NY Post's Racist Ape Cartoon Is No Small Matter

NY Post's Racist Ape Cartoon Is No Small Matter

Persistent simian stereotypes tagged to blacks have deep associations with support for racist violence argues a psychology professor.

Persistent simian stereotypes tagged to blacks are not mere small and unimportant post-racial leftovers of the bad old days, argues a UCLA psychology professor.

I cannot imagine that 10 minutes passed from the time it first appeared online to the time my phone rang early this morning. The New York Post had published a (now controversial) cartoon depicting two police officers that had shot a monkey — one of them quipping, "They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill."
The cartoon — you see it here — was clearly referencing the recent odd-ball news item, that a woman from Stamford, Conn., had been mauled by her pet chimpanzee and that the animal had to be "put down," as it were, to preserve public safety. But the political commentary seemed an odd juxtaposition to the visual. Could the cartoon have been suggesting that Barack Obama, principal champion of the bill and our first black president, was somehow chimp-like?
Though much of the reaction to the cartoon has been outrage at the implication that our 44th president is remotely simian, there have been other messages in the blogosphere as well. A few pleaded with us to see reason in this post-Obama era. They begged us to understand that the cartoonist clearly meant to impugn congress, Wall Street executives and academic economists and that there was no racial subtext to the piece. Others saw the cartoon as racist but declined to become outraged. Saw the injustice in the image, but saw it as a minor injustice, not one worth worrying too much about. After all, having a black president means that America is post-racial and does not need to worry about petty things like harmless pictures in a paper.
The messages in my inbox mirrored the commentaries I saw online. A few (though not many) defending the cartoon. Many more exasperated with indifference. All of them insisted this was a little thing.
The best science available suggests otherwise.
For the better part of the past seven years, my colleagues and I have conducted research on the psychological phenomenon of dehumanization. Specifically, we have examined cognitive associations between African Americans and non-human apes. And the association leads to bad things. When we began the research, we were skeptical of whether or not participants even knew that people of African descent were caricatured as ape-like — as less than human — throughout the better part of the past 400 years. And, in fact, many were not. However, even those who were unaware of this historical association demonstrated a cognitive association between blacks and apes. That is, when they thought of apes, they thought of blacks and vice versa — when they thought of blacks, they thought of apes.

But the fact of this cognitive association was not the most disturbing part of the research. Rather, it was the fact that the association between blacks and apes could lead to violence.
In one study, participants who were made to think about apes were more likely to support police violence against black (but not white) criminal suspects. The association actually caused them to endorse anti-black violence. Most disturbing of all, however, was a study of media coverage and the death penalty. Looking at a sample of death-eligible cases in Philadelphia from 1979 to 1999, the more that media coverage used ape-like metaphors to describe a murder trial (i.e. "urban jungle," "aping the suspects behavior," etc.) the more likely black suspects, but not white suspects were to be put to death.
Not surprisingly, black suspects were much more likely to be described in ape-like terms. And they were more frequently executed by the state.
Similar psychological mechanisms of discrimination are at work in the bloated incarceration rates of young black men, the trenchant educational achievement gap between blacks and whites, and the racial bias evidenced in law enforcement officer's use of force. Though some are demonstrating leadership towards equality, we find that many of our nation's oldest racial shames have persisted into a period when a black person can reasonably aspire to the highest office in the land.
I mention these depressing findings because it is tempting to ignore them in the wake of President Obama's inauguration — to downplay the significance of "isolated events" of bigotry and "harmless words or pictures." But precisely because the dream of post-raciality is seductive for so many, it is all the more important that we not forget that cartoons like the one in today's New York Post are never isolated-and consequently, never harmless.
Today's Post cartoon is not far removed from the "Curious George" Obama sock puppet, a "Curious George" Obama T-shirt, a Japanese advertisement depicting Obama as a monkey, and countless other Obama/monkey comparisons that cropped up throughout the year-long Democratic primary and presidential campaigns. Psychological science has long known that words and pictures, far from harmless, can be the very instruments of dehumanization necessary for collective violence-regardless of how innocently they are intended.
As we live through this historic presidency, there will doubtless be more of these moments of impolitic insensitivity. Some will be more egregious than others. But, as a scientist, my sincerest hope for us all is that we not be biased by the desire to see our struggle towards racial equality as over. The evidence is too clear that the little things are still a big deal.

HSUS SUPPORTS KILLING 146 Pitt Bulls, Incl. 79 Puppies, 19 born after rescue.

Thank you for contacting us regarding a county judge’s decision in North Carolina to euthanize fighting dogs seized from the property of notorious dogfighting kingpin Ed Faron. We understand your concern about the judge’s order to euthanize the dogs, and it is always a tragic outcome when healthy animals meet such a fate. But the blame lies with Mr. Faron, and not with county officials or The Humane Society of the United States. While we may not endorse every action of the county, we are grateful to them for working with The HSUS to bust a man who is responsible for an enormous amount of cruelty to dogs, and to bring him to justice.

