This past Thursday evening, ay a dinner for the Empire State Pride Agenda Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that, through executive action, he had added transgender and gender nonconforming people to New York's Human Rights Law of 1945.
Leaked Doc Shows 'Toxic Trade Deal' Putting Environmental Safeguards on the Chopping Block
'This sustainable development proposal is anything but sustainable.'—Ilana Solomon, Sierra ClubA leaked of draft of negotiating text from a pending EU-U.S. trade deal shows that the bloc is ready to empower corporate polluters while going back on its promise to uphold environmental protections, groups on both sides of the Atlantic warn.
Things are threatening to spiral out of control in Syria. The civil war threatens to become a much larger all-out regional war, much like the bloody Second Congo War 1998-2003 that enveloped half of the nations of Africa.
This evening's music features swamp pop guitarist, singer and songwriter Dale Hawkins. Enjoy!
Dale Hawkins - Susie Q
On Wednesday, Minnesota Senator Al Franken sent a letter to Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FBI Director James Comey seeking answers on the reporting of this year's record level of anti-transgender violence. Franken wrote the two-page letter from his position as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I write to express serious concern about the alarming number of homicides and violent crimes targeting transgender and gender nonconforming people. I strongly urge the U.S. Department of Justice to work with state and local authorities in the investigation and prosecution of these incidents, and to redouble its efforts to ensure the accurate reporting of all bias-motivated crimes.
--Franken
Man what a rough week.
What it is?
When Iceland's President, Olafur Ragnar Grimmson was asked about his country's recovery from the 2008-2009 financial crisis, he famously said:
This evening's music features soul singer Gladys Knight. Enjoy!
Gladys Knight and the Pips - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
Put a microphone in front of a conservative talk show host and an adjunct professor of statistics from Cornell who also claims to study the philosophy of science...while seeming to specialize is climate denial...and you shouldn't expect anything good to happen.
So Joe Miller had a guest named William Briggs. The subject du jour was recent research by psychologists at UCLA and the University of York that indicates that both religious belief and nativism can be reduced by directing magnetic energy into the brain.
The researchers targeted the posterior medial frontal cortex, a part of the brain located near the surface and roughly a few inches up from the forehead that is associated with detecting problems and triggering responses that address them.
In the study, half of the participants received a low-level “sham” procedure that did not affect their brains, and half received enough energy to lower activity in the target brain area. Next, all of the participants were first asked to think about death, and then were asked questions about their religious beliefs and their feelings about immigrants.
