Sunday, June 26, 2011

Slaughter ban sending horses across borders - Washington Times

Slaughter ban sending horses across borders - Washington Times: "The Government Accountability Office said the policy has led to “unintended consequences” such as depressed prices for all horses and an increase in reports of animal neglect, abuse and abandonment. GAO said Congress and the Obama administration may need to revisit the entire issue.

“Those horses are traveling farther to meet the same end in foreign slaughtering facilities where U.S. humane slaughtering protections do not apply,” GAO said in unusually blunt language that said that the horses are sometimes shipped in too-small containers for hundreds of miles, and that the inspection regime is too lax to help."

Sunday, June 19, 2011

Jon Stewart, President Obama, John McCain and More Sunday Talk - The Daily Beast

YOU BELIEVE FOX LIES:

IF you think the stimulus caused job losses, you believe, FOX lies.
IF you think the health care law will worsen the deficit, you believe, FOX lies.
IF you think most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring, you believe, FOX lies.
IF you think the stimulus legislation did not include any tax cuts, you believe, FOX lies.
IF you think their own income taxes have gone up, you believe, FOX lies.
IF you think the auto bailout only occurred under Obama, you believe, FOX lies.
IF you think When TARP came up for a vote most Republicans opposed it, you believe, FOX lies.
IF you think that it is not clear that Obama was born in the United States, you believe, FOX lies.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

'Parent Trigger' Law Over Failing Schools Raises Debate - TIME

'Parent Trigger' Law Over Failing Schools Raises Debate - TIME: "the advocacy group Buffalo ReformED are against incredible odds. In less than a week, they are trying to get a controversial law known as the 'parent trigger' through the New York legislature. It's a powerful nickname for game-changing legislation that would enable parents who could gather a majority at any persistently failing school to either fire the principal, fire 50% of the teachers, close the school or turn it into a charter school."

Sharron Angle Super PAC Breaks New Post-Citizens United Ground

Sharron Angle Super PAC Breaks New Post-Citizens United Ground: "Controversial former Republican Senate candidate Sharron Angle is pushing the limits of the law as she launches a Super PAC to collect unlimited funds from individuals and corporations to spend on current and future elections."

Sunday, June 12, 2011

So what comes after Facebook? - Blogger Help

So what comes after Facebook? - Blogger Help: "Facebook has thrived because it pretends to be a social network platform while it is, in fact, the most fertile marketing land every cultivated. They bring 'targeted advertising' to a whole new level."

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads

TV SoundOff: Sunday Talking Heads: "'This is an aspiration. It's a big goal and it's a stretch goal,' Pawlenty says, before criticizing Obama for not having a plan. Apparently, Pawlenty's magic unicorn farm now constitutes a plan.

You know, this is an aspirational goal, a stretch goal, but I really do believe that with the right time, and enough encouragement, I can poop gold doubloons. I will spend the summer doing so, and we will use these doubloons to raise revenue and fund programs and even cut taxes for everyone. My poop-doubloons will be sufficient to the task of driving down debt, not just by billions of dollars, but by KA-billions. It will add numerous jobs to the field of doubloon-wheelbarrowing and paranormal proctology. And I think every child in America will...I don't know, have a sailboat, and their own werewolf. And 15% growth. And wings! So that's my plan, Tim Pawlenty!"

Physicians Fight Florida 'Gag Law' on Gun Questions

Physicians Fight Florida 'Gag Law' on Gun QuestionsA group of physicians and medical societies has sued Florida Governor Rick Scott and other state officials in a Miami federal court to overturn a new Florida law forbidding clinicians from asking patients whether they own a gun.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Researchers Reverse Aging In Lab Mice - Boston News Story - WCVB Boston

Researchers Reverse Aging In Lab Mice - Boston News Story - WCVB Boston: "Researchers turned off, then on, the enzyme responsible for maintaining and repairing damaged telomeres in lab mice, called telomerase. In the off stage, mice showed accelerated aging.

'They had smaller brains, impaired cognition, gray hair, infertility, even at their middle age,' said DePinho, 'but they were equivalent to someone in their eighth or ninth decade of life.'"

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Should (Could) America and Pakistan’s Bond Be Broken? - NYTimes.com

Should (Could) America and Pakistan’s Bond Be Broken? - NYTimes.com: "The Pakistani officials had already advised their neighbors in Afghanistan — where Americans have committed billions of dollars and lost more than 1,500 lives since 2001 — that Afghanistan would be better off placing long-term bets on an ascendant China, rather than a declining United States."

Ógra Shinn Féin

Ógra Shinn Féin

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Our Fantasy Nation? - NYTimes.com

Our Fantasy Nation? - NYTimes.com: "In Latin American, African or Asian countries, I sometimes see shiny tanks and fighter aircraft — but schools that have trouble paying teachers. Sound familiar? And the upshot is societies that are quasi-feudal, stratified by social class, held back by a limited sense of common purpose."

Sunday, May 15, 2011

9 Killed as Israel Clashes With Palestinians on Four Borders - NYTimes.com

9 Killed as Israel Clashes With Palestinians on Four Borders - NYTimes.com Every year in mid-May many Palestinians mark what they call Nakba, or the catastrophe, the anniversary of Israel’s declaration of independence in 1948 and the start of a war in which thousands of Palestinians lost their homes through expulsion and flight.

But this is the first year that Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon tried to breach the Israeli military border in marches inspired by recent popular protests around the Arab world. Here too, word about the rallies was spread on social media sites.

“The Palestinians are not less rebellious than other Arab peoples,” said Ali Baraka, a Hamas representative in Lebanon.

Officials and analysts have argued that with peace talks broken down and plans for a request of the United Nations to declare Palestinian statehood in September, violence could return to define this conflict, which has been relatively quiet for the past two years.

