Congress?

Echoes from the past

Banning books

Censorship at its most fearful... people might actually think:

In support of the right to choose books freely for ourselves, the American Library Association is sponsoring Banned Books Week (Sept. 25 - Oct. 2, 2010), an annual celebration of our right to access books without censorship. This year's observance is themed "think for yourself and let others do the same" and commemorates the most basic freedom in a democratic society -- the freedom to read -- and encourages us to respect others' freedom to choose.

Since its inception in 1982, Banned Books Week has reminded us that while not every book is intended for every reader, each of us has the right to choose for ourselves what to read, listen to or view. Thousands of libraries and bookstores across the country will celebrate the freedom to read by participating in special events, exhibits and read-outs that showcase books that have been banned or threatened.

The American Booksellers Association, the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the American Library Association, the Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors and the National Association of College Stores sponsor Banned Books Week. The Library of Congress Center for the Book endorses the observance.

American libraries are the cornerstones of our democracy. Libraries are for everyone, everywhere. Because libraries provide free access to a world of information, they bring opportunity to all people. Now, more than ever, let freedom read @ your library! Open your mind to an old favorite or a new banned book this week.

The Era of Stupid

Started when the Republicans decided that liberals were too educated and elite and intelligent and used facts and stuff to win arguments....

Cruising these here internetal tubes

You never know what you will find....

Exclusive: Gulf oil dispersant contained extremely toxic carcinogen

New Rule: Rich People Who Complain About Being Vilified Should Be Vilified

Dalek mysteriously appeared at elementary school

How it felt to shelter from the Blitz

Solved: mystery of the meteor-shedding asteroid

Downhill With the G.O.P.

Aurora saturnalis: halos at the poles of the ringed planet

We knew this from the very beginning.

From the moment Bush was selected to be president, some of us bet we'd be at war with Iraq in two years. The neocons had been begging Clinton for years to take out Saddam, and now they had the power and ability to do so themselves.

The Bush administration was obviously prepping for war while theatrically pretending to be weighing the decision until the last minute. It was so very clear to us what they intended to do but the media just bizarrely ate up each declaration from Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush as the truth and asked no questions. It's what made me give up on the mainstream media in disgust and go hunting for those who actually reported the truth.

I really think the neocons felt they had all bases covered. The churches had been bought off with the 'faith-based initiatives', the allies were ready to get the oil, the military brass got a new shiny war with really big bombs, the media had been seduced with quail eggs and special interviews.... The Bush administration just didn't plan on those pesky bloggers with their damned facts and discomforting questions.

The truth refuses to die even though you thought you put out a hit, Mr. Cheney. And now the facts are slowly working back to the surface. Even though we knew what the truth was, it's nice to prove it.

Newly Declassified Documents Show Bush Administration Looked For Excuse To Start War In Iraq In Nov. 2001

OOooo!

You go, Al.

Oh NOES!!!

We're all gonna diiiiiiiieeeee.....

What if the sun's magnetic field weakened so much that it wasn't able to muster the strength to produce a single sunspot?

This scenario may sound a little odd, but according to researchers at the National Solar Observatory (NSO) in Tucson, Arizona, the sun is exhibiting a strange decline in magnetic strength, the driving factor behind sunspot production.

It's as if our nearest star is getting tired and wants to take a breather.

[snip]

If the decreasing trend continues its downward slope, by 2016, the average sunspot magnetic field has the potential to be below this 1500 Gauss threshold, leading to the possibility that the sun will generate no sunspots.

The last time this happened in documented history was in the 17th and 18th century when the sun didn't produce any sunspots for decades. This extended period of calm, known as the Maunder Minimum, coincided with an extended period of cooling on Earth, a period called the Little Ice Age.

Are we witnessing another slow-down in solar magnetic activity? Could this be a part of a long-period cycle where the sun runs out of juice and forgets to produce sunspots every few hundred years?

Wait a second... this info doesn't match what I posted in June.... even though we know what we are facing in only 5 billion years or so anyway....

But wait! There's a MONSTER in the center of our galaxy!!1!! We're all gonna diiiiiiieeeeee....

Krugman

The spectacle of high-income Americans, the world’s luckiest people, wallowing in self-pity and self-righteousness would be funny, except for one thing: they may well get their way. Never mind the $700 billion price tag for extending the high-end tax breaks: virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are rushing to the aid of the oppressed affluent.

You see, the rich are different from you and me: they have more influence. It’s partly a matter of campaign contributions, but it’s also a matter of social pressure, since politicians spend a lot of time hanging out with the wealthy. So when the rich face the prospect of paying an extra 3 or 4 percent of their income in taxes, politicians feel their pain — feel it much more acutely, it’s clear, than they feel the pain of families who are losing their jobs, their houses, and their hopes.

And when the tax fight is over, one way or another, you can be sure that the people currently defending the incomes of the elite will go back to demanding cuts in Social Security and aid to the unemployed. America must make hard choices, they’ll say; we all have to be willing to make sacrifices.

But when they say “we,” they mean “you.” Sacrifice is for the little people.

ARRRRrrrrrrrrr

It's September 19th!

