Memo to GOP From an Ex-Conservative: The Eighties Are Over
By Jonathan Krohn
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After a grueling election cycle from which the GOP emerged with a net loss of eight seats in the House, two seats in the Senate, and no White House, one might expect Republicans to reconsider their view that the electorate has given a solid mandate to conservative hardliners. But no: From the fiscal cliff talks (where only 29 percent of Americans approve of the work GOP leaders have done), to the inflexible stance on guns post-Sandy Hook amid an eight year high in public calls for better gun control, the party seems to be largely in denial about where the policy mandate lies. And that, in turn, highlights a longer-term problem: The right-wing base is less vital than it used to be. The challenge can be seen most evidently in a movement I know from personal experience: the religious right.
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However, let's take a look at another fact: evangelicals have increased primarily in their strategic strongholds. In Iowa and Ohio, the white evangelical voting population went up by 5 percent from 2004. The South is as (if not more) evangelical as ever, most notably in Mississippi, where white evangelicals increased by 2 percent from 2004 to 2012, going to a whopping 50 percent of the entire voting population and Alabama, where white evangelical voters went up by 4 percent.
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What's going on here? Part of the problem is that the New Right coalition relies on the same ideas based on the same people it has relied on since the 1960s and 1980s. The Heritage Foundation and National Review ideology that underlies modern conservative politics starts with Goldwater and ends with Reagan. Leaders of the party regularly kiss the proverbial ring: they make documentaries (a la Newt Gingrich's Citizen's United-produced documentary on Reagan), write books (think Dinesh D'Souza's Reagan book), and even produce radio spots featuring Reagan (e.g. every Heritage ad on talk radio, ever.)
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But it doesn't have to be this way. A more modern conservative coalition would broaden the base and bring in new leaders—exchanging the "intense policy demanders" like the National Rifle Association for those promoting innovative policies on issues where conservatives are losing (gay marriage, gun control, taxing the wealthy). The problem is that given the strength of conservative voters in the primary electorate, most less-extreme candidates don't stand much of a chance. And while some in the old guard have tested the waters with moves such as David Keene's inclusion of the gay Republican group GOProud to the Conservative Political Action Conference, it will be the next generation of Republican leaders who determine whether the party of Reagan is ready to move past the ‘80s and come to terms with a changing America.
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Oil ship runs aground in Alaska
By (Reuters via guardian.co.uk)
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A large drill ship belonging to the oil company Shell has run aground off Alaska after drifting in stormy weather, company and government officials said.
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There was no known spill and no reports of damage, but the Kulluk had about 155,000 gallons of fuel on board, said coastguard commander Shane Montoya, the leader of the incident command team.
With winds reported as reaching 60 miles an hour and Gulf of Alaska seas of up to 12 metres, responders were unable to keep the ship from grounding, he told a news conference late on Monday night in Anchorage.
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The grounding of the Kulluk, a conical, Arctic-class drill ship weighing nearly 28,000 gross tonnes, is a blow to Shell's $4.5bn (£2.8bn) offshore programme in Alaska. Its plan to convert the area into a major new oil frontier has alarmed environmentalists and many Alaska Natives, but excited industry supporters.
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What Is a Hangover?
By (Gizmodo.com)
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Yippee! Let's poison ourselves with beverages that will make us violently ill! It was your battle cry last night, and today you're paying the price. But what is that hangover you're experiencing, exactly?
Everyone has a different tolerance (it's usually lower for women than men), but anyone who drinks enough is sure to experience a cornucopia of symptoms which might include headache, diarrhea, nausea, fatigue, anxiety, trembling and a general sense of misery. It gets worse the more you drink, when you drink on an empty stomach, when you haven't slept, or if you imbibe while shakin' that thang on the dance floor (or rock climbing, or jazzercizing).
