Friday Open Thread
Welcome to your Friday open thread. It’s a spring day in Delaware so I’m taking a vacation day today. It looks a little overcast but I’m enjoying the warm weather! What are you doing with your taste of spring?
Florida’s teabagger governor rejected more than $2B for “Obamarail” because, shut up that’s why. He and the teabaggers are probably the only people happy about it. Florida’s legislature is trying to go around Governor Scott (including many Republicans).
From Washington to Tallahassee, Florida lawmakers scrambled Thursday to save $2.4 billion in federal money for high-speed rail that Gov. Rick Scott rejected.
In Washington, members of Florida’s Congressional delegation met with U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who gave them one week to cobble together a complicated deal that would give the money to a private entity such as Amtrak or a regional planning organization.
“The cart’s in a ditch right now and we’ve got to figure out a way if we can all pull it out together,” said U.S. Rep. John Mica, an Orlando area Republican who is chairman of the powerful House transportation committee.
In Tallahassee, a veto-proof majority of the Florida Senate rebuked Scott in a letter that urged the federal government to give the state the money Scott has refused.
“Politics should have no place in the future of Florida’s transportation, as evidenced by this letter of bipartisan support,” said the letter, signed by 26 members of the Republican-controlled Florida Senate.
That’s what you get when you elect a governor who’s already been convicted of Medicare fraud. I feel sorry for all those Floridians who didn’t vote for Scott.
Global warming denying has jumped the shark in Montana. Now we’re not supposed to deny it, we’re supposed to celebrate it (while denying that humans cause it):
State Rep. Joe Read (R-MT), a farmer and emergency firefighter who unseated a Democratic incumbent in 2010, introduced HB 549 “to ensure economic development in Montana”:
The legislature finds that to ensure economic development in Montana and the appropriate management of Montana’s natural resources it is necessary to adopt a public policy regarding global warming.
(2) The legislature finds:
(a) global warming is beneficial to the welfare and business climate of Montana;
(b) reasonable amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere have no verifiable impacts on the environment; and
(c) global warming is a natural occurrence and human activity has not accelerated it.
So, is this guy some kind of scientist? Of course not. He talked to Think Progress and admitted that he hasn’t even read the literature on the subject. His reasoning is the following:
If you follow the money, the science has been pushed toward where the money is coming from. The money is coming from the federal government. I believe global science is an ideal, not a true science.
Scientists get paid, so they are suspect, unlike all those professional global warming deniers who do it from altruistic reasons. :eyeroll:
Tags: Open Thread
does anyone really wonder why Nascar’s popularity is shrinking? Their redneck fan base isn’t exactly the most welcoming to change or the “other”
Welcome to the world of nascar fans. I doubt anyone is surprised by this
DV: In the far north, where you can’t grow pot, the native peoples often get high by soaking a rag in gasoline, sticking it in a ziploc bag and huffing up. It causes devastating damage to the brain. Not all that different from attending lots of auto races.
How far north? North Pole? b/c some of the best pot in the country comes from Canada.
so I’ve read anyway
DV, havent you heard of the emerald triangle?
I’ve never been, but I’m going to San Francisco in May!
Eastern Canada has a far different climate. You can’t grow any in northeastern Labrador.
http://www.orwelltoday.com/innuitcorruption.shtml
Jesus that’s depressing
in eastern Canada? – of course you can – with a grow-light and heater and some manure you can grow anything..inside
Carolann Wicks is retiring to spend more time with her family (and all that). WOW. Markell is saying that he will look outside of Delaware for her replacement. Good for Jack.
http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110218/NEWS/110218042/Beleaguered-DelDOT-Secretary-Carolann-Wicks-resigns?odyssey=mod|breaking|text|Home
Also, NC County Ethics Commission says that either Clark or his wife must resign if they want to avoid a conflict of interest at county hall. Yeah, that will happen. Look for new ethics legislation STAT.
“with a grow-light and heater and some manure you can grow anything..inside”
Yes, that would totally work in Natuashish, with a population of 750, nothing in the way of work except a few government jobs, sustained mainly by subsistence hunting and accessible only by air and water. Actually, the “town” does have a severe drug and alcohol problem in addition to the gasoline-huffing. Thanks for caring.
I grew up in a town just like that….I got out
so did a lot of others- only option – and its not that I dont care
I was just being snarky
OK. Seriously, the electricity to grow anything comes from generators, which run on gasoline. It’s not surprising some people decide to cut out the steps in the middle. The kid in the linked article, by the way, was 14. I found out about this problem about a decade ago when I met some Inuit stone carvers at an art gallery in Toronto. Upper Labrador is so primitive that these folks had to find their own stone and hack it from the landscape.
I was being snarky, too, comparing these poor blighters to NASCAR fans based on nothing but their overexposure to refined petroleum fumes.
one doea not even have to look as far a Canada for that kind of sadness and poverty – the poorest county in the US is in North Dakota – its a Sioux reservation, the land that time forgot
no roads, no work, no prospects….
investing government funds there to build an infastructure and creating jobs, while attracting business in for the future would be a better long term strategy than just throwing subsistance welfare at them for genertion after generation….
why dont we do that in our out-lying poorer aras?