Avast, me hearties! It's talk like a pirate day, it tis. ARRrrrrr.

Yeh need a name first of all. Me name is ellroon, Black Lizzie.

And then th' video t' help yeh words:

And the best part of Pirates of Penzance:

(edited to put in another youtube of Kevin Klein's Pirates of Penzance...)

jac of Yet Another Website has more, even on how to pick up wenches! Arrr.

English t'Pirate Translator fer those who canna deal w'th'speech.

Blog sprinkles

A reminder why the Gulf of Mexico will not be the same for decades and decades. And BP's happy story about oil eating bacteria? Gulf bacteria digests gas, not oil.

Monkeyfister notes that a Florida man's blood was tested and was off the charts with the chemicals that BP uses: Florida man gets tested: Six of nine VOCs in blood — Hexane “off the charts”

The tree of crazy and why we need a chainsaw.

Californians better watch who's doing what to our water supply.

And speaking of water.... it can be turned into a blade and defuse bombs!

A watery blade is saving the lives of American soldiers in Afghanistan. Known as the Stingray, the device uses conventional military explosives to craft a blade of water sharp enough to slice through a metal bomb and scramble its innards.

Developed by the Sandia National Laboratories, thousands of units of this technology have already been shipped to Afghanistan to help diffuse the improvised explosive devices, or IEDs, that are so deadly to U.S. soldiers.

High fructose corn syrup producers want to change its name but not its potency.... basically hiding the ingredient in the product. Be careful what you eat.

The Art of Drew Struzan

Digby quoting Michael O'Hare about those super rich whining about the ending of the Bush tax cuts:

"A truly amazing pasticcio of mendacity, ignorance, and small-minded cupidity"

Why riding a motorcycle can be effing dangerous.

The glory of an egret in flight.

Phila of Bouphonia is back with another Friday Hope blog!

Man-pants Christine O'Donnell

Hmmm.... notice a theme throughout her Wiki page? Like... not paying her bills? Why on earth would people want someone like this to be in government with the ability to get her hands on heaps of taxpayers' money?

And she's NEVER been married?

Could she be gay?

Huffington Post: The Craziest Things Christine O'Donnell Has Ever Said

Update: Quick, clean her up!! Delete Delete Delete!! Christine O’Donnell’s Website Stripped Of All Information

Congress?

What could go wrong?

When Mom goes to get ice cream and Dad watches the kids.....

What the overuse and misuse of antibiotics

Has led us to:

New drug-resistant superbugs found in 3 states

The U.S. cases occurred this year in people from California, Massachusetts and Illinois, said Brandi Limbago, a lab chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Three types of bacteria were involved, and three different mechanisms let the gene become part of them.

[snip]

She did not know how the three patients were treated, but all survived.
Doctors have tried treating some of these cases with combinations of antibiotics, hoping that will be more effective than individual ones are. Some have resorted to using polymyxins — antibiotics used in the 1950s and '60s that were unpopular because they can harm the kidneys.

The two Canadian cases were treated with a combination of antibiotics, said Dr. Johann Pitout of the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. One case was in Alberta, the other in British Columbia.

Both patients had medical emergencies while traveling in India. They developed urinary infections that were discovered to have the resistance gene once they returned home to Canada, Pitout said.

The CDC advises any hospitals that find such cases to put the patient in medical isolation, check the patient's close contacts for possible infection, and look for more infections in the hospital.

Any case "should raise an alarm," Limbago said.

They're sneaking those anti-freedom of speech laws in

While we aren't looking!!1!!



Just give me a minute to think of the laws they've done here... um....

It's Friday!

Bath time!

Have you looked under the bed?

They've been known to go for walks, too....

Japan missing more than 230K listed centenarians

OMG, did Boehner really say he'd send all jobs overseas!!1?!

It must be true...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Are You Ready for Some Midterms? - MSNBC's Political Narrative
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

And they are coming home to a neighborhood near you

US soldiers 'killed Afghan civilians for sport and collected fingers as trophies'

Wasn't there another religious leader named Jones

Who did really horrible things in the name of the Lord and got a lot of people killed?



Remember how it turned out he was a ego-bloated pseudo-messianic psycho who just wanted to get people to follow him off a cliff to show how powerful he was?

God has nothing to do with your stupidity and your frantic wish for a Holy War to fill your coffers, sir. And you are putting our soldiers in danger.



Thanks a whole fucking lot for making the world even more dangerous.

So on to Iran and Pakistan!!

Al-Qaida and Taliban threat is exaggerated, says security thinktank
Strategy institute challenges idea that troops are needed in Afghanistan to stop export of terrorism to west

And right on schedule....

Iran has enough fuel for 2 nuclear warheads, report says

We can't justify our defense expenditures unless we are at war with somebody!

Be afraid more....

Of EVERYTHING!

The be afraid list goes on and on and on....

Paraphrasing some comedian, "Only in America when you die, it's your fault." Apparently the UK is joining us in trying to not breathe or eat or garden or walk or use plastic or.....

(Thanks to Ali in comments for this link!)

Be afraid!!

Scary scary scary vote boo!

Bush's Legacy

We will never forget.