1/8/2014::That's a lot of news

Media gives climate change deniers disproportionate amount of attention: report

There’s a 97 percent consensus on human-caused global warming in the peer-reviewed climate science literature and among climate experts. There’s a 96 percent consensus in the climate research that humans are responsible for most of the current global warming. The 2013 IPCC report agrees with this position with 95 percent confidence, and states that humans are most likely responsible for 100 percent of the global warming since 1951.

Yet a new study conducted by Media Matters for America shows that in stories about the 2013 IPCC report, rather than accurately reflect this expert consensus, certain media outlets have created a false perception of discord amongst climate scientists.

Specifically, politically conservative news outlets like Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News and the Wall Street Journal were responsible for the lion’s share of the false balance, disproportionately representing climate contrarians in their stories about the IPCC report.

Limbaugh: Polar Vortex a 'Liberal Media Hoax'

The polar vortex is "a hoax" perpetuated by the liberal media to further its agenda of climate change and global warming, Rush Limbaugh told listeners Monday.

According to the radio show's transcript, Limbaugh said that "the left, the media, everybody" is using the Arctic cold front in the Midwest and Northeast as a ploy to lie to the public, Politico first reported.

"[We] are having a record-breaking cold snap in many parts of the country, and right on schedule, the media have to come up with a way to make it sound like it's completely unprecedented," the conservative talker said, "because they've got to find a way to attach this to the global-warming agenda, and they have. It's called the polar vortex. The dreaded polar vortex.

What’s the Matter With Kansas’ Schools?

KANSAS, like every state, explicitly guarantees a free public education in its Constitution, affirming America’s founding belief that only an educated citizenry can preserve democracy and safeguard individual liberty and freedom.

And yet in recent years Kansas has become the epicenter of a new battle over the states’ obligation to adequately fund public education. Even though the state Constitution requires that it make “suitable provision” for financing public education, Gov. Sam Brownback and the Republican-led Legislature have made draconian cuts in school spending, leading to a lawsuit that now sits before the state Supreme Court.

The outcome of that decision could resonate nationwide. Forty-five states have had lawsuits challenging the failure of governors and legislators to provide essential resources for a constitutional education. Litigation is pending against 11 states that allegedly provide inadequate and unfair school funding, including New York, Florida, Texas and California.

Parents Say Police 'Murdered' Their Mentally Ill Son In Front Of Them 'In Cold Blood'

The parents of Keith Vidal, 18, called 911 to keep their mentally ill son from hurting himself or anyone else with a screwdriver during a schizophrenic episode at their home. But they say police ended up 'murdering' their child right before their eyes.

Mark Wilsey, Vidal's stepfather, said that the 90-pound teenager was already being restrained by two officers when another officer walked into the home and said, "I don't have time for this. Taser him." One of the other officers used a stun gun on Vidal, who fell to the ground, at which point Wilsey says the third officer shot and killed the young man.

How to Fight Poverty -- and Win

When President Johnson launched the War on Poverty on Jan. 8, 1964, he pledged “not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it and, above all, to prevent it.” Sadly, the half-century legacy of Johnson’s Great Society has not lived up to that noble goal.

The War on Poverty has not done justice to the poor. Our responsibility to our neighbors in need demands more: a redirection of public policy and a commitment from each of us to do what we can in our own communities.

Despite spending nearly $20 trillion since the War on Poverty began, the poverty rate remains nearly as high today as it was in the mid-1960s. Today, government spends nearly $1 trillion annually on 80 federal means-tested programs providing cash, food, housing, medical care and targeted social services for poor and low-income Americans. Clearly, policymakers can’t hide behind reams of programs and billions in spending and declare they’ve done their duty to the poor. Good intentions aren’t enough.

Ships Break Free In Antarctica, U.S. Icebreaker Not Needed

There's good news from Antarctica, where two ships that had been stuck in ice — one of them for about two weeks — have managed to get to open waters.

That's allowed the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star, which is capable of breaking through heavy polar ice and had , to return to its original mission — clearing a channel to Antarctica's McMurdo Station research base and bringing supplies to that facility.

the Polar Star "was released by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority from search and rescue duties [on Tuesday], following confirmation [that] the Russian-Flagged Akademik Shokalskiy and Chinese-Flagged Xue Long are free from the Antarctic ice due to a favorable change in wind conditions."

Omaha police association labels video of diapered black toddler ‘The Thug Cycle’

The Omaha Police Officers Association drew criticism this week after it posted a video of a black child in a diaper and titled it “The Thug Cycle.”

A post on the association’s blog explained that the “video is bad” and “will make you angry.”

The video shows an African-American toddler in a diaper and several adults can be heard uttering profanities from off camera.

Pope Francis Attacks Christian Fundamentalism Again, Says It’s ‘Not Healthy’

On Friday, La Civiltà Cattolica published remarks that Pope Francis made in November during a meeting with the leaders of men’s religious orders. The pontiff once again blasted those who stick to extreme ideology and attacked fundamentalism for being blind to reality.

"It is not a good strategy to be at the center of a sphere,” the Pope stated. “To understand we ought to move around, to see reality from various viewpoints. We ought to get used to thinking.”

Ah, thinking. A concept that most conservatives fail to grasp either because they’re desperate to defend a hateful ideology that doesn’t work or they fear that their heads will implode from the effort. Of course, Pope Francis says being entrenched in such an obsessive ideology is unhealthy.

3 Reasons to Reject Legalizing Marijuana

"They just found my daughter dead!" This unexpected and startling revelation jolted my morning.

At the mall where I exercise, a middle-aged mother darted from the Starbucks and stammered the above words just a few days ago.

