Video: Time lapse of the Milky Way from Chile

I'd love to know how they get these shots to show the stars like that.  Then again, perhaps it looks like this in Chile. I remember being in southern Morocco and seeing more stars than I've ever seen in my life. A local bedouin was surprised at my wonderment. He couldn't believe that on a good night in DC I can count between 5 and 20 stars. There were just thousands on the edge of the Moroccan dessert. I want to see that again, with a really good camera.

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New video of NYPD beating #OccupyWallStreet protesters tonight with batons, it’s nasty

This reportedly was filmed a little over an hour ago in NYC.

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Steve Jobs' 2005 commencement speech at Stanford

I'd never seen this before, nor even heard of it. It's a short speech, 15 minutes long, in which Jobs talks about 3 stories from his life. The last story is about death. It's a great speech. Please do watch it.

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Obama on Steve Job’s death

THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_____________________

October 5, 2011
Statement by the President on the Passing of Steve Jobs

Michelle and I are saddened to learn of the passing of Steve Jobs. Steve was among the greatest of American innovators - brave enough to think differently, bold enough to believe he could change the world, and talented enough to do it.

By building one of the planet’s most successful companies from his garage, he exemplified the spirit of American ingenuity. By making computers personal and putting the internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible, but intuitive and fun. And by turning his talents to storytelling, he has brought joy to millions of children and grownups alike. Steve was fond of saying that he lived every day like it was his last. Because he did, he transformed our lives, redefined entire industries, and achieved one of the rarest feats in human history: he changed the way each of us sees the world.

The world has lost a visionary. And there may be no greater tribute to Steve’s success than the fact that much of the world learned of his passing on a device he invented. Michelle and I send our thoughts and prayers to Steve’s wife Laurene, his family, and all those who loved him. [emphasis added]

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Apple’s Steve Jobs has died

Sad. From ABC:

Steve Jobs, the mastermind behind Apple's iPhone, iPad, iPod, iMac and iTunes, has died, Apple said. Jobs was 56.

In 2004, he beat back an unusual form of pancreatic cancer, and in 2009 he was forced to get a liver transplant. After several years of failing health, Jobs announced on Aug. 24, 2011 that he was stepping down as Apple's chief executive.

"I have always said if there ever came a day when I could no longer meet my duties and expectations as Apple's CEO, I would be the first to let you know," Jobs wrote in his letter of resignation. "Unfortunately, that day has come."

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Palin will not run in 2012

Matt Ortega at AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field has the goods, noting that Palin made the announcement via a letter to supporters, he writes:

Sarah Palin ended months of flirtation with a potential presidential run in a letter sent to media and supporters.

It is odd that she announced this decision in the least attention-getting manner possible. A letter? Perhaps her handlers saw the negative reaction to the Chris Christie non-announcement and decided to dial it down a notch for once?

More at AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field. Read the rest of this post...

Hitler hates the new iPhone 4S

I know it's been done before, but this made me laugh out loud. For those unaware, Apple announced the "new" iPhone yesterday, and it's a lot like the old iPhone, which underwhelmed a lot of people, me included. This video is a response to that announcement.

Okay, and for people unaware about the Hitler video, this is a clip of a famous movie about Hitler's downfall. Well, a few years back, someone took this clip and subtitled it to make it look like Hitler was complaining about an American sports team. Since that time, lots and lots of people have done various versions of this. So this is another take-off of that.

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#OccupyWallStreet protesters suing NYC. Good for them.

Good for them. If the reports are true that the NYPD led the protesters down the wrong road only to arrest them for going down the wrong road, they should be sued.

Wall Street protesters arrested in a march across the Brooklyn Bridge sued New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly for allegedly violating their constitutional rights.

Five of the protesters, seeking to represent about 700 people arrested in the Oct. 1 march, filed a civil rights complaint yesterday in Manhattan federal court. They claimed officers from the New York City Police Department lured them onto the bridge’s roadway to trap and arrest them.

“After escorting and leading a group of demonstrators and others well out onto the Brooklyn Bridge roadway, the NYPD suddenly and without warning curtailed further forward movement, blocked the ability of persons to leave the bridge from the rear, and arrested hundreds of protesters in the absence of probable cause,” they said in the complaint.

And let's not forget just a few days ago when the NYPD pepper sprayed, in the face, a group of peaceful women protesters who weren't doing anything at all but standing there. Read the rest of this post...

