When sunlike stars run out of fuel, they explode in a series of pulses, throwing off much of their mass in the form of a giant shell of gas called a planetary nebula. What remains of the star is a superdense white dwarf star at the center. The star’s planets, if any, are shattered by the blast. This could be the fate of Earth.
The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll is just an endless horror show for Republicans. Obama’s approval is up; Republican Party approval is down; confidence in the economic recovery has plummeted thanks to the budget standoff; and voters blame Republicans for the government shutdown by a margin of 53-31.
Virtually everyone who’s not a hardcore dittohead blames the GOP. What’s more, 73 percent of the public thinks the shutdown is a serious problem and 31 percent have been personally affected.
But none of that is a big surprise. Here’s something that is: After a week of 24/7 media coverage about the problems with the rollout of Obamacare, its popularity has gone up. It’s still not doing gangbusters or anything, but it’s pretty interesting that an awful lot of people who previously had no opinion are now feeling pretty positive about it. Is this because they or someone they know has actually gone on line and discovered that there are pretty good deals available? I don’t know. But something has changed their minds
The technology in Iron Man is getting a step closer to reality thanks to the United States military. The Army has commissioned a Tactical Assault Light Operator Suit, which would provide the wearer with superhuman abilities like night vision, enhanced strength, and protection from gunfire.
Each suit would have an on-board computer that would be able to instantly respond to certain situations and provide the user with enhanced situational awareness. According to the press release, the suit may use liquid armor, currently under development at MIT, which has the ability to transform from a “liquid to solid in milliseconds when a magnetic field or electrical current is applied.” The goal is full-body ballistic protection, theoretically allowing the wearer to literally walk through a stream of bullets. A panel that rests against the skin would be able to detect and respond to the body’s core temperature, skin temperature, heart rate, and hydration levels. The suit would also provide basic life support such as heat, air, and oxygen.
The Army isn’t the first to be inspired by the technology in Iron Man. Elon Musk created a lab based on the movie using a Leap Motion controller, an Oculus Rift, and a projector. While he admits that the setup doesn’t yet have much practical value, he believes that we’re on the cusp on major design and manufacturing breakthroughs. If the new Army commando suit comes to fruition, it could be a big step forward for defense technology.
On his show The Daily Show, Jon Stewart continued his nightly hammering of the Republican shutdown and on the video below, he includes commentary about President Obama and his role or lack thereof in the shutdown. And in his ever clever way, Stewart stumbled upon some truths about the Republicans in Congress – that they are functioning “at kindergarten level!”
Truth!
The Daily Show
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Sarah Connor wrote this letter. It was sent to every member of The House and Senate. A copy of this letter was also sent to the President.
Dear Members of Congress, Senators, President Obama, and whoever else reads this;
My name is Sarah Connor. I’m fourteen and I’m extremely disappointed in all of you, Democrats and Republicans alike. Not about your political views, but about how you run this country of 314 million people who all rely on you, a mere five hundred people, to make sure we keep living in a safe and functioning country.
I don’t think you are paying attention to what your petty squabbles for power and party grudges have done. You are so blinded by your politics that you can’t see past your noses to the real United States, the one that doesn’t run on politics, but on the decisions that you have been postponing and pushing aside.
The really sad thing is that you do this so much that it isn’t even that big a deal anymore. You wait until the last minute, fighting tooth and nail (figuratively, of course) to stop or pass a bill. Then you simply pass legislature that will delay it and any nasty consequences it was set up to have if it wasn’t passed.
You have no sense of time management, and that’s a huge problem.
If I managed my schoolwork like you all manage our country, I would fail miserably. I would wait until last minute for every project and every homework assignment. Then when it wasn’t finished on the due date, I would simply ask the teacher for more time; and then just keep repeating the cycle all over again. I would end up never doing my homework; and if I even did, I would only do it halfway so that I could get it in before the end of the school year. And somehow I’d still expect to pass my classes.
That, reader, is how you are currently running our country. With expectations of extra time and getting a grade of 100 on partial work.
