New research suggests the Earth is made up of two planets that collided and fused together 4.5 billion years ago. Huffington Post's Chris D'Angelo reports that our old theory is wrong, which was that a collision of the planet Theia into Earth was more of a glancing blow that spun off Earth's moon. Instead, according to a NASA-funded research team:
"Earth wasn't just side-swiped by Theia . . . but sustained a direct hit and actually absorbed a large portion of the rogue planet.
"In other words, Earth is made up of two fused planets -- Earth and Theia. . . . Theia was thoroughly mixed into both the Earth and the moon, and
evenly dispersed between them."
The UCLA-led research team compared the chemical makeup of rocks from the moon with volcanic rocks from Arizona and Hawaii. They found little difference
between chemical structures of rocks on the earth and the moon. If
the old theory was right, that Theia hit Earth in a glancing blow,
spinning off the moon, the moon's chemistry would be mostly that of
Theia. That's not what they found. The evidence suggests a direct hit, with Theia being largely absorbed into Earth.
I kind of like the idea of having two planetary parents. Seems more like a family thing and a harbinger of what was to come as people and social institutions gradually evolved over the years.
Ralph
Some random thoughts about Saturday's debate.
1
. We keep forgetting what got so little attention. Going into the debate, 40% of the voters were still undecided. At least they said they could still change their minds. That makes prediction, especially after this debate, very difficult.
2. Christie did Jeb Bush a big favor in taking Rubio down
from his rapid rise as the heir apparent. Christie
is not going to benefit as much from it himself as Bush will, in that
Bush has the money and organization to keep going and Christie does not.
3. With Rubio stalled, with Bush and Kasich both having had their best debate nights, and with Christie doing the dirty work -- the race among those four will not be decided in New Hampshire but will go on to South Carolina.
4. Christie's
success in slowing Rubio may hurt Christie himself. It
wound up putting Bush and Kasich in a stronger position and solidifying
Christie's position as the least among those four.
5. Trump just needed to hold on to his lead, and he probably did that, although Bush did very credibly beat him on the question of imminent domain. Cruz was damaged by the exposure of his dirty tricks, which may lead some of his evangelical followers to rethink whether he is
really the pious leader they thought. I don't for a minute think Cruz
is innocent in this. In fact, he lied in his explanation of what
happened. CNN amended its original message almost immediately, to clarify that Carson was not withdrawing. I was not
three hours later as Cruz said.
6. The whole scandal about Cruz's campaign spreading the rumor that Carson was dropping out has probably also delayed the actuality of Carson's dropping out.
There's no way he's going to let that false rumor be proved true any time soon. So
expect Carson to stay in for a while. He'll get a lot of sympathy
money from supporters that will make it possible for him to continue a little longer.
7. Most important of all: This is all speculation. Let's see what the voters decide, and then try to interpret what that all means.
Ralph
Lots of fighting among the candidates, a lot of denouncing Obama and Clinton, a lot of boasting about what they would do -- with very little about how they would be able to do it.
And much of it all was based, as usual, on lies, misstatements, and distortions.
Rubio didn't have the good night he needed to solidify his rising status as the consensus candidate. Christie brutally attacked him, and it seemed to rattle and throw him off balance. Jeb Bush probably had his best debate night ever and helped himself some. Christie was more combative than ever and put the brakes on Rubio's momentum. But it's unlikely to bring Christie enough votes to finish in the top five. Kasich had a good night and helped himself with independents with his positive message.
Those four were competing for the mantle of the more moderate and establishment Republicans. There was no clear winner, but Rubio was the clear loser, in terms of not closing the deal that he was expected to do. That will have to wait for South Carolina.
Among the outsider three, Trump at least didn't hurt himself, although he's still big on promises and utterly lacking in saying how he would fulfill them. I doubt Cruz changed his standing much either way. Carson will hold on to his loyal following, but he's not going to expand that base, and will continue to slide in the polls as others gain.
Ralph
Several independent studies have shown that people who watch Fox News are LESS well-informed than are people who do not any news shows at all. Translated: Fox News spews out lies and misinformation. Here are three charts that help set President Obama's economic record straight, in contrast to those lies.
The numbers come from the "Budget of the United States Government: Historical Tables Fiscal Year 2015." They are official, and anyone can look them up. Why Fox News -- and right wing radio hosts -- continue to claim otherwise can only be explained by a political agenda . . . unless it's just plain stupidity. But why would stupidity always skew toward conservatism? Well, there may be a reason, but that's another conversation.
Spending
The first chart has to do with spending. As can plainly be seen, government spending rose dramatically under President George W. Bush, only slightly under President Barack Obama: an 88% increase under Bush vs less than 4% increase under Obama.
Deficits
Republicans seem obsessed with reducing the deficit. Most economists agree that, in times of economic recession or sharp downturn, the emphasis should be jobs, not the deficit. So federal stimulus spending to create infrastructure and service jobs, along with unemployment insurance, make much more sense than cutting spending.
But, even given that and the necessary compromises Obama had to make on spending, here's what happened to the deficit
under these two presidents. One can easily argue that the economy
would have returned faster if Obama could have gotten higher stimulus
spending through congress. Bush was charging the costs of his two wars rather than raising taxes to pay for them. Thus, he was clearly the deficit-raising president, Obama the deficit-cutting one.
But
you'd never know it if you listen to the Republicans and their pundits
who yell about the "exploding deficits" under Obama. Please,
Republicans, point out where you see that on this chart.