TSA humiliates breast cancer patient

Once again, this is completely obnoxious and pathetic on the part of the TSA. Enough is enough.

Lori Dorn wrote about the experience on her blog. She described how, after walking through an image scanner at New York's John F. Kennedy Airport, she was asked by a TSA agent to step aside to have her breasts examined.

"I explained to the agent that I was a breast cancer patient and had a bilateral mastectomy in April and had tissue expanders put in to make way for reconstruction at a later date," Dorn wrote. She said she explained that because of this, she was not comfortable having her breasts touched.

Dorn asked the agent if she could retrieve a medical card from her pocket which described the expanders and included contact information for her doctor. But the agent called over a supervisor who denied the request, and said the breast exam had to take place.

According to Dorn, the supervisor added, loudly enough for other passengers to hear: "And if we don't clear you, you don't fly."

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Straight student says principal bullied him for forming gay-straight alliance

It's amazing how messed up our schools are on this issue at such a basic level. Read the rest of this post...

Alzheimer's may be transmissible

If tests prove this to be true, it is a massive breakthrough.

In some cases, Alzheimer's disease may in fact be the result of an infection, and may be even be transmissible, a new study in mice suggests.

In the study, mice injected with human brain tissue from Alzheimer's patients developed Alzheimer's disease. The mice developed brain damage characteristic of Alzheimer's disease, and over time, the damage spread throughout their brains, the researchers said.

Mice injected with brain tissue from healthy humans showed no signs of the disease.

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Sesame Street introduces poverty-stricken, hungry Muppet (seriously)

A sign of the times:

A new poverty-stricken Muppet will highlight the issue of hunger struggles on an episode of "Sesame Street", the show said in a statement on Tuesday.

Pink-faced Muppet Lily, whose family deals with food insecurity, will join Big Bird, Elmo and other favorites on a one-hour prime-time special featuring country star Brad Paisley and his wife Kimberly Williams Paisley called "Growing Hope Against Hunger," to air Oct 9.

This is a good reminder that culture is deliberate. Whether it's creating prominent gay characters who have real romantic relationships (with actual kissing!) or a Muppet that highlights how many American families are starving, television show and film writers make conscious choices about what story lines to include. These things don't just happen on their own. So when these writers and producers make choices which will influence our national culture and create awareness and, hopefully, equality, they should be celebrated. Good job, "Sesame Street"! Read the rest of this post...

Is the Jobs bill just an act?

I'm growing a little weary of hearing people call the President's Jobs bill a stunt. It can't be passed, they say, the Republicans will never allow it, so what's the point of pushing it?

First off, never say never in politics. With enough public pressure, the Republicans will pass anything - and if they don't, they'll go down in flames the next election. So there's a always a point in trying, if the political math adds up. And in this case, it does. Just look at the ABC poll from this morning in which the President surged ahead of the GOP in terms of public trust on "jobs."

The turnaround in the polls didn't happen simply because it's a good proposal (and Krugman says it is). Lots of good ideas die with the public at the hands of the GOP disinformation juggernaut. No, I suspect the President, and his proposal, are doing better in the polls because this is one of the first times in a long time that the President fought back against the GOP, publicly, quite firmly, and relentlessly. Usually he does the backroom thing and, if anything, publicly extols the virtues of his proposal in the most generic of terms and only at the beginning of the negotiation.

This time he's publicly hitting back hard against the Republicans, and naming names.

And it's working.

More from BooMan Tribune:

Yet, the president isn't doing this all for show. He's trying to put pressure on Congress to do something about joblessness. It's only a political question because the opposition refuses to do anything to help people find jobs. How long are they going to persist in refusing to act?

Senior administration officials have warned reporters for the last month that Obama will be pushing the jobs bill long after the press has grown bored of hearing about it.

It will be at that point, the thinking goes, that Americans will have heard about it, embraced it and joined the president in calling for its passage.

The drumbeat is to pass the Jobs Bill. Everyone says it can't pass. The president thinks Congress should pass the bill right now and put 2 million people back to work. He's going to keep saying that and saying that, and, really, why shouldn't he? People want action on jobs and the Republicans want a bad economy for political reasons. If enough people come to understand this, they'll either force their representatives to act or replace them next November. If they don't come to understand this, they'll throw out the Democrats for being ineffective.

