Happy New Year!

Study debunks myths on organic farms

The results are in from a 30-year side-by-side trial of conventional and organic farming methods at Pennsylvania's Rodale Institute. Contrary to conventional wisdom, organic farming outperformed conventional farming in every measure.
There are about 1,500 organic farmers in Saskatchewan, at last count. They eschew the synthetic fertilizers and toxic sprays that are the mainstay of conventional farms. Study after study indicates the conventional thinking on farming - that we have to tolerate toxic chemicals because organic farming can't feed the world - is wrong.
In fact, studies like the Rodale trials (www.rodaleinstitute.org/fst30years) show that after a three-year transition period, organic yields equalled conventional yields. What is more, the study showed organic crops were more resilient. Organic corn yields were 31 per cent higher than conventional in years of drought.
These drought yields are remarkable when compared to genetically modified (GM) "drought tolerant" varieties, which showed increases of only 6.7 per cent to 13.3 per cent over conventional (non-drought resistant) varieties.
More important than yield, from the farmer's perspective, is income, and here organic is clearly superior. The 30-year comparison showed organic systems were almost three times as profitable as the conventional systems. The average net return for the organic systems was $558/acre/ year versus just $190/acre/year for the conventional systems. The much higher income reflects the premium organic farmers receive and consumers pay for.
But even without a price premium, the Rodale study found organic systems are competitive with the conventional systems because of marginally lower input costs.

It puts to shame Monsanto and RoundUp and all the other Big Ag companies poisoning our food and our water.

The beat down of Mr. David Brooks, esq.

Don't think much is left.

What do teachers make?

Update:  This video came from MoveOn:   Vote On The Top 5 Most Viral Progressive Videos and Graphics Of 2011

Urgent call to a medieval Help Desk

via Roger Ebert's journal:

How wonderful it is to be a woman

In this era of understanding and compassion.

Some days we all feel like this....

Mercury is delicious

The Republicans would like you to have more.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays

Happy Nodwish

Listen to her words

"If I should have a daughter, instead of Mom, she's gonna call me Point B ... " began spoken word poet Sarah Kay, in a talk that inspired two standing ovations at TED2011. She tells the story of her metamorphosis -- from a wide-eyed teenager soaking in verse at New York's Bowery Poetry Club to a teacher connecting kids with the power of self-expression through Project V.O.I.C.E. -- and gives two breathtaking performances of "B" and "Hiroshima."

The Hobbit

I have to wait another YEAR??

Hallelujah

Quoted on Facebook

Joe McKee
"Ron Paul wants to repeal the Civil Rights Act, privatize public education, abolish Social Security, kill Medicare, re-establish DADT, eliminate public housing, abolish federal student loans, kill Planned Parenthood, end the Departments of Energy and Education and the EPA, abolish the minimum wage, end affirmative action, disagrees with equal pay for women, and wants to end FEMA. He is a... dangerous individual who believes in mixing religion and government. Ron Paul would allow fundamentalist Christians to control the government, the very people who would end the personal liberties he claims to fight for. Ron Paul would destroy every good thing liberals have stood for and fought hard to gain over the last 100 years."Otherwise, he's a lovable old coot.

Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child

Sorta like this kitty:

 

Making the rounds on Facebook: Charlie Chaplin's final speech in the 'The Great Dictator':

 

 Banks actually just a bit concerned about Occupy Wall Street protesters. As they should be. Also, the squidding of Goldman Sachs.

 I KNEW my fascination with bees had something to do with brains.

 Cool new idea to sterilize hospital rooms.

 Monsanto's genetic food being rushed to market: Under Industry Pressure, USDA Works to Speed Approval of Monsanto's Genetically Engineered Crops.  And childhood obesity be damned, food giants fight proposed nutrition guidelines.

 Looks like Beijing is copying the pea-soup fogs of Jack the Ripper's era: Beijing air goes from 'hazardous' to off the charts, literally

 The Republicans' radical embrace of nullification.

 The trial of Bradley Manning.

 Keeping an eye on the radiation levels in Japan.

 Incoming water wars.

 How doctors choose to die when they know the options available.

 All this might not matter. The melting of the permafrost in the Arctic is releasing huge quantities of methane:

Right. Rights.

Houses out of Legos

Make this the next wave!  Article is from 2009, but wouldn't it be delightful?

May has set what he thinks should be a new world record: becoming the first man to live in a fully functioning house made of Lego.

