Record heat; reasons for COPD; banks home free; paying for High; democracy on decline; public opposed to debt limit increase; Doublethink Congress

I suppose the doubting Thomases will love this. The world has only equaled an old record

Randolph E. Schmid, Ap Science Writer – Wed Jan 12, 12:26 pm ET
WASHINGTON – It's a tie: Last year equaled 2005 as the warmest year on record, government climate experts reported Wednesday.
The average worldwide temperature was 1.12 degrees Fahrenheit (0.62 degree Celsius) above normal last year. That's the same as six years ago, the National Climatic Data Center announced.

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Another cost of corporations’ uninhibited right to poison our air

Health Tip: Help Prevent COPD
Fri Jan 7, 5:02 pm ET
(HealthDay News) .
The American Lung Association suggests these steps to help protect you from COPD:.
Avoid exposure to lung-damaging chemicals.
Take steps to help promote clean air in your community
Don't smoke, and quit if you currently smoke.
Stay away from secondhand smoke, and don't allow other people to smoke in your home
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Banks get free borrowing for their outrageous rebound to obscene profits. Where’s the free borrowing for homeowners? Deck is stacked in favor of the powerful. Why they are vested interests.

Housing prices to hit bottom this spring: economist

Reuters – An auction sign for a property in Miami Gardens, Florida, September 15, 2009.
By Barbara Liston Barbara Liston – Wed Jan 12, 5:07 pm ET
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) – U.S. housing prices overall are expected to hit bottom by spring 2011 and begin a gradual rise in 2012, Frank Nothaft, chief economist and vice president of housing lender Freddie Mac said on Wednesday.
"I do think we'll see these housing prices bottom out, maybe by the spring," Nothaft said.

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Another war we are financing. Wars all around us so we can live high

By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press Mark Stevenson, Associated Press – 36 mins ago
MEXICO CITY – A total of 34,612 people have died in drug-related killings in Mexico in the four years since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared an offensive against drug cartels, officials said Wednesday.
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While we are measuring the other 25, what about the illegal wars, the Patriot Act, the endemic government corruption, the rigged system of earmarks to help incumbents keep their seats?

Watchdog group: Freedom slipped worldwide in 2010
Barry Schweid, Ap Diplomatic Writer – Thu Jan 13, 12:01 am ET
WASHINGTON – Twenty-five countries showed significant declines in democracy in 2010 with little serious resistance from the democratic world, the watchdog group Freedom House reported Thursday.
The 25 countries listed as declining in their levels of freedom were Afghanistan, Bahrain, Burundi, Cambodia, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Fiji, France, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Hungary, Iran, Kuwait, Latvia, Madagascar, Mexico, Rwanda, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Thailand, Ukraine, Venezuela and Zambia.
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Public strongly opposes debt level increase: Reuters/Ipsos poll

Let’s shut the government down. A witless public easily manipulated and dangerous to democracy. Why Jefferson and Hamilton struck a deal to insulate government from stupidity

By Andy Sullivan and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters)
A man dressed as a destitute Uncle Sam begging for $12 trillion demonstrates in New York January 19, 2010. REUTERS/Brendan McDermid
By Andy Sullivan and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. public overwhelmingly opposes raising the country's debt limit even though failure to do so could hurt America's international standing and push up borrowing costs, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday.
Some 71 percent of those surveyed oppose increasing the borrowing authority, the focus of a brewing political battle over federal spending. Only 18 percent support an increase.

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The shame is that Giffords’ strip mall visit had only roused less than a handful of interested citizens, most of them victims of the shooter

TUCSON, Ariz. – Summoning the soul of a nation, President Barack Obama on Wednesday implored Americans to honor those slain and injured in the Arizona shootings by becoming better people, telling a polarized citizenry that it is time to talk with each other "in a way that heals, not in a way wounds."
Obama spoke to a crowd of more than 14,000 in an arena and thousands more listened on from an overflow area in the football stadium. About a mile away, at University Medical Center, Giffords lay fighting for her life. Other victims also remained there hospitalized

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If they can break the AMA monopoly, I bet they’ll do it better, cheaper, faster than our industry protected by our government to sell at outrageous profits

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – British entrepreneurs touting new technologies for concerns such as keeping tabs on addled elderly or trouble getting pregnant were courting Silicon Valley connections on Wednesday.
"We brought the best and the brightest companies that we think are on the bottom of the growth hockey stick to the San Francisco Bay Area," said the board's Zahid Latif.
"Where else would you bring them but one of the most innovative areas on the planet?"
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Shades of 1984 Double Think

House Republicans Remove "Civil Rights" and "Labor" From Committee Names
Nadia Prupis, Truthout: "House Republicans have renamed several Congressional committees by changing or removing certain hot-button words such as 'civil rights' and 'labor' from their titles. The Education and Labor Committee became the Education and Workforce Committee, while the Subcommittee on Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties is set to be renamed the Constitution Subcommittee
[ED’S NOTE, excerpt from novel 1984: But since in reality BIG BROTHER is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The key-word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known as doublethink.
The official ideology abounds with contradictions even when there is no reason for them. Simultaneously, true to the principles of doublethink, the Party rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does this in the name of socialism. It systematically undermines the solidarity of the family all the while appealing to the sentiment of family. Even the names of the four Ministries by which Oceania is governed are a deliberate reversal of facts:
The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with War;
the Ministry of Truth with Lies;
the Ministry of Love with Torture;
and the Ministry of Plenty with Starvation.
These contradictions are not accidental. They are a deliberate exercise of doublethink. If the High are to keep their places permanently - then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.]