SteveG


Democratic darling has also been critic

Well, this seems to be the week for the press to catch up to my blog.  The Boston Globe came out with the story Democratic darling has also been critic, subtitled “In book, Warren targeted key figures”.

In her best-selling book, she charged that Senator Hillary Clinton abandoned her principles and supported a bankruptcy bill in exchange for campaign contributions. Warren accused Joe Biden, also a senator at the time, of selling out women. And she chided Patty Murray – the Washington senator who later helped recruit her into the race and is now leading the national effort to elect her – for wanting to shame bankrupt families.

This mirrors my post back in December, Elizabeth Warren And Hillary Clinton Trade Lessons.  The headline on the continuation of The Boston Globe story on an inside page says, “Warren book may help or hurt her run.”

This furthers the point that I have been making to the Warren campaign with zero success.  You cannot change the fact that Elizabeth Warren has written several books.  I think the books are a tremendous asset to her campaign and should be advertised by her campaign rather than hidden by them.  If she doesn’t make a big deal of her books in a positive way, someone else will turn them into a negative.  Why wait around for the inevitable?  Why not get out in front of the curve?

I don’t know how many times the campaign will have to be hit over the head with these ideas before they finally wake up.  One almosts suspects that this behavior of the campaign falls under the category Greenberg’s Law of Counterproductive Behavior, “If you see a behavior that seems to you to be counterproductive, perhaps you have misunderstood what the actor was trying to produce.”


Elizabeth Warren: Whose Side Are You On?

Cape Cod Today has the article Elizabeth Warren: Whose Side Are You On? by Mary Wentworth.

She has some policy disagreements with Elizabeth Warren that are similar to mine,

First off, your Foreign Policy statement that “Iran is a significant threat to the United States and our allies” because it “is pursuing nuclear weapons” verges on warmongering.

She also has some complaints about the campaign that are similar to mine.

The web site does not invite a repeat visit. Rework it so we can find out what happened yesterday, what’s up for today, communicate with one another, contribute to fill a bat or a balloon when you need a money bomb, let us show how we can work together to promote your candidacy. Make it a fun place.

One thing that is different is that she has the professional political experience to give some credence to her observations.

Thanks to Michael Horan for posting this article on his Facebook page, where I first saw it.


Ohio stiffens regulations after concluding that fracking caused earthquakes

Raw Story is carrying the article, Ohio stiffens regulations after concluding that fracking caused earthquakes.

Ohio state regulators announced tough new regulations on Friday after concluding that the injection of wastewater underground as part of the controversial gas-drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” had almost certainly caused a dozen earthquakes near one well.

This story was published Friday, March 9, 2012.  I scooped them by more than a year with my previous post EPA to natural gas companies: Give details on ‘fracking’ chemicals published on December 30, 2010.

I added the following to the article about the EPA:

To add to the worries enumerated in the above story, I recall the troubles that came to light many years ago in Rocky Mountain Arsenal in Colorado. There was a sudden rise in minor earthquakes that was attributed to the pumping of industrial waste into underground storage. The threat was so serious that such pumping was halted. I’m off to track down the story of the earthquake in Indiana, Indiana earthquake strikes in rare location, to see if it is near any natural gas wells that have been subject to fracking

After writing the above paragraph, I did the research and added the results to the end of that post.

That link above to the Rocky Mountain Arsenal showed that the U. S. Army knew about this hazard in 1966.  Why should it be a surprise to Ohio almost 50 years later?


Elizabeth Warren Radio Ad About The Republican Contraception Side-Show

There is nothing to see here, just something to listen to.


At least she tells you what she is running for. If you still don’t know who Elizabeth Warren is, maybe the picture below may help. When we collect nomination paper signatures for her, it helps many people to connect.



Dennis Kucinich: Conscience of the Congress

Truth Out has published this paean, Dennis Kucinich: Conscience of the Congress.

Here is something I didn’t know about Dennis Kucinich:

That populist passion caused him to rouse the ire of the banking elite that insisted that the city divest its municipal power plant to benefit a huge private power company.

When Kucinich refused to play ball with the downtown banking interests they pulled the plug on Cleveland finances and temporarily derailed his career. But 14 years later the Cleveland Plain Dealer, which has savaged him since his mayoral days, ran a headline conceding “Dennis Was Right” as it belatedly acknowledged that his refusal to sell the plant had provided needed competition to private power, resulting in lower energy costs for consumers.

I wonder if The Cleveland Plain Dealer called the municipal power plant socialist when they were against it, but they changed that to populist when they were for it.


Ignorance Is Strength

The headline writers at The New York Times must be channeling the book 1984 when they came up with headline Ignorance Is Strength for Paul Krugman’s op-ed piece.  The take-away paragraph from the piece is:

So whenever you hear Republicans say that they are the party of traditional values, bear in mind that they have actually made a radical break with America’s tradition of valuing education. And they have made this break because they believe that what you don’t know can’t hurt them.

Thanks to Art Bushkin for posting this on his Facebook page.


Einstein Was Right All Along: ‘Faster-Than-Light’ Neutrino Was Product of Error

Time magazine has the story, Einstein Was Right All Along: ‘Faster-Than-Light’ Neutrino Was Product of Error.

Today, the CERN team announced that the GPS system used to adjust the mechanism that timed the neutrinos’ journey had a loose fiber optic cable. When it was fixed — and its mistaken readings scrubbed from the data — the 60-nanosecond difference disappeared.

That did not come as much of a surprise to generations of physicists and students who have come to see Einstein’s word as law. And, according to Ars Technica, it did not come as a surprise to Sergio Bertolucci, CERN’s head of research. When asked before the glitch was discovered if he believed the neutrinos really did get to the Apennine Mountains so fast, he said he had his doubts, “because nothing in Italy arrives ahead of time.”

It’s good to know that I don’t have to relearn everything I have known about physics since my college days, if you can believe what you read in Time. I stopped reading Time when I realized they cared more about the aesthetics of the pages of the magazine than they cared about the truth of the magazine.  In the case of these two article I quote today, you see that Time articles must have some breezy humor in them.  That makes me suspicious that style is still more important to Time than substance.


The Higgs Boson: Have Scientists Found the Mystery Particle?

Time magazine web site has the story, The Higgs Boson: Have Scientists Found the Mystery Particle?

“I don’t think there’s any place for the Higgs to hide,” Fermilab physicist Rob Roser told the Associated Press. “We’ll know the answer one way or another by the end of 2012.”

The article does have a nice layperson’s explanation of the Higgs, if you can believe what you read in Time. I stopped reading Time when I realized they cared more about the aesthetics of the pages of the magazine than they cared about the truth of the magazine.