 [snip]

"There are all sorts of things embodied in the Lego brick – geometry and mathematics and truth and proportion and shape and colour," says May. 

"It's very deep. Everybody should have a box and play with it occasionally. It's a form of brain training as well. I can't see how it can be bad for you. Unless you tread on it."

Update: News of the world in Legos.

Stop time travel!

Blackwater=Xe=Academi

What's in a name?  Mercenaries by any other name would be just as suspect....

Dumb and dumber

7 Bizarre Trends That Predict an Economic Collapse

 GOP debate audience cheers child labor

  Photo-retouched models.

 

War presented by those who have no idea what the reality is

 And war presented by those who know full well what it means:

   

An Afghan woman cries out among the dead and injured in Kabul after a suicide bomber hidden among worshipers at a Shiite Muslim shrine exploded a device, killing 55 people and injuring 134 others. It was one of two deadly bomb attacks on Shiites in Afghanistan on a religious holiday. (Massoud Hossaini, AFP/Getty Images / December 7, 2011)

When will we need geiger counters to go shopping?

Traces of radiation found in Japanese baby formula 

 A Japanese baby food manufacturer has announced the recall of 400,000 cans of infant formula that reportedly contain traces of radioactive cesium connected to the nation's recent nuclear plant meltdown. 

After panicked parents deluged Tokyo-based Meiji Co. with calls and e-mails, officials of the Tokyo-based food and candy maker responded Wednesday that they do not know how much of the tainted formula had reached consumers, but said the milk was manufactured in March and April and shipped not long afterward. 

The incident marked the second time this week that skittish Japanese citizens learned of more radioactive after-effects from the disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. The facility was struck March 11 by an earthquake-triggered tsunami that knocked out its cooling system and led to several reactor core meltdowns that spewed radiation into the air, water and soil. 

On Sunday, plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co., or Tepco, announced that 45 tons of highly radioactive water had leaked from a filtration system at the atomic plant, with some of the water possibly reaching the nearby Pacific Ocean. 

Critics say the leak counteracts assurances that Tepco has largely controlled the environmental damage at the coastal plant, located 220 miles northeast of Tokyo. The radiation in the water from Sunday's leak measured up to 322 times higher than government safety limits for various types of cesium. 

On Wednesday, plant officials acknowledged that nearly 40 gallons of water from the weekend leak had reached the Pacific Ocean. The water, which was used to cool the reactors, contained not only cesium, but strontium, another dangerous isotope, the utility said.

Update: The Japanese are trying to tell themselves their land contaminated by radiation will be salvageable.

Those who fled Futaba are among the nearly 90,000 people evacuated from a 12-mile zone around the Fukushima Daiichi plant and another area to the northwest contaminated when a plume from the plant scattered radioactive cesium and iodine. Now, Japan is drawing up plans for a cleanup that is both monumental and unprecedented, in the hopes that those displaced can go home. The debate over whether to repopulate the area, if trial cleanups prove effective, has become a proxy for a larger battle over the future of Japan. Supporters see rehabilitating the area as a chance to showcase the country’s formidable determination and superior technical skills — proof that Japan is still a great power. For them, the cleanup is a perfect metaphor for Japan’s rebirth. Critics counter that the effort to clean Fukushima Prefecture could end up as perhaps the biggest of Japan’s white-elephant public works projects — and yet another example of post-disaster Japan reverting to the wasteful ways that have crippled economic growth for two decades. So far, the government is following a pattern set since the nuclear accident, dismissing dangers, often prematurely, and laboring to minimize the scope of the catastrophe. Already, the trial cleanups have stalled: the government failed to anticipate communities’ reluctance to store tons of soil to be scraped from contaminated yards and fields. And a radiation specialist who tested the results of an extensive local cleanup in a nearby city found that exposure levels remained above international safety standards for long-term habitation. Even a vocal supporter of repatriation suggests that the government has not yet leveled with its people about the seriousness of their predicament. “I believe it is possible to save Fukushima,” said the supporter, Tatsuhiko Kodama, director of the Radioisotope Center at the University of Tokyo. “But many evacuated residents must accept that it won’t happen in their lifetimes.”

Map of contaminated area in Japan.

To and fro

Registration of Guns and Licensing of Gun Owners from the Alien Perspective

Two interesting posts from Juan Cole: Israeli Ads against Marriage with American Jews are Part of a Population War   and Theocratic Dominance of the New Egypt may be Exaggerated

We've used PayPal with great success... because we are customers.  Apparently those who sell things often have a different experience.  The evils of PayPal.  Numbers of PayPal higher-ups.  Another person's experience and his Reddit post.  An anti-PayPal site.