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Report: Only 91,000 jobs added in September

Welcome to the new underwhelming normal.  That's more than expected, but far below what the economy needs to just break even in terms of the unemployment numbers. Read the rest of this post...

Lettuce poison you: Greens recalled in 19 states

Last week it was cantaloupes. Remember when it was safe to eat food? CBS:

The lettuce recall over Listeria fears may be bigger than originally thought, with the California farm that issued the recall saying its notice had gone out to 19 states and Canada.

A question for our foreign based readers, do they have this many food scares in Europe? Answer: Reader Perl_jammer (cute pun, btw) posted this in the comments, a story showing similar problems in Europe. But do they happen as often here? Is it just me, or do these things seem too frequent for comfort? Read the rest of this post...

72% of Afghan women think their lives are better now after the US invasion

As foreign troops prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan, efforts are being made to reach some sort of accommodation with the Taliban. According to a new survey of Afghan women by Action Aid, they fear it is their rights that are about to be bargained away.

There are surprises in the survey results. While it's unsurprising that women fear the consequences of a return to a Taliban-style regime, the fact that 86% of them do so is eye-catching. The notion that intervention in Afghanistan has done nothing but make a bad situation worse is a commonplace one in the West, indeed one I leant towards myself. That 72% of Afghan women think their lives are better now than they were 10 years ago is, for me, an unexpected perspective.

ActionAid has also carried out a rare survey of 1,000 women in Afghanistan – one of the very few times that Afghan women have been asked their opinion on the
last 10 years of war and a possible Taliban return to power. It reveals that 72% of Afghan women believe their lives are better now than they were 10 years ago, while 37% think Afghanistan will become a worse place if international troops leave. A massive 86% are worried about a return to Taliban-style government,
with one in five citing their daughter’s education as the main concern.

You can see a short film about the survey report here. See also the new Amnesty UK campaign to ensure negotiations are not at the expense of women's rights (only works for UK citizens). Read the rest of this post...

ABC Poll: Obama surges ahead of GOP in trust on jobs

Who could have imagined that by simply fighting for something, and against someone, the President could jump in the polls versus the GOP? From ABC News:

Barack Obama has jumped to a 15-point lead over the Republicans in Congress in trust to handle job creation, a sign the beleaguered president’s $450 billion jobs package has hit its mark in public opinion. Fifty-two percent support the plan – and most say it just might work.

Overall approval of the U.S. Congress, meanwhile, has dropped to its lowest in polls back to the mid-1970s. And of the eight in 10 Americans who are dissatisfied with the way the country’s political system is working, more blame the Republicans in Washington than the president.

A month ago, Americans divided evenly, 40-40 percent, on whom they trusted more to handle job creation, Obama or the congressional Republicans. Now, after his jobs proposal and ongoing promotion of his plan, it’s 49-34 percent, Obama’s first significant advantage over the GOP on jobs in ABC/Post polling since early 2010.

The president’s also maintained a large advantage over the Republicans in Congress in being seen as more concerned with the interests of middle-class Americans, now 52-32 percent. And the GOP, by a vast 70-17 percent, is seen as being more concerned than Obama with protecting the interests of the wealthy, a sentiment on which Obama has capitalized with his proposed millionaires’ tax.

It's all not rosy. His approval is at a new low in the poll. Still, this is the first sign of his numbers turning around at all. And it's because he's been consistent on his message, and fighting back against the Republicans. And it's working. Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday morning open thread

The living room wall is painted.  Whew.  That was far harder than it looked on YouTube.  I'm always amazed by people who can just paint a wall in a few minutes.  Not me.  Though by the second coat (after doing a primer too), I got the hang of it enough to sufficiently blend the edges (done with an edge tool and a brush) and the main wall (done with a roller) to my satisfaction. I could imagine painting being fun if there were no edges to the walls.  Next up is my bathroom that still has the test patches on it from when I moved in (nearly 3 years ago).  Two people did however think it was modern art, so there's that. Read the rest of this post...

Another poll shows Elizabeth Warren in a dead heat with Scott Brown

Boston Herald:

Brown is ahead of Warren by a 41-38 percent margin in a general election trial heat, a statistical tie given the poll’s 3.8 percent margin of error. Warren, who announced her campaign just last month, faces her first crucial test Tuesday night in a Democratic debate sponsored by University of Massachusetts at Lowell and the Herald

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