"Larry, remember when I asked you to pray for my 27-year-old daughter a couple months ago?" she said. "A guy came into her life. ... This was her first real boyfriend. ... He made her feel special. ... He also introduced her to getting high. She'd never done drugs! It wasn't hard stuff—just recreational. Now she's dead! This wasn't supposed to happen!"

I took her hand and we prayed together. Reassuring her as best as I could, I then slipped away, saddened by the tragic news of this mother's only child now gone.

The Congressman Who Went Off the Grid

When Roscoe Bartlett was in Congress, he latched onto a particularly apocalyptic issue, one almost no one else ever seemed to talk about: America’s dangerously vulnerable power grid. In speech after late-night speech on the House floor, Bartlett hectored the nearly empty chamber: If the United States doesn’t do something to protect the grid, and soon, a terrorist or an act of nature will put an end to life as we know it.

Bartlett loved to conjure doomsday visions: Think post-Sandy New York City without power—but spread over a much larger area for months at a time. He once recounted a conversation he claimed to have had with unnamed Russian officials about how they could take out the United States: They would “detonate a nuclear weapon high above your country,” he recalled them saying, “and shut down your power grid—and your communications—for six months or so.”

Here Is What Louisiana Schoolchildren Learn About Evolution

Fifth graders in some state-sponsored schools in Louisiana study both creationism and evolution as competing theories. “Fact or Theory?”

THIS Is What “Living” On Minimum Wage Looks Like

One of our readers wrote to us saying, “This is what the GOP has done to me. Refusing to raise the MINIMUM wage leaves me wondering how I am going to eat for the next 2 weeks let alone pay any bills.”

I hear a lot of yammering about how minimum wage jobs are supposed to be entry level… for younger people… a spring board to aspire to more. Which, if you look at it from only that angle could be considered true.

However, if you are unemployed you still need a place to live and food to eat. And if you have kids, you aren’t just fending for yourself. So, you take that less-than-desirable job while you “work your way up” or find something more appropriate. In the meantime, it ain’t pretty. And, it begs the question, what if you can’t sustain yourself until you make it to the job you aspire to?

Salford firm launches DNA test to help kids battling obesity

A DNA test could be the answer to helping to beat childhood obesity.

Launched for the first time in the UK by a Greater Manchester firm, the test can reveal whether a child will benefit from a low fat, low carbohydrate or a balanced, calorie-reduced diet, based on their genetic make-up.

It will also identify whether their DNA means they respond better to different types of exercise.

The test has been introduced by BioClinics, a company based in Eccles , Salford . It costs £195 for an adult and £125 for a schoolchild aged four upwards. [Be skeptical, lots of questions remain if this is useful or empty promises.]

The Painful Truth About Gay Pleasure

OK, so maybe it’s not the most sensitive way to say that gay sex is not God’s plan. But I’m glad Robertson and GQ magazine opened this can of worms. We need some honest dialogue about this topic.

I counsel men and women who struggle with same-sex attraction. Most of them are Christians who know homosexuality is not God’s will for their lives, and they want the Holy Spirit’s help to live in purity. They want to please God, and they don’t want to live in gay relationships. But they crave spiritual guidance and loving acceptance as they learn to resist temptation.  [They don't know anything, it is what they are taught.]

As a minister, I owe them respect and compassion—and if I really love them, I will tell them the truth. When I talk with guys, I always address the gory details about gay sex that many Christians today won’t mention. (WARNING: These points are not for the squeamish.) If we don’t talk about this stuff in church, more people with same-sex attraction are going to assume we have no answers.

What it's really like to grow up unvaccinated

AMY Parker is the 37-year-old mother of two teenagers and a new baby.

She was brought up in England's beautiful Lake District, as the daughter of an artist and a ballet teacher, both of whom were extremely health-conscious.

Amy was fed homegrown vegetables and raw milk, with daily supplements of vitamin C, echinacea and cod liver oil. She had a healthy "outdoor" lifestyle, involving sport, dancing and a lot of walking.

By anyone's reckoning, Amy should have been a healthy child. But her parents were against vaccination.

Amy isn't particularly happy about that in retrospect, and she's written a piece at Voices for Vaccines explaining what it was really like to grow up without being immunised.

GOP Memo Coaches Members To Show Empathy Toward Unemployed

A memo from House leadership to the Republican caucus coaches members on how to speak about unemployment in a compassionate manner, according to the Washington Post.

The memo tells representatives that unemployment is a "personal crisis" and asks them to give "proper consideration" to an extension of longterm unemployment benefits.

The Senate voted to advance legislation that extends the emergency unemployment benefits Tuesday, but House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has insisted that the extension must be paid for in order to pass the lower chamber.

All Hail Baphomet! Satanic Temple Unveils Statue Design For OK State Capitol

The Oklahoma GOP must be losing their minds right about now, now that the Satanic Temple has unveiled the design of the proposed statue they want built on the grounds of the Okla. state capitol. Weeks after the Okla. City Capitol Preservation Commission (OKCPC) put a halt on all new requests for statues on the statehouse grounds, the Satanic Temple revealed the design for the monument they soon hope to build.

“The monument has been designed to reflect the views of Satanists in Oklahoma City and beyond,” Temple spokesman Lucien Greaves told Raw Story. “The statue will serve as a beacon calling for compassion and empathy among all living creatures. The statue will also have a functional purpose as a chair where people of all ages may sit on the lap of Satan for inspiration and contemplation.”

The statue depicts Baphomet, a goat figure linked to the Sabbath. The goat-headed god is seated on a throne with a pentagram above His head. Children appear standing and smiling on either side of the throne. The seven-foot tall statue will also feature quotes by the poets William Blake and Lord Byron.