No organization has done more to attack and harm the dogfighting industry than The HSUS. We’ve probably invested more in combating dogfighting than all other humane groups combined, and to great effect. We are principally responsible for the strong state and federal laws that make the practice a felony and ban possession and sale of fighting animals, and we have trained thousands of law enforcement personnel on investigating and raiding fighting operations. What’s more, it is our training, investigations, and rewards programs that are resulting in the arrest of countless dogfighters and the seizure of thousands of fighting dogs (which are, according to the dogfighters, an asset they lose upon seizure).

We are involved in dogfighting busts on almost a weekly basis, and the handling of Mr. Faron’s dogs raises the same questions that confound us constantly. With approximately 600,000 pit bulls killed in shelters each year, why should fighting dogs, which obviously require more resources to manage and which pose an obvious threat to other animals, get placed in favor of other equally deserving pit bulls and other breeds slated for euthanasia? In a local jurisdiction that has perhaps hundreds of other pit bulls waiting for loving homes, why not save them in favor of fighting dogs that will cost far more to handle on a per dog basis? How do we solve the larger pit bull problem in the nation, since we have an epidemic of dogfighters and others breeding them for aggression and for uses other than as companions?

We conducted a long-term investigation that led to the arrest of Mr. Faron and the seizure of his fighting dogs. He is considered one of the “Godfathers” of dogfighting, and it was our goal to put him out of business, just as it is our goal to target other industry leaders, in order to prevent thousands of dogs for use in fighting pits. Had it not been for our investigation, most of his dogs would have suffered immensely in a fighting pit in the weeks and months ahead. And who knows how many other dogs he would have bred to face this same fate.

It is now an HSUS policy to recommend an evaluation of all fighting dogs. In this case, The HSUS offered to pay for an additional professional evaluator to assess the dogs, even though we were skeptical that these dogs could be safely rehabilitated. The county did not take us up on that offer. Without an affirmative professional evaluation to indicate that the dogs could be safely placed in a new setting, we could not recommend adoption of these dogs who had been bred for generations for their instinct to kill.

While separate evaluations were not done, it is safe to say Faron’s dogs have been bred to produce animals with an unstoppable desire to fight, even in the face of extreme pain and fear. Professional dogfighters typically “cull” the dogs that don’t exhibit gameness or aggression, and only keep and breed the ones that exhibit the desired traits. For proof of that, we can refer to Faron himself, from his book about dogfighting:
“His face had only just healed from that fight with the Wreckers’ dog and he got his nose chewed half off again, that night.”

“The gamest dog I ever saw in my life was King David. At ten minutes, his right leg was broken. At twenty-three minutes, his left leg was broken. At thirty-seven he scratched on stumps, and at forty-eight minutes when he scratched he scratched down one wall and down the other ….until he got to Beau again.””
“ I mean, he broke muzzles, crushed skulls- we saw him bite dogs in the chest and their chest would literally collapse. That was Beau…”

Game-bred dogs pose a risk to other dogs not just because of training, but more importantly because of breeding for aggressive characteristics. Even no-kill shelters typically recommend euthanasia of obviously dangerous dogs.

These fighting dogs do not compare with the dogs from amateur “street fighters,” who typically take any, random pit bull and try and force them to fight. If pit bulls have not been bred for generations to have a “fight crazy” instinct, even if they have been exposed to dogfighting, they have a chance of being rehabilitated. This is why a substantial number of Michael Vick’s dogs were candidates for rehabilitation, after the court ordered Vick to pay $1 million as a set-aside to provide care and retraining for the dogs.

Once game-bred dogs are confiscated from a fighting situation, there are very few good options. There are no sanctuaries that exist for the thousands of game-bred dogs confiscated each year, and as a nation, there are hundreds of thousands of pit bulls awaiting adoptions in shelters every year. The resources that would be required to confine or rehabilitate fighting dogs could save many more dogs in shelters every year. So, in that sense, it is not a zero-sum game when it comes to euthanasia; it is a negative-sum game, and an inordinate focus on these few pit bulls would result in more euthanasia of other dogs. And if you impose upon rural counties – where most fighting busts occur – the burden of long-term holding of fighting pit bulls, then they may decline to intervene in criminal fighting cases, allowing the dogfighters to continue to operate.
There are tough choices to be made, and the only morally clear act is to attack the dogfighters where they live. We are the only national organization that has an entire unit devoted to this work on a national scale. That’s what we’ll continue to do.
###

My Reply:

Please I don't need your lies and sorry excuses. Don't you think I'd do my homework before writing to you? Here are some thing's for you to read. MANY of them HSUS stated that they animals were beyond saving. This truly is the lowest of the low. I once had respect for HSUS this is no longer true. If you had sent a letter saying that you had made a mistake and will take better care in new cases I could have said "ok yes I'm still upset but at least they learned and are willing not to write off an animal or 200 just because it takes to much of their time and money".

