(no subject)

(no subject)

"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation."
- John McCain, Contingencies Magazine, September 2008.

(no subject)

Wherein the rich white boy posts about privilege.

I like kittikattie. You should like her too.

(no subject)

The Most Dangerous Road

Or, rather, the lack thereof - a photo tour of the Darien Gap, between Columbia and Panama - the most dangerous place in the Western Hemisphere.

Makes me want to cry. And stab teachers. But mostly cry.

Political scientists Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler provided two groups of volunteers with the Bush administration's prewar claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. One group was given a refutation -- the comprehensive 2004 Duelfer report that concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded in 2003. Thirty-four percent of conservatives told only about the Bush administration's claims thought Iraq had hidden or destroyed its weapons before the U.S. invasion, but 64 percent of conservatives who heard both claim and refutation thought that Iraq really did have the weapons. The refutation, in other words, made the misinformation worse.

A similar "backfire effect" also influenced conservatives told about Bush administration assertions that tax cuts increase federal revenue. One group was offered a refutation by prominent economists that included current and former Bush administration officials. About 35 percent of conservatives told about the Bush claim believed it; 67 percent of those provided with both assertion and refutation believed that tax cuts increase revenue.
===========================
Source

torrain would leave me in a heartbeat for this.

(She'd come back. But y'know how it is.)

(no subject)

Dead Man Walking: John McCain claims to have beaten Stage II malignant melanoma with surgery to his skin and lymph nodes. Problem: If it involves the lymph nodes, IT IS STAGE III OR HIGHER, BY DEFINITION.

And he won't release his 1000+ page medical record, which
A) is far larger than most medical records
and
B) is abnormal for Presidential candidates.

(no subject)

Courtesy of The Stranger