Paul Krugman's take on the GOP's field of candidates:  Send in the Clueless.

Think about what it takes to be a viable Republican candidate today. You have to denounce Big Government and high taxes without alienating the older voters who were the key to G.O.P. victories last year — and who, even as they declare their hatred of government, will balk at any hint of cuts to Social Security and Medicare (death panels!).
And you also have to denounce President Obama, who enacted a Republican-designed health reform and killed Osama bin Laden, as a radical socialist who is undermining American security.
So what kind of politician can meet these basic G.O.P. requirements? There are only two ways to make the cut: to be totally cynical or totally clueless.

For women cartoonists.. if any...  (I talked about this way back in 2007.)

One more thing in the Affordable Care Act that helps.

Another day

Another dollar's worth of wtfs....

An Army of Giant Rats Unearth Landmines in Africa

People Locked in Tiny Cages, Crying in Pain: What I Saw and Heard When the LAPD Threw Me in Jail for Exercising My Right to Protest the Oligarchy Don't believe the PR. There was nothing peaceful or professional about the LAPD's attack on Occupy LA -- or the way detainees were later treated.

Pelosi Puts The Kibosh On GOP Payroll Tax Cut Strategy

Killing the Euro

The 45 Most Powerful Images Of 2011

The Big Bang?

Hundreds of metres under one of Iceland's largest glaciers there are signs of a looming volcanic eruption that could be one of the most powerful the country has seen in almost a century. Mighty Katla, with its 10km (6.2 mile) crater, has the potential to cause catastrophic flooding as it melts the frozen surface of its caldera and sends billions of gallons of water surging through Iceland's east coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. "There has been a great deal of seismic activity," says Ford Cochran, the National Geographic's expert on Iceland. There were more than 500 tremors in and around the caldera of Katla just in October, which suggests the motion of magma. "And that certainly suggests an eruption may be imminent."

The end of the beginning?

Or the beginning of the end? Factories stall worldwide, U.S. jobless claims rise

Nearly 50% of the Young People in Greece and Spain Are Unemployed

Robert Reich

Iceland

The Republicans' Farcical Candidates  A Club of Liars, Demagogues and Ignoramuses

New Hampshire GOP Speaker Discourages Students From Voting Because They’ll Vote ‘Liberal’

Hurricane season 2011.

Deliberate pushing of minorities into subprime mortgages.

Strange.  A rich man who realizes he doesn't create jobs (demands from the customers does) and wants to be taxed more.

And, btw, we are killing our oysters.

Gems of space

In all their Hubble glory.

What an incestuously inbred asshole sounds like.

Elizabeth Warren for president

I'm going to chance it

And post this fantastic hour and a half long interview between Steven Colbert and Neil deGrasse Tyson.  YouTube may do its thing and remove it, but it is wonderful and worth your time.

Maybe because we're heating the oceans to boiling point?

Marine scientists are trying to find out why previously unknown blooms of toxic algae are suddenly proliferating along the California coast, killing wildlife and increasing the risk of human sickness. The mysterious blooms have recently been bigger and have occurred more frequently than ever before, an alarming trend that a team of scientists led by UC Santa Cruz is attempting to figure out.

[snip]

Scientists will also try to determine whether climate change is having an effect on the size, frequency and location of deadly algae blooms. "We can't say for sure that it is tied to something like climate change," Kudela said, "but it does seem to be spreading globally, so something is changing, and we are trying to find out what that is." Algal blooms are already known to be relatively common in the coastal waters of Oregon, Washington state and Canada. Recently, though, unusual toxic algal blooms have also been detected in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, in Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Maine, according to researchers. Future outbreaks may be unstoppable, Kudela and others admit, but they hope the study will eventually help them develop a computer model that will predict blooms before they have a chance to cause havoc in the marine environment.

The tide comes in, the tide goes out....

We all came from primordial ooze.... Which might explain the Republicans' desire to return to simpler times...

"In the race to take on Obama, playing dumb about foreign affairs is the politically clever thing to do"

How Newt is channeling “The Producers”

One who takes issue with Naomi Wolf's article about the DHS and the mayors involved with a nation-wide crackdown of the OWS.

I think I like this new generation... teen tweeter won't apologize to Brownback.  Update:  Brownback backs down.