I’m pretty sure my friends and I could manage this country better than you. We know when one person should triumph over another; and we respect each other’s opinions, even when they may not agree with our own. From the first day of kindergarten children are taught to work together, whether or not they like each other, and to get projects done.
You don’t do that.
You squabble like little children fighting over who gets the remote or who gets to choose a game. You refuse to cooperate with someone just because they want something different than you. And you throw tantrums if you don’t get your way.
It’s like you forgot everything you learned in elementary school about how to be a good partner.
I’m only 14 and I’m ashamed to see you behaving this way. You are supposed to be the great leaders of our country. You are children’s role models and teachers. They look up to you as the ones who keep our country running. If you behave in the ways you do now, you’re not teaching the leaders of tomorrow how to lead. You’re teaching them how to fight, how to squabble, and how to wage political wars that separate the two parties that were created to keep this country together.
So stop fighting, sit down at your desks, and do your work. Or I’ll send my mom down there to give you all a good whipping into shape. If she teaches you the way she taught me and my brothers, she’ll get you guys running this country properly in a week.
Sincerely, Sarah Connor
If you don’t know who Alan Grayson is, then you must have had your head under a rock! Please allow me to me to remind you.
On the House floor on Wednesday, Grayson educated his fellow House colleagues on just how popular the American people think they are, especially after the Republican Government Shutdown. Explaining the meaning of the word “dignity,” Grayson educates;
If dignity means what the dictionary says it means—the state or quality of being worthy of honor or respect—then surely the honor and worthy of honor or respect of this house has been called into question.
When only 7 out of 100 Americans approve of what we do – the lowest approval rating ever – then surely our dignity has been diminished and is actively being called into question. If we are to be called obstructionists, practicers of partisan petulance, if we are called an establishment that is rotten to the core, if we are leaving Americans wondering why there is so much poison in the system, then surely our dignity as a body has been diminished.
If we’re accused of willingly provoking crises that suspend public services and decrease economic growth, then surely our dignity as a body has been diminished. If we cause international media outlets to refer to us as politically bankrupt and responsible for breaking America’s dignity, as a body, as a House, is being called into question.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) blamed tea party Republicans for the government shutdown during a CNN interview on Wednesday, saying Congress never had a shot at defunding Obamacare.
“We started this on a fool’s errand, convincing so many millions of Americans and our supporters that we could defund Obamacare,” McCain said.
While McCain didn’t name names, he faulted members of Congress — “tea partiers specifically” — for wrongly telling “millions of Americans” that Obamacare can be defunded.
That “obviously wouldn’t happen until we had 67 Republican senators to override a presidential veto,” McCain said.
McCain denounced the fight to defund Obamacare at the cost of a fiscal impasse even before the govenrment shut down last week. McCain called out Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for his anti-Obamacare speech, and said “the people spoke” when they reelected President Barack Obama in 2012
I know things are bad right now, the economy is slowly reviving despite the constant Republican attacks. But can things get so bad that a weatherman feels the need to pick up food off the floor and shove it in his mouth… on camera?
And to make this unbelievable story even worse… the Connecticut weatherman thought he was shoving food in his mouth, but it turned out to be cat vomit.
Scot Haney was running through Wednesday morning’s show with fellow stars at Hartford CBS affiliate WFSB when he spotted what he thought was food on the floor.
Believing it to be Grape-Nuts, he broke the three-second rule to scoop it up and shovel it into his mouth.
It was only as he began chewing the droplets that he started to gag — telling viewers across Connecticut it “tastes like shoes” and “smells like feet.”
With his face pulling all sorts of strange expressions, he then said: “Oh. I don’t think those are Grape-Nuts. I think that might be dog doody.”
The repulsive truth, however, was finally revealed minutes later as Haney presented his “What’s Trending Now” segment of the show.
“Ladies and gentlemen, those were not Grape-Nuts that I ate. I kept finding more and more of it on the floor, and I thought it was grape nuts because it looked just like it,” he said.
“My cat threw up, and I must have stepped in it and that’s what I ate,” he confessed to camera.