The deaths of 146 Pitt Bulls, Incl. 79 Puppies, 19 of them born after the rescue "Humane Society, others back the court's decision." Yes, that's right. The same group that garnered attention (and quite possibly donations) for rescuing the dogs officially recommended that all 146, 60 of them puppies, be killed--no individual assessments, no consideration of the likelihood that many of them could be rehabilitated. Just cheap, fast death. For all of them. It's the same recommendation that both the Humane Society of the United States". Was a intro from Animal Law. Did you know that 19 of these were puppies that were born AFTER you so called saved them? Or did you even care?


Best Friends tried to save the dogs. They even offered to pay for the assessments and the spaying and neutering of the adoptable dogs and to work with other rescue groups on the placement of the dogs. And with Best Friends and other rescue organizations having helped as many adult, longtime fighting dogs as they have, why couldn't we have given them a chance to at least perform individual assessments, especially where the puppies were concerned? Why did you let them????

See the following for stories of dogs (and roosters) who have been and are being rehabilitated.
Meet the Rescued Michael Vick Pit Bull Dogs Now (narrated slideshow from Bad Rap; begins with image below)
Vick's Dogs: The Good News Out of the Bad Newz Kennels (Sports Illustrated)
The Vicktory Dogs (Best Friends)
Pit Bulls--The Real Story (Best Friends)
mid-winter blues: all the good news, on (quickly!) rehabilitated fighting roosters, and heartbreak, 39-8=31, on the rescue of those roosters (Invisible Voices)

That "in some cases" part? Because the moment the organization removed those dogs from the dogfighting operation, it did so knowing it would advocate for their deaths. The positions of HSUS and others is that dogs who have been forced into fighting are beyond rehabilitation and that attempted rehabilitation is a misappropriation of resources when there are so many other animals in need. But it has been shown that many of these dogs can be rehabilitated, so why don't they deserve a chance as much as other dogs do? Why don't we want to fight harder to give happy lives to those who can be rehabilitated and adopted, to try to make up for the hell humans put them through, instead of deciding arbitrarily that all of them should die?
And let's remember that in the case of the Vick dogs, not nearly all of them even had to go to Best Friends for that more serious rehabilitation--25 of them, after careful assessment, went straight into loving, experienced foster homes.



Until HSUS says sorry to the people, sorry to the Best Friends, sorry to those willing and wanting to give these animals a home, sorry for writing off puppies born after "the rescue" and sorry for giving up on lives that could have been saved. They have lost the support and respect of many (and not just 200 people).

Andrea M.

Brutal wars in Africa's biggest county (Shall we take a look)

Brutal wars in Africa's biggest country (Shall we take a look)
Sudan, the largest country in Africa, has been at war for nearly 50 years. The three main conflicts:

A brutal 21-year civil war between the north and the south that ended in 2005. In 2005, Sudan's government and rebels from the south officially ended Africa's longest-running war. The 21-year civil conflict killed 2 million people and forced more than 4 million from their homes, according to U.N. estimates.
Under peace deal, oil revenues to be shared
Refugees started returning in late 2005
Former foes clash over oil-rich Abyei region
The ongoing humanitarian crisis in Darfur in the west where at least 300,000 have died and 2.9 million been displaced by fighting since 2003 The United Nations has described Sudan's western Darfur region as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
Over 2.9 million uprooted
World's biggest relief operation
2006 peace deal failed to improve security Tensions in eastern Sudan where insurgents have threatened to challenge the government for a share of the country's power and natural-resources. Sudan has had war in the south and west, and a decade-long low level revolt in the east has threatened to flare into full-scale conflict. But the mid-October 2006 signing of an agreement between eastern Sudanese rebels and Khartoum has given hope that peace could stabilise one of Sudan's most important areas economically
One of poorest regions in Sudan Home to Sudan's largest gold mine and major oil pipeline Drought forced many to abandon nomadic lifestyle

An obvious question is: Why is Sudan plagued by internal conflict, and how are these three conflicts related, if at all? There is no easy answer, but a few explanations do shed light on the problem.
First, colonisers drew the boundaries of present-day Sudan without heed to the different religious and ethnic groups that already inhabited the territory, which was under joint Anglo-Egyptian control until 1956. This set the stage for showdowns between the north, populated predominantly by Arab Muslims, and the south, populated largely by animists and Christians of African origin.
The British lit the tinderbox when they left by leaving an elite group of northerners in charge.
Second, over the years those in power in Khartoum have marginalised southerners, Darfuris and several other groups in various pockets of the country, including provinces in eastern Sudan. In addition, the Islamist policies of the government in the 1990s added to the alienation of the southerners.
Third, rebels in all corners of the country share similar grievances over Khartoum's failure to provide even the most basic of services, and widespread abject poverty has fueled calls to share the wealth.
The discovery of oil in southern Sudan in 1978 only raised the stakes. Sudan rakes in up to $1 billion year in oil exports but there is little in the way of social services to show for it. In 2005, it looked as though Sudan had finally moved to put its house in order. The government and the main rebel group in the south, the Sudanese People's Liberation Movement (SPLM), signed a peace deal that ended the north-south civil war.
A new power-sharing government was sworn in. But the peace deal looks shaky.
The conflict in Darfur and the possibility of new violence in the east, where rebels have the same grievances as those elsewhere in the country, threaten to derail the entire process.
Former SPLM rebels are now in the central government as ministers, so the fates of the south and of other troubled areas are increasingly linked. And as SPLM soldiers have supported the rebels in the east, the south could yet play a role in further conflict with Khartoum.

