed flip-charts and posters-how to apply the vaccines with eyedroppers.
In addition, according to Dr. Costa, the community vaccinators try to link the control of Newcastle with efforts to address avian influenza because the symptoms of the two diseases-coughing, diarrhea, lethargy, runny eyes, mortality-are often similar.
Community leaders help Kyeema identify people who are well respected in the community to be community vaccinators, who then receive training. The vaccinators aren’t compensated by Kyeema, but they can make a small profit from each bottle of vaccination. Typically, women are chosen as vaccinators, says Dr. Costa. Not only do they tend to stay in the villages more than men, but the money they earn usually does much more to help the family because they use it to buy food or schoolbooks for their children.
Because more birds are surviving because of vaccinations, Kyeema is also working with farmers to build better housing for their poultry and to find additional sources of feed.
Stay tuned for more on our visit to Kyeema later this week.
Cross posted from Nourishing the Planet.
McDonald’s is hoping to change the way consumers view fast food. In partnership with the E-CO2 Project, an independent U.K. consulting firm, the company is launching a three-year study to assess methane production from beef cows in the United Kingdom, as well as ways to reduce livestock production of the greenhouse gas.
A burger joint famous for drive-thru windows and Happy Meals is certainly not the first business that comes to mind when one thinks about environmental sustainability. But with increasing mainstream awareness of the negative consequences of beef production for both human health and the environment, the fast-food giant is looking to reposition itself as leader of green business models.
McDonald’s purchases beef from more than 16,000 British and Irish farmers, who raise their cattle in large feedlots. The methane gas produced by livestock accounts for an estimated 4 percent of the U.K.’s total carbon emissions. McDonald’s hopes that the results of the study will help guide efforts to reduce suppliers’ methane production. The initiative also will likely help “green” the corporation’s image in the minds of an increasingly environmentally conscious public.
With the death of the elder Kristol in September, Newsweek’s David Margolick published this week a rundown on the Neoconservative movement, in its current formation.