RAISING THE MINIMUM WAGE ... THE RIGHT THING TO DO

- Mark 

READING FOR THE WEEK (12-18-14)

This may be the most remarkable story in the CIA torture report (Huffington Post).

Ryan Leaf's jailhouse confessions (Playboy).

17 corporate Darwin Award nominees - yeah, they goofed (Brainjet).

Jewish angels and Roman gods: The ancient chronological origins of Christmas (Salon).


WASHINGTON'S GIFT TO CORPORATE AMERICA: THE CROMNIBUS
Cromnibus winners and losers (Creators).

Cramming the CRomnibus: Rushed spending bill creates systemic moral hazard (Aljazeera America).

Incumbency Insurance: Provision in cromnibus bill dramatically increases the amount of money wealth political donors can give to political parties (AlterNet).


BANKING ON ARROGANCE 
A brief history of modern Citigroup: The original gangsta (Creators).

Bernie Sanders: Destroy the big banks before the banks destroy you (AlterNet).


ARE YOU SURE WE'RE A CHRISTIAN NATION?
10 things conservative Christians got horribly wrong (AlterNet).

10 ways conservatives don't act anything like Christians (Forward Progress).

One nation under Galt: How Ayn Rand's toxic philosophy permanently transformed America (Salon).


WHILE YOU WERE CHECKING YOUR PHONE ...
Bush convicted of war crimes in absentia (Foreign Policy Journal).

Hero Mom calls C-SPAN to yell at her arguing pundit sons (Washington Post).

Sean Hannity explodes after being confronted by ThinkProgress about previous offer to be waterboarded for charity (ThinkProgress).

Deadly hazing and the dildo brigade: 5 shocking fraternity horror stories from the past year (AlterNet).

Tarrant police officer delivers groceries to woman caught stealing eggs at Dollar General (AL).


REALLY?
Facepalm: Antonin Scalia isn't aware of anything in the Constitution that prohibits torture (If You Only News).

FedEx: Corporate tax dodger? Here's the numbers/facts (Americans for Tax Fairness).

The Koch brothers Wall Street crusade to rob pensions is under way (Politics USA).


MISCELLANEOUS
No, you didn't build that on your own: A Look at Government Involvement in Technological Development (The Breaktrough Institute).

A simple and very accessible group of charts that tell us what's happening in the state of California (Legislative Analyst's Office of California).

Are charter schools segregating America's school system (Creators).

10 ridiculously useful parenting tips for the holidays (Salon).

Here's how much the storm is helping California's epic drought (Mother Jones).

WHAT WE PAY IN GASOLINE TAXES, PER STATE

Via the American Petroleum Institute / ExxonMobile we get a map of the United States that shows us the combined local, state, and federal tax rate for 2014.



For the record California has the highest gas tax in the country, where it's more than 70 cents a gallon. The federal gasoline coast-to-coast is the same in every state, 18.4 cents a gallon.

Click here for an interactive map, which breaks down the taxes per state.

- Mark 

WHY IS THIS OUR REALITY?

Why is this our reality? I think we all know why ...

- Mark 

AND THE DECLINE CONTINUES ... "REAL DUMB AND EVEN DUMBER" TAKING OVER SCIENCE COMMITTEES IN 2015

America's slow descent continues ...

Most of you know that Europe did the hard work of preparing years for and then landing a spacecraft on a comet. Let that one sink in for a minute. They landed on a comet.

Meanwhile, the U.S. now ranks 33rd out of 34 OECD countries when it comes to accepting the tenets of evolution. How bad is it? Among OECD nations, only very religious Turkey (almost 99 percent Muslim) has more people as a percentage of their population who think Darwin is wrong on evolution. 

One more tidbit. When it come to science, U.S. students are ranked 20th among OECD nations. 

One reason why we're ranked 20th ...

One might think that these realities would encourage our political leadership to get serious about science in America. Think again.

After years of listening to religious nut jobs and Fox News - and their never ending cast of junk scientists - the United States Republican-led Senate is now prepared to take another scientific step backwards. They are poised to place congressional committees key to sustaining the scientific community in the hands of a group of scientific illiterates, like Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). 

Sen. Inhofe believes he knows better than acknowledged research experts, and regularly dismisses scientific consensus as a "hoax." Yet, he along with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) are going to be placed in positions of authority over U.S. science programs ... 

