Welcome to your Thursday open thread. *Checks temperature* *whimper* Stay hydrated folks!
Al Franken was right – Rush Limbaugh is a big fat idiot. He now thinks the heat index is a government conspiracy. This is one of the guys who thought winter snow proves global warming is not real.
Rush Limbaugh: They’re playing games with us on this heat wave, again. Even Drudge, drudge getting sucked in here. Gonna be a 116 in Washington. No, it’s not. It’s going to be a 100, maybe 99. The heat index, manufactured by the government, they tell you what it feels like when you add the humidity in there. 116 – When’s the last time the heat index was reported as an actual temperature? It hasn’t been. But it looks like they’re trying to get away with doing that now.
I don’t understand what Limbaugh is going on about but I usually don’t. Go read the link, it explains heat index, what it is and how it came about.
Speaking of Al Franken, I’m not sure if you’ve seen the sweet takedown of a Focus on the Family witness at the DOMA repeal hearing:
Steve Benen provides a description of what happens in the video:
It’s tough to provide a detailed transcript for those who can’t watch clips from your work computers, but Minnery argued in his statement for the committee that there’s documented proof that children raised in a household with a mother and a father are infinitely more likely to be better off than in any other family structure. As proof, the Focus on the Family leader cited a study published by the Department of Health and Human Services late last year.
“I checked the study out,” Franken said with a smile.
The Minnesota senator proceeded to explain that Minnery misrepresented the report’s contents in a rather dramatic way. What HHS actually found is that children do better in two-parent households, but whether those parents are of the same gender or not was irrelevant.
“The study defines a ‘nuclear family’ as one or more children living with two parents who are married to one another and are each biological or adoptive parents to all the children in the family,” Franken concluded. “And I frankly don’t really know how we can trust the rest of your testimony if you are reading studies these ways.”
Chris Coons also played a big role in the DOMA repeal hearing. Here’s a video of his opening statement:
I doubt DOMA repeal has a chance of passing this session but I’m glad they are talking about it. Thank you Senator Coons, Senator Franken and Senator Leahy!