Added information:

KEY FACTS
Total population (2007)
37.8 million (U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs Population Division 2006)
Life expectancy at birth (2005)
57.4 years (UNDP - Human Development Report 2007/2008)
Total adult literacy rate (2004)
60.9 percent (UNDP 2006)
Infant mortality rate per 1,000 live births (2006)
61 (UNICEF - State of the World's Children 2008)
Under-5 mortality rate per 1,000 live births (2006)
89 (UNICEF - State of the World's Children 2008)
Internally displaced people (2008)
6 million (Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 2008)
Percentage of people undernourished (2002-04 average)
26 (U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) 2006)
GNI per capita, Atlas method (2005)
$640 (World Bank Data Profile Tables 2007)
Public expenditure on health as a percent of GDP (2004)
1.5 (UNDP 2007/2008)

Andrea M.

A "firewall" between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel?

A "firewall" between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel?

The Merriam-Webster On-line Dictionary says that anti-Semitism means "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious, ethnic, or racial group." This definition is useful because it reminds us that Jews are more than simply adherents of a particular religion; i.e., they are also an ethno-cultural group, a tribe, a people.
But is there a "firewall" between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel? Like other countries, Israel has features that invite criticism, but crafting a fair critique is troublesome because it requires something approximating respect for natural justice, application of generally applicable norms, reference to the general practice of states, and giving reasons to support particular judgments. Thus, criticizing Israel is not necessarily anti-Semitic. But it is untrue to say that there is a logical distinction that prevents a persistent pattern of bitter criticism of Israel from being anti-Semitic. To the contrary, the methodologies applied in more than a half-century of modern human-rights law make it clear that a persistent pattern of targeting Israel with discriminatory criticism is anti-Semitic.

MODERN HUMAN-RIGHTS by definition “as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction”. Astute enough to examine not only a pattern of impugned behavior but also the likely effects of that pattern. Consider the following: (1) Jews have been an historically victimized people for more than 2,000 years, also African-Americans and the aboriginal peoples of Canada have been historically victimized. (2) Now containing half the world's Jewish population, Israel is the historic and current homeland of the Jewish people, just as Greece is the home of the Greek people. When these two points are considered in terms of modern human-rights methodologies , http://www.pdhre.org/materials/methodologies.html the conclusion is that a persistent pattern of discriminatory criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic because it is likely to harm Jews.