The Stimulus and Jobs
And then we come to jobs. Bar lines going down mean jobs lost; those going up indicate job gains. Red is for the Bush years, blue for the Obama years. The stimulus spending reversed the lost-job trend and returned us to a net-gain level. But then the stimulus spending was cut, or ran out, and the upturn leveled off.
This
is the basis for thinking that it would have been better to do more stimulus and
for longer. And that was the advice from progressive economists at the time.
But it was politically impossible to get an ideologically conservative
congress to abandon it's "small government, spending-is-bad"
mentality. So we have had a sluggish, prolonged recovery, when it
might have been much quicker and better with proper stimulus. Thus,
saith the progressives, with whom I agree.
Back to the larger question of why Republicans and FoxNews in particular are so committed to misinformation. It puzzles me how they can feel proud of their party that seems to believe the only way to win elections is to mislead (wrong information), deny facts (economic charts), doubt science (climate change), and keep Democratic leaning voters from being able to vote.
And they have the audacity to then stand up and claim the mantle of Patriotism.
Bah humbug !
Ralph
This isn't about politics. It's about ridicule and Schadenfreude.
Four years ago, Dick Cheney's daughter, Liz, decided to run for the U. S. Senate against the well-liked incumbent, Republican senator from Wyoming, Mike Enzi. The Cheneys came from Wyoming and dad Dick was once a congressman from there himself. But Liz grew up in the Washington, DC area where her dad was in government. She worked in government herself and has always lived in the DC suburb of Arlington, Virginia.
Still, four years ago, she sorta established residency in Wyoming by buying a house there -- just before she announced her campaign. Then, as the campaign was getting started, she got bad publicity. She thought it would help to get a Wyoming fishing license.
Wyoming has pretty strict residency requirements for regular hunting and fishing licenses, unlike the temporary ones out-of-staters can get. So Liz filled out an application, claiming to be a resident, and put "10 years" in the box for how long. Now this was a small town, and they knew damn well she had not lived there until a week or so ago, if at all. So they denied her a resident's fishing license, saying she didn't meet the residency requirements.
It was a big embarrassment. Liz tried to blame the license clerk, but everybody knew she had lied. So then, in an attempt to brand herself as a native and meet people, she took to going around the state in cowboy boots and Western attire, but that didn't take either. She lagged way down in the polls and dropped out of the race before the primary to avoid a humiliating defeat.
That was four years ago. Now Liz says she's going to run for congress to fill the seat of a retiring congressman from Wyoming. The announcement was put on her Facebook page, which automatically posted the location from where it was posted: Arlington, Virginia.
Oops !!!
Someone from Wyoming noticed -- and now it's all over the news. Once again Liz is getting off to a bad start with the Wyoming people over whether she qualifies as One of Them.
She doesn't. Really. And they know it.
Ralph
Quoting from Jay Bookman's Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week about allowing guns on college campuses:
"In an AJC poll two years ago, Georgia voters were asked a question: 'Do you favor or oppose allowing students to carry guns on college campuses and in college dorms?'
"Just
20 percent supported allowing guns on campus; 78 percent opposed it.
Seventy-one percent of Republicans opposed it; 71 percent of voters in
North Georgia opposed it; more than 80 percent of those in South Georgia
opposed it. Male, female, black, white, Republican, Democrat, urban,
rural, old, young: Georgians overwhelmingly opposed it.
"Yet this
week, House Republicans introduced legislation that would legalize
firearms on campus anyway. House Bill 859 has already been embraced by
House Speaker David Ralston, who argues that 'getting a college degree
should not mean abdicating your Second Amendment rights.'"
Bookman points out that Ralston is an attorney and should know that, even in the 2008 Supreme Court decision that affirmed an individual right to own firearms, the author of the majority opinion, conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, took the time to write in it this explicit clarification:
". . . nothing in our opinion should be
taken to cast doubt on . . . laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in
sensitive places such as schools and government buildings.”
Thus, as recently as 2008, SCOTUS has said the Second Amendment does not give the right to carry any firearm just anywhere. Bookman continues:
"So
imagine if you’re a professor meeting a student angry about a grade, and
the student shows up at your office with a sidearm. . . . Imagine that after a heated classroom
discussion, one of the angry students shows up armed at the next
scheduled class. . . . neither the professor nor fellow students would
have legal recourse to object. . . .
"In that same AJC
poll, 82 percent supported requiring a gun-safety course as a condition
of receiving a permit. . . . Three bills
creating such a system have been introduced in the current legislative
session, but they are doomed. . . . the odds of
passage are about the same as a resolution making Barack Obama president
for life."
* * *
It seems that conservative politicians absolutely lose their minds when it comes to guns. Or maybe they don't lose their minds. They know what they're doing is dangerous and wrong. But the power of NRA money is just too much for them to resist.
When those same people rant and rave about the sanctity of the Founding Fathers and their intent, someone should remind them that those wise men began our Declaration of Independence with "We the People." Do you think they only meant the people who were living in 1776? Doesn't the will of We, the Living People, count?
The sad thing is that in Georgia our legislative districts are so politically drawn that this saying is literally true: "Voters no longer choose their representatives; politicians choose their voters." We need to get rid of the corrupting influence of money in politics; and we need to have an independent, unbiased commission to draw up district lines.
Ralph
The best comment on the debate was what Senator Sanders said near the end, referring both to Secretary Clinton and himself:
"On our worst nights, I think it is fair to say, we are one hundred times better than any of the Republican candidates."