Getting a jump on things, our Republican-led House of Representatives has already passed a bill that would limit the type of scientific research the EPA can use when deciding how to protect the environment and our health. Worse, they're also leading the charge in the effort to privatize NASA, which paid off spectacularly when the private sectors space cargo ship blew up on launch while attempting to do what NASA once did in its sleep.

With congressional Republicans preparing to take over the U.S. Senate we can expect them to fill science and technology committees with minds more in tune with feudal-like opinions than with facts built around the scientific method.

As a warning, we need to prepare ourselves for the return of this kind of thinking in some corners of the U.S. Senate ...

If we're being honest with ourselves, we shouldn't be surprised to see this kind of logic embraced in some corners of the U.S. Senate ...

- Mark

TRUE

- Mark 

TWO CHRISTMAS STOPS WORTH WATCHING

A video clip of the Christmas spirit in Lowell, Massachusetts.

And another from Kansas City, Missouri.

- Mark

WHO WOULD JESUS TORTURE?

Spot on ...

Seriously, Who Would Jesus Torture?

- Mark 

WEEKEND READING (12-12-14)

Amazon's frightening CIA partnership: Capitalism, corporations and our massive new surveillance state (Salon).

What a surprise ... The Bible Belt is the porn belt of America(Patheos).

22 photos that prove 2014 is the future (Buzzfeed).

How former Nixon operative Roger Ailes built the Fox News fear factory (Rolling Stone).


MOTHER NATURE, SPEAKING TO US?
100% death rate for baby whales along West Coast - 'Alarm bells starting to ring ...' (ENews).

Extinction rate rivals that of dinosaurs, 2014 likely hottest year ever (Truth Out).


RETHINKING HISTORY
8 big lies history books tell about Native-Americans (Indian Country).

Hitler's inspiration and guide: The Native-American holocaust (Jewish Journal).

America scores again ... Hitler studied America's eugenics past, praised the leading authors of books on eugenics, and applied what the U.S. did to Native-Americans to the Jews during WWII (The Guardian).

Eugenics and the Nazis -- The California connection (SF Gate).


MARKET TALK
ROUBINI: The Mother of All Asset Bubbles will burst in 2016 (Business Insider).

And, from the guys who didn't see it coming in 2008: 'It ain't a bubble yet' (Business Insider).


MAYBE MARX & LENIN WERE RIGHT (Yeah, I'm going there)
With outsourcing and productivity gains going to executives rather than to labor, capitalism is no longer delivering a rising standard of living in Western Europe, North America and Japan (Truth Out).

As hourly wages barely rise, CEOs receive lavish salary increases (Buzz Flash).

This is why the middle class can't get ahead ... and yes, it's tied to wage law and favorable legislation which has legally transferred trillions from workers to business owners/corporations (PBS).

The biggest hypocrites of 2014: Favorable legislation allows these "Me-First Entitlement Hounds" to suck off of the state, while complaining about the state (Truth Out).


LAW & SOCIETY
Houston police chief indicates it may be time for marijuana use to be legalized not only in Texas but across the country (Click2Houston).

Outrageous forced arbitration decision: Consumer has to arbitrate case involving home invasion and severe beating (Public Justice).

Albuquerque police officer with a history of "malfunctioning" camera incidents shoots and kills 19-year old during another camera malfunctions. He's finally fired for "insubordination" (Free Thought Project / Albuquerque Journal).


MISCELLANEOUS
Want to know where your tax dollar goes? Open this site and put down your income (White House).

This is how much money we lose each year to corporations and individuals who lower their tax bill by doing any number of activities that grant them a tax write-off (Government Accounting Office)?

Creationism is just the start: How right-wing Christians are warping America's schools (Salon).

Benefit of Obamacare: More people can work less (Truth Out).

- Mark 

CALIFORNIA'S HIGH TECH MECCA, THE SILICON VALLEY, CONTINUES TO DRAW CAPITAL

In 2013 California far outpaced every state in the union, by far, when it came to drawing people with money to invest. With over 49 percent of all U.S.venture capital funds directed towards California in 2013, it should come as no surprise that the vast majority of these funds found their way to the high tech mecca of the world, the Silicon Valley.

More specifically, according to Silicon Valley Tech News, during the third quarter of 2013 at least 46% of all venture capital funds in the country were operating in Silicon Valley/Bay Area region of California.

If you want a longer view of venture capital in California and around the country, click here for an infographic of venture capital trends by state and industry through 2011.

- Mark