An imaginary watertight compartment separating Israel from the Jewish people is as improbable as trying to uncouple the notion of China from the Han Chinese people or Turkey from the Turkish people. This is an important point because the hallmark of the modern anti-Semite is precisely reliance on the unpersuasive claim that there is a clear line that prevents a persistent pattern of anti-Israel criticism from being anti-Semitic. To the contrary, statistical evidence links critics of Israel to anti-Semites. Public opinion polls tend to show a correlation between respondents who strongly oppose Israel and those with marked negative feelings toward Jews and Judaism. Furthermore, police records from Europe and elsewhere reveal spikes in anti-Semitic incidents coincident with major military actions involving Israel - e.g., in Lebanon in 2006 and in Gaza this year - and anti-Israel terrorist groups also target local Jews in foreign countries, as in the 1994 attack on the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires. Thus, those who explain or justify anti-Semitism by pointing to alleged misdeeds by Israel are simultaneously acknowledging the link between the State of Israel and the Jewish People.
RELATED
Zionism and the global anti-Semitic frenzy
Modern anti-Semitism, then, means being comfortable persistently targeting Jews and/or Israel and persistently applying to Jews and/or Israel a more exigent standard than applied to other peoples and countries. Friends of Israel may also be said to "target" the Jewish State, in the sense that they, too, are disposed to pay more attention to Israel than to other countries. However, they are unlikely to seek to tar Israel by persistently expecting more from it than from other countries; to the contrary, friends are likely to defend Israel by applying a less demanding standard.
Definition and example: Anti-Semites (also known as Judeophobia), on the other hand, focus on Israel with the aim of portraying it in a negative light. Their underlying motivation is sinister, in that they do seek to tar Israel to fabricate justifications for extreme measures likely to harm Jews, whether in Israel or abroad.
Antisemitism may be manifested in many ways, ranging from individual expressions of hatred and discrimination against individual Jews to organized violent attacks by mobs or even state police or military attacks on entire Jewish communities. Extreme instances of persecution include the First Crusade of 1096, the expulsion from England in 1290, the Spanish Inquisition, the expulsion from Spain in 1492, the expulsion from Portugal in 1497, various pogroms, and the most infamous, the Holocaust under Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany.
Antisemitism has also been publicly evident amongst anarchist Jews from the 19th century. Bernard Lazare, a French Jew born in southern France in the mid-19th century, was prominent amongst turn of the century anarchists in holding that the Jew tends to be unsociable and exclusive in outlook. This perceived behaviour was anathema to Jewish anarchists of the time. Jewish anarchists despised Jewishness and described their position as antisemitisme as in the following quote from Lazare's 1896 book on the topic:
"...the general causes of antisemitism have always resided in Israel itself, and not in those who antagonized it . . . the Jews were themselves, in part, at least, the cause of their own ills . . . Which virtues or which vices have earned for the Jew this universal enmity? Why was he ill-treated and hated alike and in turn by the Alexandrians and the Romans, by the Persians and the Arabs, by the Turks and the Christian nations? Because, everywhere up to our own days the Jew was an unsociable being. Why was he unsociable? Because he was exclusive, and his exclusiveness was both political and religious, or rather he held fast to his political and religious cult, to his law".
Because of many explicit pejorative references to Jews and Judaism, the texts of both the Christian gospels and the Muslim Koran have directly played a role in spawning civilizations with exceptional attitudes toward Jews and Judaism. In the Western and Islamic worlds, many individuals find it natural to harbor distinctive (often negative) views about Jews and Judaism. However, there is often a lack of awareness that the prevailing cultural software has been so significantly infected by the virus of anti-Semitism. For this reason, many individuals remain comfortable persistently targeting Jews and/or Israel and persistently applying to Jews and/or Israel a more exigent standard than applied to other peoples and countries.

Attacking Jews in pogroms or sending Jews to die in concentration camps are obviously anti-Semitic acts. But many individuals in the Western and Islamic Worlds have a blind spot that prevents them from recognizing anti-Semitism in other toxic manifestations. Here it helps to recall the Holocaust. That horrendous crime traced its immediate origins to 1933, when German leader Adolf Hitler began a program of well-organized discrimination that singled out Jews via legal and bureaucratic expedients. In the same way, modern anti-Semites contrive strategies to support persistent patterns of bitter discrimination against Israel, e.g., in organs of the United Nations. The strategy is to demonize Israel by judging it according to a more exigent standard than applied to other countries. The ultimate goal is to justify the destruction of Israel and the killing of the Jews there.
THE AD HOMINEM argument of being Jewish or having Jewish parents (even concentration camp survivors) is no logical defense to a charge of anti-Semitism. Today, many Jews fail to understand that the meaning of anti-Semitism includes any persistent pattern of discrimination against Jews and/or Israel. Many falsely imagine that, because they themselves are Jewish, they have a special license to freely engage in these patterns. However, the harm done by such Jews is as real as that done by the anti-Semitism of non-Jews. In fact, anti-Israel discrimination by Jews can do even more damage, because Jews can gain greater credibility by trumpeting their own Jewish credentials.

Human-rights methodologies offer nothing to suggest that either "the Right" or "the Left" has a dispensation legitimating these discriminatory patterns. This means that most anti-Semitism cannot be justified with reference to an alleged greater good to be derived from Nazism, fascism, socialism, communism, environmentalism, anti-colonialism, the Non-Aligned movement or any other cause or ideology. Nonetheless, many enemies of Israel remain astonishingly confident in their mistaken belief that their preferred doctrine entitles them to indulge in such discrimination, while immunizing them from a charge of anti-Semitism. This is a pitiful and hollow illusion.
-Andrea Mckeeby