The NYTimes and LATimes both came out against SOPA and PIPA.

I tend to resent it when people tell me I'll need a tissue

But this time they were right.

They removed it from YouTube, but it still plays on MoveOn.org. Click the link.

Where there is money or power...

There will be people figuring out ways to take it...

Going after public education.  Because that's where there's money to be had.

Vouchers sound like such a nice plan.  Because that's where there's money to be had.

The 99.9% can easily be squeezed for more.  Because that's how the .1% make their money.

Reoccupying your foreclosed house.  Because that's where the banks played fast and loose with your home.

Beating the tar out of the camping Occupy protesters instead of the teabaggers or overnight shoppers.  Because they are the biggest threat to the people who hold power.

You have health care? You are still not safe.

Reminding us what we should really be thinking about

Rather than quibbling about how many bodies of the poor we need to step over...


‎"Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a
short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine
purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one
thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others...for the
countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of
sympathy. Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life
is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how
earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I
have received."
~ Albert Einstein

Martin Sheen for president

What pepper spray does to your body

Fun for the whole family!

Via Bryan of Why Now?, a good overview of the events at the UC Davis campus protests.

Update:  Via Rachel Maddow, more specific info on pepper spray.

I wish I was an Oscar Mayer weiner....

Thank you, sir.

It was so simple back then....

The rich were rich because they deserved it, the poor LIKED being poor.  Obviously!

Attacking schools

Across the country, education entrepreneurs are seeking to replace public school teachers with computer programs, despite the research that shows that virtual education is inferior to traditional teaching. They are getting lots of help from Tea Party politicians on a mission to privatize schools and bust unions.

Occupy Mars!

A good overview of the police brutality with the Occupy movement.  The cop group coordinating the Occupy crackdowns.  Controlling the media.

Paul Krugman: Newt Gingrich Is ‘A Stupid Man’s Idea Of What A Smart Person Sounds Like’.  Newt also thinks secular governments are scary.

In Cain and Perry's gaffes, the Republicans' degradation is laid bare.

Air bubbles confirm permafrost CO2 release:

Bubbles of air trapped in ice long ago are helping paint a clearer picture of what may happen to atmospheric carbon dioxide levels in the future if climate change melts the northern hemisphere's permafrost, scientists say.

The Mars rover Spirit’s entire five-year mission, in less than three minutes:

And yet another one adds to the list.

China poisons more pets:

November 18, 2011 — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has issued an important bulletin warning consumers that chicken jerky products (also marketed as chicken tenders, strips or treats) may be associated with serious illness in dogs.
Over the past 12 months, the FDA has observed an increase in the number of complaints regarding canine illnesses associated with consumption of chicken jerky products imported from China.
These complaints have been reported to the government by both dog owners and veterinarians.

And here is the ever-expanding list:

But according to FSN, the biggest reason to avoid ultra-filtered honey is that pollen is the only sure-fire way to trace the source of honey to a geographic location. As a result ultra-filtered honey is often used to mask the shady origins of certain kinds of honey -- especially Chinese honey, which is subject to heavy import tariffs on account of its frequent contamination by heavy metals and illegal antibiotics. Chinese honeymakers ultra-filter their honey, and then ship it through byzantine paths, to sneak their sham product onto American grocery shelves without being hit with a tariff.

Vinegar from China kills 11 people.

"From steroid-spiked pork to glow-in-the-dark meat to recycled cooking oil collected from sewers, a series of illnesses and scandals linked to tainted food has put officials on guard. But tougher measures have had little effect amid an official culture of secrecy."

Watermelons spiked with growth chemicals explode in the fields... so the farmers feed the forchlorfenuron saturated melons to fish and pigs.

Waste water forced into pigs going to market.

Fresh milk tainted with melamine and toxic substances extracted from leather scraps... killed 6 children in China and sickened 300,000.

Rice is contaminated with heavy metals like cadmium.

Fake rice made from plastic, potatoes and resin.

Pulverized lime added to bleaching agents widely used in flour production. Pulverized lime damages the lungs and the entire respiratory system.

Cadmium in children's toys and little girl jewelry. Lead in toys: Thomas the Tank Engine, baby bibs, cub scout badges, wooden blocks. Formaldehyde in candy, in baby clothing. Coma-inducing date rape drug in toys.

Asbestos in toys.

"The rampant use of chemical additives in animal feed can be traced to 1999. According to Gao Yinxiang, the research and development of high-protein feed additives was a hot field among scientists about 10 years ago due to shortage of animal fodder in the country at the time.