When alcohol enters your bloodstream, it tells your pituitary gland not to produce vasopressin, which is the hormone that typically keeps your body lubed up with moisture. Without vasopressin, liquids get siphoned straight to your bladder, which is why you really open the floodgates after the first time you pee during a boozy evening. When you're drinking, you lose about four times more liquid than you gain, which also causes the dehydration that leads to that wonderful cotton mouth and headache that come with a hangover. Ever wonder why exactly dehydration causes a headache? It's because your organs are so desperate they steal water from your brain, which causes your brain to shrink. A shrunken brain pulls on the membranes that connect the brain to the skull, and that, naturally, hurts like a mother.
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Thousands march against Hong Kong leader CY Leung
By (BBC)
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Thousands of people in Hong Kong have taken to the streets on the first day of the new year to call for the city's chief executive to resign.
They say CY Leung is not to be trusted following claims he lied about illegal structures at his home, a politically sensitive issue in the city.
They are also calling for the right to be able to vote for their leader, who is currently selected by a small committee loyal to Beijing.
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Young families pushing children in buggies and the elderly were among those who streamed into Victoria Park in the centre of Hong Kong for one of several anti-government rallies across the territory, the BBC's Jennifer Pak reports.
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Indian bus rape: Delhi sees rush for guns
By Jason Burke
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Hundreds of women in Delhi have applied for gun licences following the gang rape and murder of a 23-year-old woman by six men in a bus in the city last month.
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Indian media are currently reporting incidents of sexual violence that would rarely gain attention previously. In the last 24 hours these have included a teenager fleeing repeated abuse by her brother, who was allegedly assaulted on a bus by a conductor, a 15-year-old held for 15 days by three men in a village in Uttar Pradesh and repeatedly assaulted, an 11-year-old allegedly raped by three teenagers in the north-eastern city of Guwahati and two cases of rape in the city of Amritsar.
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There are estimated to be 40m guns in India, the second highest number in the world after the US. Licences are hard to obtain and most are illegal weapons, many manufactured in backstreet workshops. Official ownership levels remain low – three guns for every 100 people – but in recent years the number of women holding arms has risen. Most are wealthy and worried about theft or assault.
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Elders in Matapa, in the poverty-stricken Indian state of Bihar, banned the use of mobile phones for teenage girls and warned them against wearing "sexy" clothes. They claim the move will check rape cases and restore "social order". Other villages nearby are planning similar bans, locals said.
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Happy Emancipation Day
By Tom Levenson
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One hundred and fifty years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
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The proclamation was limited . . .
It was, however, critical:
Although the Emancipation Proclamation did not end slavery in the nation, it captured the hearts and imagination of millions of Americans and fundamentally transformed the character of the war. After January 1, 1863, every advance of federal troops expanded the domain of freedom. Moreover, the Proclamation announced the acceptance of black men into the Union Army and Navy, enabling the liberated to become liberators. By the end of the war, almost 200,000 black soldiers and sailors had fought for the Union and freedom.
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Lincoln faced criticism at the time for the proclamation — from the Confederacy, of course, who threatened all kinds of terrors for any captured black soldiers and their officers, black or white — and also from some of his own supporters, for whom the cautious limitations of the document seemed weak in the face of an obvious moral imperative. Most famously, in the autumn of 1862, Lincoln himself disavowed overt abolitionism in the most public of possible ways in a letter to Horace Greeley, the great abolitionist publisher and editor of the The New York Tribune. Historian Eugene Berwanger writes:
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NASA Disappoints NY Times Square Revelers With "Boring" Message From Mars
By Jason Mick
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The Curiosity Rover's official Twitter account, maintained by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, titillated space exploration fans with a Twitter message promising, "Will you be in @TimesSquareNYC for New Year's Eve? Look for a special message from Mars on the giant Toshiba screens."
Fans were hoping for some new images or video from the Rover -- possibly even news of a new discovery. Instead they were treated to a brief pre-rendered animation, followed by a word art "text" from the Rover commenting "Happy New Year From Mars".
The Verge, whose offices are based in Manhattan, New York, described the build-up and delivery as "groan worthy". One commenter hints that maybe budget cuts were to blame, commenting, "I think we should double NASA's budget, purely for the reason that they can then go and license decent typefaces."
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