California budget talks deadlocked

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – California lawmakers remained deadlocked Wednesday over a plan to increase taxes to tackle the state's budget deficit as Republicans ousted their legislative leader for his support of tax hikes.
As Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger sent layoff notices to 20,000 state workers and officials prepared to halt hundreds of construction projects, legislators voted against more than 14 billion dollars in new taxes.
The taxes are part of a package, along with nearly 16 billion dollars in spending cuts, that Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders say is needed to fill a budget deficit expected to reach 42 billion dollars by 2010.
"If we do not pass this budget today, the California dream will turn into the California nightmare," state Senator Alan Lowenthal said of a budget stalemate that already has led to a ratings downgrade for state bonds and could force the cash-strapped state to soon stop paying its bills.
California is the only state that requires a two-thirds legislative majority to both pass a budget and pass any tax increase.
Though Democrats control both chambers of the state Legislature, they need three Republicans to join them to reach that two-thirds vote.
So far, despite the pleas of Republican Governor Schwarzenegger, only one Republican in the Senate has agreed to vote for the package.
That lone Republican, Dave Cogdill, spent three months helping to negotiate the budget package.
But late Tuesday night, his Republican colleagues ousted him from the post of Minority Leader and replaced him with a staunch anti-tax senator.
"It's a shame it ended this way," Cogdill said. "This budget needs to get out, and we need to put people to work again in this state."
Other Republicans continued to insist they will stand by their pledge against raising taxes, and called again for more spending cuts.
"I think it's time that we need to stop treating the taxpayers of this state of California as a personal ATM," said state Senator Tony Strickland. "Funds are overdrawn."
Legislators brought sleeping bags and pillows to the Senate chamber on Tuesday night. They have been meeting virtually non-stop since Saturday in an effort to pass a budget. One senator, a dentist, passed out toothbrushes to colleagues.
Earlier this month, the Standard & Poor's agency cut the rating on California bonds to the lowest credit grade of any of the 50 US states.
California, which with 36.5 million residents is home to one of every eight Americans, will receive a large chunk of the 787-billion-dollar federal stimulus package signed into law Tuesday by President Barack Obama.
But that still won't be enough to bridge the state's budget deficit, which is increasing at a rate of 500 dollars a second.
The tax increases proposed by Schwarzenegger and legislative leaders would increase the state sales tax from 7.25 percent to 8.25 percent, add 12 cents per gallon to gasoline taxes and impose new taxes on activities ranging from a round of golf to car repair.

Hold on Cali we are in for one hell of a ride....

Hope the IOU's we will be getting as out tax return's helps (yeah right).

How the economic stimulus plan could affect you

How the economic stimulus plan could affect you.