From that time, it's hard to define the exact role that scientists played in the evolution of the melamine scandal. Yet scientists certainly contributed to it by developing unsafe protein alternatives. Many Chinese are now calling on scientists to examine their conscience before making profits at the expense of public safety."

Melamine in pet food kills house pets in the US. Melamine is found in wheat, corn and rice gluten.

China says no to inspections and destroys evidence.

Rat poison in breakfast porridge.

Pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella. Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

Toothpaste with diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical used in engine coolants.

Highly toxic puffer fish sold as monk fish.

Fake blood protein.

Wild mice used for meat.

Defective tires.

Use of illegal drift nets.

Fake kosher food.

Insecticide-tainted dumplings.

More than 40 percent of drinking water in rural China is unfit for drinking.

Poisoned chocolate.

Toxic drywall which caused houses to be uninhabitable.

Fake Cisco routers

Misuse and overuse of antibiotics. "Studies in China show a "frightening" increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus bacteria, also know as MRSA."

The list will inevitably be added to. When are we going to learn this is what happens to corporations when there is no regulation?

Here we go round the mulberry bush....

Teaching good sex. Will no one think of the children?!1!??

Speaking of children. Taking them to Occupy Los Angeles. But in Portland, watch out for the police.

The next financial crisis. Or signs of hope.

San Francisco

Canada's money has gone plastic.

Might as well declare game over. Goldman Sachs has won the Capitalism Game. Can we start a different game now?

Making money by making more prisoners fills the coffers of private prisons, our very own concentration camps.

Flossing might help...

Sterilizers to skeletons to burglary...

Ionized Plasmas as Cheap Sterilizers for Developing World
University of California, Berkeley, scientists have shown that ionized plasmas like those in neon lights and plasma TVs not only can sterilize water, but make it antimicrobial -- able to kill bacteria -- for as long as a week after treatment.

Interesting discussion about burglary and fortifying one's house against it.

Skeleton of ancient human relative may yield skin.

Death with dignity.

For those gamers who have run out of ideas for names:

Oh well done, Seattle police department!

SEATTLE - A downtown march and rally in support of the Occupy Wall Street movement turned briefly chaotic as police scattered a crowd of rowdy protesters — including a pregnant 19-year-old and an 84-year-old activist — with blasts of pepper spray.

Protest organizers denounced the use of force, saying that police indiscriminately sprayed the chemical irritant at peaceful protesters.

The Occupy Seattle movement released a written statement late Tuesday expressing support for "a 4-foot 10-inch, 84-year-old woman, a priest and a pregnant woman who as of this writing is still in the hospital."

Update: Dorli Rainey talks to Keith Olbermann:

I don't think they'll understand the sarcasm...

*Fixed link. Thanks, Steve.

Good Morning!

A new dawn?

The new progressive movement has begun.

Making the rounds on Facebook

I'm passing this on because it worked for me today. A Dr. on TV said to have inner peace we should always finish things we start & we all could use more calm in our lives. I looked around my house to find things I'd started & hadn't finished, so i finished off a bottle of Merlot, a bottle of Chardonnay, a bodle of Baileys, a butle of wum, tha mainder of Valiuminun scriptins, an a box a chocletz. Yu haf no idr how fablus I feel rite now. Sned this to all who need inner piss. An telum u luvum

Life goes on...

Veterans Day.

Remnants of the Big Bang.

Under attack from Rove, Elizabeth Warren doubles down. More of her kind, please.

I hadn't thought of it, but the Personhood Amendment would have changed everybody's birthdays and horoscopes! This explains why they never get it right!

Nightsticks are useful when there are no cameras.

James Murdoch's serfs forgot to pretend to not inform the boss what they were doing that he told them to do... or something.

Pictures of the Great War, as the landscape is today.

A discovered Leonardo.

Tracking Japan's Fukishima radiation:

It's the story of how a group of hackers and internet folks are working with Japanese volunteers to harness DIY technology to record and share data about radiation hotspots.

Women come forward with their on the job sexual harassment stories.

Wells Fargo involved with our 'illegal immigration' concentration camps.

Landmines.

Man paraglides with his hawk: Edit: his YouTube has been removed. Anyway. Man paragliding around with treats in his gloved hand and hawk flies in and lands on his arm.

Banks are nervous.

Good.

