Tidbits

Saturday's full moon will be a supermoon.

A supermoon is a new or full moon that happens to coincide with a close approach of the moon to the earth. Saturday's full moon will be the closest it has been to Earth in 18 years, according to Spaceweather.com.

The distance between the Earth and the moon during the event will be about 221,567 miles, as compared to the average distance of 238,000 miles, according to Space.com.
That may not seem like much of a difference (and compared to the distance it's not), but the diameter of the moon is only 2,159 miles. That means the moon will be over 7.5 diameters closer to Earth than average.

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Mike Lux, at Crooks & Liars, summarizes the 2008 financial collapse (excerpt):

Just to recap: the financial industry talked politician after politician from both parties into one round of deregulation after another, all the while increasingly consolidating the industry while inventing more and more exotic kinds of financial speculation (derivatives, credit default swaps, CDOs, etc., etc., ad nauseam). There were warning signs aplenty- the S&L debacle, Long-Term Capital Management, an early version of a subprime derivative collapse, the Mexico currency collapse, the Thai currency collapse, the corporate accounting scandals of the early 2000s — and each time some combination of the Federal Reserve and/or American taxpayers directly had to step in and save the day. The warning signs were not only ignored, but more deregulation usually happened on top of the old kinds. When the big collapse happened in 2008, the American economy and entire world economy were sent into collapse and panic, only to be saved by the biggest corporate bailouts in history by far.

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From Digby, at Hullabaloo:

Authorities in Delaware County say a 70-year-old man was stoned to death with a rock stuffed in a sock by a younger friend who alleged the victim made unwanted sexual advances.

According to the criminal complaint, 28-year-old John Thomas of Lansdowne has told police he killed 70-year-old Murray Seidman because the Old Testament refers to stoning homosexuals.

This is still a crime in America, although with all the Christian Reconstructionists in congress these days [including Daniel Webster, the guy who beat Alan Grayson in the last Congressional elections], that might not last forever.

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[That link tells you everything you'll ever want to know, and more, about Christian reconstructionists]. Here's part of an excerpt:

"... R.J. Rushdoony, considered the father of Christian Reconstructionism and founder of the movement’s flagship institution, the Chalcedon Institute.

"... R.J. Rushdoony’s monumental Institutes of Biblical Law ... was a template for instituting Biblical law in government.

"... Rushdoony’s vision for Biblical law should be imposed upon America.
That vision included instituting stoning as a form of capital punishment for rape, kidnapping, murder, heresy, blasphemy, witchcraft, astrology, adultery, “sodomy or homosexuality,” incest, striking a parent, extreme juvenile delinquency, and “unchastity before marriage.” [Emphasis added]

Think about Christian extremists the next time you hear someone on Fox News ranting about how the Koran preaches violence.  The Bible has plenty of the same.  Here's Exodus 31:15 from the King James version:

Six days may work be done; but in the seventh [is] the sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD: whosoever doeth [any] work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.

[I'm not about to research the Bible for other instances of preposterous extremism, but I understand there are a lot, especially in the Old Testament.] 

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More on the fatal stoning, from Daily Kos:

Though the relationship is still unknown, Thomas was the sole executor of Seidman's will and knew how much money was in Seidman's bank accounts, police say.

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A new term:  R2P, From Foreign Policy magazine.

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said on Thursday that the justification for the use of force was based on humanitarian grounds, and referred to the principle known as Responsibility to Protect (R2P), "a new international security and human rights norm to address the international community's failure to prevent and stop genocides, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity." 

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Digby at Hullabaloo:

Well gosh, who says the whole world is going to hell in a hand basket?

Profit margins are expected to climb nearly 9% this year among companies in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, marking an 18-year high.

The third consecutive year of the bull market will see profits increase 8.9% in 2011, which would be the highest level since 1993. That’s good news for investors, who could see higher dividends. Bloomberg reports that of 380 companies in the S&P that pay dividends, 378 are projected to maintain or increase them.

The situation is less encouraging for non-investors. Back in that banner year of 1993, the unemployment rate fell from 7.3% to 6.5%. According to the most recent figures released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unemployment rate is 8.9%.

Yeah, it's less encouraging all right.

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Digby, Hullabaloo, again:

e coli Conservatism Wins Again

The GOPs war on animals continues. (BTW, who aren't they at war with these days besides rich white guys?)

The Iowa House approved a bill Thursday to prevent animal rights activists from getting hired on farms just so they can secretly record what they believe is the mistreatment of livestock.

The bill has had strong support from farmers angered by repeated releases of secretly filmed videos claiming to show the mistreatment of farm animals. It was introduced after groups around the nation released videos showing cows being shocked, pigs being beaten and chicks ground up alive.

The Republican-led House approved the measure 65-27. It must pass the Democratic-controlled Senate and be signed by Republican Gov. Terry Branstad to become law.

The bill would make it illegal to secretly record and distribute videos and punish those who take jobs on farms only to gain access to record animals' treatment. Penalties include up to five years in prison and fines of up to $7,500.

But secretly filming ACORN workers and then editing the tapes to make them look like criminals is obviously a-ok.

This is really awful. Those films show real animal cruelty on a level that shakes Americans in a primitive way. Most people eat meat, but they are not comfortable with factory farms treating animals cruelly and putting diseased and dirty product into the food supply. And obviously the government isn't doing its job adequately or they wouldn't be able to produce this footage.

I wouldn't eat any meat from Iowa from now on. They obviously have something to hide or they wouldn't have felt it necessary to pass this law.

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