An examination of how the economic stimulus plan will affect Americans.
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Taxes:
The recovery package has tax breaks for families that send a child to college, purchase a new car, buy a first home or make the ones they own more energy efficient.
Millions of workers can expect to see about $13 extra in their weekly paychecks, starting around June, from a new $400 tax credit to be doled out through the rest of the year. Couples would get up to $800. In 2010, the credit would be about $7.70 a week, if it is spread over the entire year.
The $1,000 child tax credit would be extended to more low-income families that don't make enough money to pay income taxes, and poor families with three or more children will get an expanded Earned Income Tax Credit.
Middle-income and wealthy taxpayers will be spared from paying the Alternative Minimum Tax, which was designed 40 years ago to make sure wealthy taxpayers pay at least some tax, but was never indexed for inflation. Congress fixes it each year, usually in the fall.
First-time homebuyers who purchase their homes before Dec. 1 would be eligible for an $8,000 tax credit, and people who buy new cars before the end of the year can write off the sales taxes.
Homeowners who add energy-efficient windows, furnaces and air conditioners can get a tax credit to cover 30 percent of the costs, up to a total of $1,500. College students — or their parents — are eligible for tax credits of up to $2,500 to help pay tuition and related expenses in 2009 and 2010.
Those receiving unemployment benefits this year wouldn't pay any federal income taxes on the first $2,400 they receive.
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Health insurance:
Many workers who lose their health insurance when they lose their jobs will find it cheaper to keep that coverage while they look for work.
Right now, most people working for medium and large employers can continue their coverage for 18 months under the COBRA program when they lose their job. It's expensive, often over $1,000 a month, because they pay the share of premiums once covered by their employer as well as their own share from the old group plan.
Under the stimulus package, the government will pick up 65 percent of the total cost of that premium for the first nine months.
Lawmakers initially proposed to help workers from small companies, too, who don't generally qualify for COBRA coverage. But that fell through. The idea was to have Washington pay to extend Medicaid to them.
COBRA applies to group plans at companies employing at least 20 people. The subsidies will be offered to those who lost their jobs from Sept. 1 to the end of this year.
Those who were put out of work after September but didn't elect to have COBRA coverage at the time will have 60 days to sign up.
The plan offers $87 billion to help states administer Medicaid. That could slow or reverse some of the steps states have taken to cut the program.
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Infrastructure:
Highways repaved for the first time in decades. Century-old waterlines dug up and replaced with new pipes. Aging bridges, stressed under the weight of today's SUVs, reinforced with fresh steel and concrete.
But the $90 billion is a mere down payment on what's needed to repair and improve the country's physical backbone. And not all economists agree it's an effective way to add jobs in the long term, or stimulate the economy.
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Energy:
Homeowners looking to save energy, makers of solar panels and wind turbines and companies hoping to bring the electric grid into the computer age all stand to reap major benefits.
The package contains more than $42 billion in energy-related investments from tax credits to homeowners to loan guarantees for renewable energy projects and direct government grants for makers of wind turbines and next-generation batteries.
There's a 30 percent tax credit of up to $1,500 for the purchase of a highly efficient residential air conditioners, heat pumps or furnaces. The credit also can be used by homeowners to replace leaky windows or put more insulation into the attic. About $300 million would go for rebates to get people to buy efficient appliances.
The package includes $20 billion aimed at "green" jobs to make wind turbines, solar panels and improve energy efficiency in schools and federal buildings. It includes $6 billion in loan guarantees for renewable energy projects as well as tax breaks or direct grants covering 30 percent of wind and solar energy investments. Another $5 billion is marked to help low-income homeowners make energy improvements.
About $11 billion goes to modernize and expand the nation's electric power grid and $2 billion to spur research into batteries for future electric cars.
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Schools:
A main goal of education spending in the stimulus bill is to help keep teachers on the job.
Nearly 600,000 jobs in elementary and secondary schools could be eliminated by state budget cuts over the next three years, according to a study released this past week by the University of Washington. Fewer teachers means higher class sizes, something that districts are scrambling to prevent.
The stimulus sets up a $54 billion fund to help prevent or restore state budget cuts, of which $39 billion must go toward kindergarten through 12th grade and higher education. In addition, about $8 billion of the fund could be used for other priorities, including modernization and renovation of schools and colleges, though how much is unclear, because Congress decided not to specify a dollar figure.
The Education Department will distribute the money as quickly as it can over the next couple of years.
And it adds $25 billion extra to No Child Left Behind and special education programs, which help pay teacher salaries, among other things.
This money may go out much more slowly; states have five years to spend the dollars, and they have a history of spending them slowly. In fact, states don't spend all the money; they return nearly $100 million to the federal treasury every year.
The stimulus bill also includes more than $4 billion for the Head Start and Early Head Start early education programs and for child care programs.
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National debt:
One thing about the president's $790 billion stimulus package is certain: It will jack up the federal debt.
Whether or not it succeeds in producing jobs and taming the recession, tomorrow's taxpayers will end up footing the bill.
Forecasters expect the 2009 deficit — for the budget year that began last Oct 1 — to hit $1.6 trillion including new stimulus and bank-bailout spending. That's about three times last year's shortfall.
The torrents of red ink are being fed by rising federal spending and falling tax revenues from hard-hit businesses and individuals.
The national debt — the sum of all annual budget deficits — stands at $10.7 trillion. Or about $36,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S.
Interest payments alone on the national debt will near $500 billion this year. It's already the fourth-largest federal expenditure, after Medicare-Medicaid, Social Security and defense.
This will affect us all directly for years, as well as our children and possibly grandchildren, in higher taxes and probably reduced government services. It will also force continued government borrowing, increasingly from China, Japan, Britain, Saudi Arabia and other foreign creditors.
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Environment:
The package includes $9.2 billion for environmental projects at the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency. The money would be used to shutter abandoned mines on public lands, to help local governments protect drinking water supplies, and to erect energy-efficient visitor centers at wildlife refuges and national parks.
The Interior Department estimates that its portion of the work would generate about 100,000 jobs over the next two years.
Yet the plan will only make a dent in the backlog of cleanups facing the EPA and the long list of chores at the country's national parks, refuges and other public lands. It would be more like a down payment.
When it comes to national parks, the plan sets aside $735 million for road repairs and maintenance. But that's a fraction of the $9 billion worth of work waiting for funding.
At EPA, the payout is $7.2 billion. The bulk of the money will help local communities and states repair and improve drinking water systems and fund projects that protect bays, rivers and other waterways used as sources of drinking water.
The rest of EPA's cut — $800 million — will be used to clean up leaky gasoline storage tanks and the nation's hazardous waste sites.
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Police:
The stimulus bill includes plenty of green for those wearing blue.
The compromise bill doles out more than $3.7 billion for police programs, much of which is set aside for hiring new officers.
The law allocates $2 billion for the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant, a program that has funded drug task forces and things such as prisoner rehabilitation and after-school programs.
An additional $1 billion is set aside to hire local police under the Community Oriented Policing Services program. The program, known as COPS grants, paid the salaries of many local police officers and was a "modest contributor" to the decline in crime in the 1990s, according to a 2005 government oversight report.
Both programs had all been eliminated during the Bush administration.
The bill also includes $225 million for general criminal justice grants for things such as youth mentoring programs, $225 million for Indian tribe law enforcement, $125 million for police in rural areas, $100 million for victims of crimes, $50 million to fight Internet crimes against children and $40 million in grants for law enforcement along the Mexican border.
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Higher Education:
The maximum Pell Grant, which helps the lowest-income students attend college, would increase from $4,731 currently to $5,350 starting July 1 and $5,550 in 2010-2011. That would cover three-quarters of the average cost of a four-year college. An extra 800,000 students, or about 7 million, would now get Pell funding.
The stimulus also increases the tuition tax credit to $2,500 and makes it 40 percent refundable, so families who don't earn enough to pay income tax could still get up to $1,000 in extra tuition help.
Computer expenses will now be an allowable expense for 529 college savings plans.
The final package cut $6 billion the House wanted to spend to kick-start building projects on college campuses. But parts of the $54 billion state stabilization fund — with $39 billion set aside for education — can be used for modernizing facilities.
There's also an estimated $15 billion for scientific research, much of which will go to universities. Funding for the National Institutes of Health includes $1.5 billion set aside for university research facilities.
Altogether, the package spends an estimated $32 billion on higher education.
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The Poor:
More than 37 million Americans live in poverty, and the vast majority of them are in line for extra help under the giant stimulus package. Millions more could be kept from slipping into poverty by the economic lifeline.
People who get food stamps — 30 million and growing — will get more. People drawing unemployment checks — nearly 5 million and growing — would get an extra $25, and keep those checks coming longer. People who get Supplemental Security Income — 7 million poor Americans who are elderly, blind or disabled — would get one-time extra payments of $250.
Many low-income Americans also are likely to benefit from a trifecta of tax credits: expansions to the existing Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, and a new refundable tax credit for workers. Taken together, the three credits are expected to keep more than 2 million Americans from falling into poverty, including more than 800,000 children, according to the private Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
The package also includes a $3 billion emergency fund to provide temporary assistance to needy families. In addition, cash-strapped states will get an infusion of $87 billion for Medicaid, the government health program for poor people, and that should help them avoid cutting off benefits to the needy.