Really? This must be a common routine fir the guy. Who picks up food off the floor?
We all know that the Koch brothers are financially responsible for the Teaparty and all they stand for. And we all know based on reporting from the New York Times that this government shutdown was planned months ago by the Republican leadership and their Teaparty brethren.
Their government shutdown to defund Obamacare plan however, has not panned out the way they expected, as more and more Americans continue to blame and abandon the GOP’s crazy antics. New Polling data shows that Republicans are paying a huge price for shutting down the government and now the financial foundation of the Teaparty wants nothing to do with the shutdown.
In a letter from the Kochs, the brothers are saying that that a government shutdown was never their idea, and that Republicans and the Teaparty were on their own.
“Koch believes that Obamacare will increase deficits, lead to an overall lowering of the standard of health care in America, and raise taxes,” the letter said. “However, Koch has not taken a position on the legislative tactic of tying the continuing resolution to defunding Obamacare nor have we lobbied on legislative provisions defunding Obamacare.”
A lot of the market indicators of how much the financial world is worrying about a debt default have been quite calm over the last week. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index, for example, is only about 1 percent below its close eight days ago, when the government shutdown began.
But in the less widely followed — but in many ways more important — market for Treasury bills, things are starting to get scary. These are short-term IOU’s of the U.S. government, bills issued for 30, 60 or 90 days. They enable Uncle Sam to manage cash flow much the way a homeowner might use a credit card. They also form the backbone of trillions of dollars in transactions: Major corporations and banks use them as a place to park short-term cash; they are held by money market mutual funds; and they serve as collateral for millions of transactions in markets around the world.
Normally, the interest rate the government pays on bills is around the same as the short-term interest rates in other money markets (for example, the interest rates banks charge each other for overnight cash, or the interest rate that the Federal Reserve targets). Both of those are near zero right now, which is why on Sept. 30, eight days ago, the interest rate on Treasury bills maturing Oct. 17 was a mere 0.03 percent. Nothing, in other words.
But since then, the possibility that the Treasury might have trouble paying or might not be able to pay its bills over the next few weeks has grown — and the interest rate has skyrocketed. It was at 0.16 percent at Monday’s close. On Tuesday the rate so far has been almost double that, as high as 0.297 percent.
There are reports, including this one from Reuters, indicating that some of the biggest money managers in the world are starting to avoid U.S. government debt that matures in the near future out of fear they will not be repaid promptly.
If it wasn’t for their families, Republicans’ favorable ratings would be hovering somewhere around 1%.
Only 28 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party, according to findings from Gallup released Wednesday.
That number represents a nadir for either party since Gallup began asking the question in 1992 and a 10-point drop for the GOP from a month ago. Sixty-two percent said they have an unfavorable opinion of the Republican Party.
Conversely, Gallup found that Americans are more split when it comes to Democrats. Forty-three percent said they have a favorable opinion of the Democratic Party, compared with almost half — 49 percent — who said they have an unfavorable opinion.
According to Gallup, which recently found support for the tea party dropping to a record low, about one in four Americans view both of the two major parties unfavorably.
The chart below tracks the public’s views of the two parties in Gallup’s polling since the early 1990s
Let it be Known that THIS President is Fed Up! He’s just about reached his Boiling point and so has America.
In his press conference on Tuesday, President Obama reiterated his position of Not negotiating with the Republican hostage takers unless they “do their jobs” and put an end to the Government Shutdown and their threats of not raising the Debt Ceiling.
President Obama did not mince words in his opening statement calling on Republican Speaker John Boehner to take the bill to a vote, something he had been asking Boehner to do since the shutdown began. The President spoke on Tuesday and said he was Willing to negotiate and have open discussions with Boehner and any other Republican on any issues, even the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) but not under extortion threats and not until they ended the shutdown.
The President also spoke on the looming Debt Ceiling crisis that is set to take us over the cliff on October 17th. During his opening comments, Mr Obama read statements by bankers, investors, the Treasury Dept., economists and even billionaire Warren Buffet, a staunch supporter of the President.