“This is war, we’re defending our country,” asserted Amjad Abu Taha, a 16-year-old from Bethlehem as he took part along with thousands in the West Bank city of Ramallah near the main military checkpoint to Israel. He held a cigarette in one hand and a rock in the other. Hundreds of Israeli troops using stun guns and tear gas roamed the area.

In Gaza, a march toward Israel also resulted in Israeli troops shooting into the crowd and wounding dozens. The Hamas police stopped buses carrying protesters near the main crossing into Israel

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Red State: How the U.S. Went $10 Trillion in Debt in a Decade | BNET

Red State: How the U.S. Went $10 Trillion in Debt in a Decade | BNET
In 2001, the Congressional Budget Office projected that the U.S. government would erase its debt by 2006 and sport a hefty $2.3 trillion surplus by 2011. A decade later, we’re some $10 trillion in the red — the deepest hole relative to the size of the economy since 1950.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Eric Margolis: Bin Laden's Real Legacy

Eric Margolis: Bin Laden's Real Legacy: "Bin Laden is dead, but bin-Ladenism lives on. We must remember that Osama's primary goal was to end Western domination of the Muslim world, and exploitation of its resources, which he claimed were being plundered. The Western-backed dictators, generals and kings that ruled the Muslim world as overseers for foreign interests had to be overthrown, proclaimed bin Laden"

Summer McDonald: Birth Certificate One Week, Death Certificate the Next

Summer McDonald: Birth Certificate One Week, Death Certificate the Next: "I just don't find news reports of the violent death of anyone a reason to celebrate and/or joke. Seriously, folks, this is why they hate us."

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Daily Kos: Founding Fathers and Wealth

Daily Kos: Founding Fathers and Wealth: "Republics, they concluded, require an equitable distribution of wealth. Where wealth concentrates, political power can never be democratically shared. Locke's conception of human nature was that we are capable of self-rule - that is, especially through the facility of reason, arguing that individuals can be (largely) trusted to manage their own affairs in ways that are (more or less) consistent with the interests and well-being of others. However Hobbes suggested

if human beings are primarily self-interested and desire-driven - we are not capable of self-rule. On the contrary: our ruthless competition with one another to satisfy individual desires will quickly lead to what Hobbes calls 'the war of each against all,' a 'state of nature' in which life is 'nasty, brutish, and short.' Hobbes' conception of human nature leads us to an either/or: either we enjoy freedom from society and its laws - resulting in chaos; or we give up this freedom for an authoritarian regime - and enjoy a social order established by force. By contrast, if Locke is right - if human beings are naturally rational. social, and thus capable of self-rule - then we don't need an authoritarian regime to save us from ourselves. For Locke, our reason is crucial precisely as it is able to determine for us appropriate goals or en"

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Are We All Black Americans Now? | The Nation

Are We All Black Americans Now? | The Nation: "Under the shadow of lynching, black Americans learned what it meant to feel, as West describes, “unsafe, unprotected, subject to random violence, and hated for who they are.” After 9/11 far too many Americans, unaccustomed to this sense of collective intimidation, felt helpless to halt an unjustified war or the erosion of civil liberties. Thus, whether or not they were black, Americans were “niggerized” by the attacks."

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Japan Crisis Isn't Yet Grasped by the Markets - NYTimes.com

Japan Crisis Isn't Yet Grasped by the Markets - NYTimes.com: "The details of this catastrophe were unforeseeable, leading some to conclude this was a black swan event — something so wildly unexpected, so enormous in its impact, that it seems to defy our understanding and expose the fragility of our knowledge of the world. How could anyone have predicted this?
And yet in 2007, Tokyo Electric Power, or Tepco, escaped a disaster at its huge Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear power station, on the opposite side of Japan, when that plant was damaged by a 6.8-magnitude earthquake — three times as large as what the plant was designed to withstand. Tepco basically lucked out last time."

Saturday, February 26, 2011

A plan for new U.S. jobs, from China

A plan for new U.S. jobs, from China: "If the United States and China are going to begin to rebalance their economies, China needs to bring more jobs to the United States.
For years, there wasn't much progress. As of 2008, Chinese companies had invested less than a total of $5 billion in the United States, even as U.S. firms had made $50 billion in capital investments in China and employed tens of thousands of Chinese workers.
But since 2009, Chinese investment in the United States has exploded - jumping about 150 percent to almost $12 billion in total, according to new figures from Rhodium Group, a New York-based consultancy. Today, Chinese firms employ at least 10,000 Americans."

Monday, February 21, 2011

Reefer in a Bottle? The New Sedating Sodas | Food | AlterNet

Reefer in a Bottle? The New Sedating Sodas | Food | AlterNet: "According to CNN Health, beverages such as Malava Novocaine, Drank, Unwind, Mary Jane's Relaxing Soda, and Slow Cow (sold in Canada) are marketed as helping people unwind."

Friday, February 4, 2011

Firedoglake

Firedoglake: "But then, as Bill “Book of Virtues” Bennett might have told Salter — in between slot-machine benders at casinos — when you’re a Republican, there’s no need to live up to those values you pretend to champion when you’re writing op-eds or speeches, or preening in front of cable TV cameras. The bottom line is all about creating a brand, not an actual quality product"

Monday, January 10, 2011

No time for finger-pointing - CNN.com

No time for finger-pointing - CNN.com: "Soon after the news broke, the internet lit up with accusations, even before we knew anything at all about the man who pulled the trigger. Much of the early commentary, especially from the left, blamed the Tea Party, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, etc. for employing a rhetoric of militarism and creating a climate of hate.
Commentators from the right soon retaliated, arguing that the left was just as guilty of rhetorical excess and through bad governance, had inspired a citizen revolt"