Best Band Name Ever...

Big Jef Special


Here's the website.

Conservatives are Happier...

It's all here:

Individuals with conservative ideologies are happier than liberal-leaners, and new research pinpoints the reason: Conservatives rationalize social and economic inequalities.

Regardless of marital status, income or church attendance, right-wing individuals reported greater life satisfaction and well-being than left-wingers, the new study found. Conservatives also scored highest on measures of rationalization, which gauge a person's tendency to justify, or explain away, inequalities.

The rationalization measure included statements such as: "It is not really that big a problem if some people have more of a chance in life than others," and "This country would be better off if we worried less about how equal people are."

Voter ID - Nuns Can't Vote!

About 12 Indiana nuns were turned away Tuesday from a polling place by a fellow sister because they didn't have state or federal identification bearing a photograph.

Sister Julie McGuire said she was forced to turn away her fellow members of Saint Mary's Convent in South Bend, across the street from the University of Notre Dame, because they had been told earlier that they would need such an ID to vote.

The nuns, all in their 80s or 90s, didn't get one but came to the precinct anyway.

...

Late Tuesday, Secretary of State Todd Rokita was unapologetic.

"Indiana's Voter ID Law applies to everyone. From all accounts that we've heard, the sisters were aware of the photo ID requirements and chose not to follow them," he said in a statement released by his office.

Wisconsin Health Care Facts

From the Badger Poll:

• Approximately 45% of Wisconsin residents feel that the health care system in the state has major problems, 44% say it has minor problems, 7% say it is currently in a state of crisis and just 2% say there are no problems.
• 76% favored expanding the eligibility of existing government programs such as BadgerCare and Medicaid to provide coverage for more people without health insurance.
• 65% favored requiring every resident of Wisconsin to attain health insurance, either from their employer or another source, with government subsidies to low-income residents to help them pay for it
• 61% of residents favored replacing the current health care system with a new system administered entirely by state government that covers all Wisconsinites.
• When it comes to how responsible the State of Wisconsin and the Federal Government should be in making sure that all state residents have access to both high quality and affordable health care 44% said the State of Wisconsin should be extremely or quite responsible and 55% said the Federal Government should be extremely or quite responsible.

Healthy WI is here.

The Free Tibet Irony...

From the NYTimes:

It seems that even as the Chinese government was engaged in a massive effort to crush Tibetans and their culture, a factory in the southern Chinese city of Guangdong was manufacturing the very same ?Free Tibet? flags that have been flying in pro-Tibet, anti-Beijing demonstrations all over the world.

According to media reports quoted by the BBC, factory workers didn?t realize the meaning of the colorful flags they were producing in response to overseas orders until they saw protestors carrying the flags on TV. They then called authorities. The factory owner also was quoted as saying he didn?t know the flags stood for an independent Tibet.

The GOP is Bad for the Midwest...

From Krugman's Blog:


You can see that the Midwest was ahead of the US under Carter & Clinton...

An Interesting Way to Generate Electricity...

Read it all here:

POWERLeap is an urban flooring system that harnesses exerted kinetic energy to generate electricity. Its designer, 22-year-old Elizabeth Redmond proposes that heavily trafficked urban areas from sidewalks to airports be carpeted with the tiles she’s designed—they light up as they’re walked upon or can store energy for later use (technical info here). Redmond and her expanding team are working to develop the efficiency of the piezoelectric generators and the energy harvesting system; a custom installation is under discussion between Redmond and San Francisco Public Utilities Commission.

Both projects have in common a respect for the natural patterns and rhythms of life. And while each may seem small in scale, or a mite earnest in intent, their respective creators succeed in doing something most large scale endeavors rarely do: they recognize how humans and the earth can intersect in a positive way.

More info here.

Income Disparity

Today's fact:

In 2005 the wealthiest 1 percent of the country earned 21.2 percent of all income, according to IRS data, while the bottom 50 percent of all Americans earned just 12.8 percent of all income

Quote of the Day - Robert Reich

Supply-side, trickle-down economics has been a cruel joke, perpetrated on most of us by a cabal intent on justifying widening inequality. Nothing has trickled down except cuts in services.