In those statements, the president described the potential outcome of defaulting on the nation’s debt. The president used words like insane, catastrophic, irresponsible and Buffet comparing the Default to the likes of an Atomic Bomb going off in America’s financial district.
With these highly qualified and financially successful individuals expressing such dire outcomes to this unfathomable inaction of not raising the Debt Ceiling, the Republicans have shown NO indication of giving in to the desires of the President, the Democratic and Independent members in Congress or the hundreds of thousands of Americans already suffering from the Government Shutdown. To be clear, some Reublicans have gone on record to say the Debt Ceiling is not a big deal.
Rep. John Fleming, (R) of Louisiana said of the economist predictions of castrophic events if the Debt Ceiling isn’t raised, “Many times they’re wrong. So I don’t think we should be running government based on economists’ predictions.” Rep. Richard Burr, (R) of NC made similar comments about not taking the Debt Ceiling seriously. Tom Coburn, (R) of Oklahoma was made an even worse assessment of the Debt Ceiling crisis by saying on an CNN interview that there is NO DEBT CEILING.
So, with the Republicans and Tea Party cheering on these self inflicted crises one after another, why would they – the same people who champion themselves as being Patriotic, Responsible and “Country loving” Americans – allow this Country to fall into Default? Why did they shutdown the Government and place thousands in financial dismay and/or ruin?
The shutdown has not only caused furloughs to hundreds of thousands, but is also affecting WIC programs and children that depend on that program for food and other necessities. It has affected the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in being able to pursue the aggressive viruses and diseases. And now, it is affecting loved ones who have had service men and women killed in the line of duty.
The Republican Party and Tea Party members are demanding the President negotiate with them or they will not end the shutdown AND will allow this country to Default on its obligations. Obama said yesterday that America has never defaulted in the last 225-years so why are the Republicans so Willing to let it occur now?
It’s not about Negotiations. It’s about Destroying a President.
The President said the Democrats have attempted to negotiate with Republicans 19-times only to have them squash talks with more of their wants but not giving anything in return.
No, the Republicans and Tea Party members are so willing to let this Country and the Amerian people suffer to destroy President Obama. Their plan is to tarnish, defame, discredit, nullify and destroy Obama’s legacy.
They are trying to kill this country and all of Obama’s successes will become null and void in their eyes and in their hopes, the Americans as well.
It’s a careless, irresponsible and harmful gamble by the Republicans and Tea Party members, but they seem oblivious or just plain ignorant to what may be their political demise.
Polls show that Americans are placing the government shutdown blame on Replublicans at 39% in the latest Pew Poll while 30% blamed Obama. But Republicans aren’t listening to Polls nor Americans because the end game is shutting down a President. And to think, the shutdown began with Obamacare but has now shifted to the Debt Ceiling.
What the outcome will bring is unclear but to the rest of the World, America’s Bright and Shiny Star is becoming a dull rock on a dusty hill.
We can’t, as President Obama said Tuesday, continue to manufacturer these crises every 3-months. Government wasn’t meant to operate in this fashion. But we have a group of people in Congress that have yet to accept This President as a Legitimate Leader of the Free World.
In reading some Twitter feeds on yesterday, one stuck out the most. It said, “The Black race has been more willing to Overcome and Work with the white race even after the Atrocities performed against them vs The White race Accepting a Black Man as President and working With Him.” Poignant indeed.
While No One Wants to Believe this is Racially motivated by the Republicans and Tea Party members, it’s been amazing to see how white America has reacted on Twitter and other social media outlets. If our white brothers and sisters are crying racism against the President, it’s clearly racism.
So what do we do about it? We Vote! Outvote the Extremists that elect these Extreme Members of Congress. We Expose them for who and what they are and Vote Them Out!
They say it’s time to take back Their country? Well I say It’s Time We Expel, vote out extremism and allow this Country To Move Forward! Now IS THE TIME! Vote America! If you want TRUE CHANGE, VOTE Out THE EXTREME!
