Flint today, the rest of us tomorrow

The ghastly story of what happened in Flint, MI should strike fear into the entire nation because it is not just a local story affecting one impoverished town. For those unfamiliar with the case, the people of that city have been found to have dangerously high levels of lead in their blood due to the contamination of their drinking water. This has been going on for two years. As a result, the residents of that city have been forced to purchase bottled water until the mess is cleared up and president Obama has issued an emergency declaration, enabling federal government resources to be used to address the emergency.
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It’s official: 2015 was the warmest year in modern times

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2015 easily broke the previous record for the warmest year that had been set just the previous year.

During 2015, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.62 Fahrenheit (0.90 Celsius) above the 20th century average,” said the NOAA report.

“This was the highest among all years in the 1880-2015 record.”

Compared to 2014, last year was 0.29 Fahrenheit (0.13 Celsius) warmer, the “largest margin by which the annual global temperature record has been broken.”

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The misguided arguments by Democratic critics of Sanders

A new poll shows Sanders with a whopping 60%-33% lead over Clinton in New Hampshire.

Former secretary of labor Robert Reich offers comebacks to six of the most common criticisms expressed by skeptics of Bernie Sanders such as:

1. He’d never beat Trump or Cruz in a general election.
2. He couldn’t get any of his ideas implemented because Congress would reject them.
3. America would never elect a socialist.
4. His single-payer healthcare proposal would cost so much it would require raising taxes on the middle class.
5. His plan for paying for college with a tax on Wall Street trades would mean colleges would run by government rules.
6. He’s too old.

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They’ve got some bloody good drinkers down under

Australians have a reputation for loving their beer. I had no idea of the depth of their passion until I recently acquired a few CDs that features Australian drinking songs. These are not songs like Waltzing Matilda that are easy to sing and thus popular at parties and in pubs. They are songs that directly and fulsomely praise beer and the act of drinking to the point of venerating both and the Monty Python troupe added to the narrative of the Aussie passion for beer (and their supposed preference for the name Bruce) in these sketches here and here.
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Is what’s good for Palin also good for Trump?

Yesterday Donald Trump introduced with much pleasure Sarah Palin who endorsed his run for the Republican nomination. Her 20-minute speech was the usual blend of run-on-sentences, digressions, folksy language, jingoism, and appeals to people’s sense of grievance that ‘their’ country is being taken away from them. I find it truly painful to listen to her for more than a few minutes but soldiered on to the end.
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Breaking Our Silence pro-choice program on Monday, January 25

We know that abortion rights are under fire from many sides. Strategies involve harassing people entering clinics that provide these services, threatening not only those who work in the clinics but also their families, and even going to their homes and the schools their children attend. Planned Parenthood for example, has been under relentless attack. And of course some of these zealots have gone on to actually commit murder in pursuit of their goal.
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