SCARED YET????

Study: 'Astonishing richness' in polar sea species

Study: 'Astonishing richness' in polar sea species

Don't always belive what you read in a title.... go down a few paragraphs and you'll see what I'm speaking about.

BANGKOK, Thailand – The polar oceans are not biological deserts after all.
A marine census released Monday documented 7,500 species in the Antarctic and 5,500 in the Arctic, including several hundred that researchers believe could be new to science.
"The textbooks have said there is less diversity at the poles than the tropics, but we found astonishing richness of marine life in the Antarctic and Arctic oceans," said Victoria Wadley, a researcher from the Australian Antarctic Division who took part in the Antarctic survey. "We are rewriting the textbooks."
In one of the biggest surprises, researchers said they discovered dozens of species common to both polar seas — separated by nearly 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers). Now they have to figure out how they separated.
"We probably know more about deep space than we do about the deep polar oceans in our own backyard," said Gilly Llewellyn, leader of the oceans program for the environmental group WWF-Australia. She did not take part in the survey. "This critical research is helping reveal the amazing biodiversity of the polar regions."
Most of the new discoveries were simpler life forms known as invertebrates, or animals without backbones.
Researchers found scores of sea spider species that were as big as a human hand, and tiny, shrimp-like crustaceans in the Arctic basin that live at a depth of 9,850 feet (3,000 meters).
The survey is one of several projects of the Census of Marine Life, an international effort to catalog all life in the oceans. The 10-year census, scheduled for final publication in 2010, is supported by governments, divisions of the United Nations and private conservation organizations.
The survey — which included over 500 polar researchers from 25 countries — took place during International Polar Year which ran in 2007-2008.
Researchers endured up to 48-foot (16-meter) waves on their trip to the Antarctic, while their colleagues in the Arctic worked under the watchful eye of a security guard hired to protect them from polar bears.
New technology also helped make the expeditions more efficient and productive than in the past. Researchers used cell-phone-like tracking devices to record the Arctic migration of narwhals, a whale with a long twisted tooth, and remotely operated submersibles to reach several miles (kilometers) down into the oceans to study delicate marine animals that are impossible to collect.
As many as 235 species were found in both polar seas, including five whale species, six sea birds and nearly 100 species of crustaceans.
"We think of the Arctic and Antarctic as similar habitats but they are separated by great distances," said University of Alaska Fairbanks plankton ecologist Russ Hopcroft, who took part in the Arctic survey.
"So finding species at both ends of the Earth — some of which don't have a known connection in between — raises a whole bunch of evolutionary questions," he said.
Hopcroft and other polar researchers will now try to determine how long these species have been separated and whether they have drifted apart genetically.
David Barnes, of the British Antarctic Survey, said there a number of possibilities to explain how similar species live so far apart.
Some may have traveled along the deep-sea currents that link the poles or may have thrived during the height of the last ice age about 20,000 years ago when the polar environment was expanded and the two habitats were closer.
Hopcroft and Barnes cautioned that more work needs to be done to confirm whether the 235 species are indeed the same or differ genetically.
"Painstaking work by geneticists investigating both nuclear and mitochondrial genes will only be able to confirm this," Barnes said in an e-mail interview. "It may be they separated sometime ago but similar selective pressures have meant they have not changed much."
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On the Net:
Census of Marine Life: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_sc/storytext/as_antarctica_bountiful_sea/30978118/SIG=10l0ma3sq/*http://www.coml.org
Arctic Ocean Diversity: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_sc/storytext/as_antarctica_bountiful_sea/30978118/SIG=10onmubt3/*http://www.arcodiv.org.
Census of Antarctic Marine Life: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/ap/ap_on_sc/storytext/as_antarctica_bountiful_sea/30978118/SIG=10kvoqbuo/*http://www.caml.aq