How to video at an Occupy event

An artist/photographer friend, who is frustrated at the video efforts of occupiers who fail to catch the significant action because they don't know how to do basic camera handling, wrote a post about techniques:

Note To Videograph Occupiers

Kudos to you all for your courage and your convictions. You are participating in a historic event that will be talked about and remembered for decades.

The tape that you are shooting is an important part of the documentation of this historic event. It is truly important that your tape show, with accuracy, the events as they occur. Your job as a videographer is to reveal.

If your tape is too dark, has camera shake, or has a blocked view of the event because of crowding, your tape will not show what happened. It will not reveal, but conceal.

A few tips:

1) Camera shake renders tape unwatchable. Whatever you are taping should move, but the camera itself should stay still. Make a tripod of your legs and brace the camera against your torso. When you follow action by panning with the camera, use a smooth , sweeping motion of your upper body to move the camera lens along a smooth path.

If you must have a steadicam, you can make one yourself. There are many references here on diy steadicams

...but you need to learn to walk with it, so

please read this tutorial, and practice!!!!

2) Situational awareness is also a top concern. Try to keep the main action in your viewfinder at all times. This can be a challenge. Remember, you are there to record these events for history; it requires some emotional detachment to remember this when things begin to happen quickly. Look up from the viewfinder once in a while to be sure that you aren't missing the main action. If a person steps in front of you to film, MOVE. Be aware that people WILL step in front of you. Expect it, and be prepared for it. If a crowd forms, hold the camera up over their heads and point it at the action.

3) If you are using a standard video camera and not a phone, it might be worth it to purchase a camera mounted light, sometimes called a sun gun. It fits directly into the hot shoe on top of your camera. This can make all the difference at night. Some of these police actions are taking place under cover of darkness.

Good tape is almost never the result of a happy accident. It is the result of mastering a few easy, basic techniques.. and of remaining situationally aware when the going gets tough.

Take these few points to heart when you tape, and history (and the internet) will thank you.

One more for the list..

But according to FSN, the biggest reason to avoid ultra-filtered honey is that pollen is the only sure-fire way to trace the source of honey to a geographic location. As a result ultra-filtered honey is often used to mask the shady origins of certain kinds of honey -- especially Chinese honey, which is subject to heavy import tariffs on account of its frequent contamination by heavy metals and illegal antibiotics. Chinese honeymakers ultra-filter their honey, and then ship it through byzantine paths, to sneak their sham product onto American grocery shelves without being hit with a tariff.

And here is the ever expanding list:

Vinegar from China kills 11 people.

The list:

"From steroid-spiked pork to glow-in-the-dark meat to recycled cooking oil collected from sewers, a series of illnesses and scandals linked to tainted food has put officials on guard. But tougher measures have had little effect amid an official culture of secrecy."

Watermelons spiked with growth chemicals explode in the fields... so the farmers feed the forchlorfenuron saturated melons to fish and pigs.

Waste water forced into pigs going to market.

Fresh milk tainted with melamine and toxic substances extracted from leather scraps... killed 6 children in China and sickened 300,000.

Rice is contaminated with heavy metals like cadmium.

Fake rice made from plastic, potatoes and resin.

Pulverized lime added to bleaching agents widely used in flour production. Pulverized lime damages the lungs and the entire respiratory system.

Cadmium in children's toys and little girl jewelry. Lead in toys: Thomas the Tank Engine, baby bibs, cub scout badges, wooden blocks. Formaldehyde in candy, in baby clothing. Coma-inducing date rape drug in toys.

Asbestos in toys.

"The rampant use of chemical additives in animal feed can be traced to 1999. According to Gao Yinxiang, the research and development of high-protein feed additives was a hot field among scientists about 10 years ago due to shortage of animal fodder in the country at the time.

From that time, it's hard to define the exact role that scientists played in the evolution of the melamine scandal. Yet scientists certainly contributed to it by developing unsafe protein alternatives. Many Chinese are now calling on scientists to examine their conscience before making profits at the expense of public safety."

Melamine in pet food kills house pets in the US. Melamine is found in wheat, corn and rice gluten.

China says no to inspections and destroys evidence.

Rat poison in breakfast porridge.

Pesticide-laden pea pods, drug-laced catfish, filthy plums and crawfish contaminated with salmonella. Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical. Scallops and sardines coated with putrefying bacteria. Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides.

Toothpaste with diethylene glycol, a toxic chemical used in engine coolants.

Highly toxic puffer fish sold as monk fish.

Fake blood protein.

Wild mice used for meat.

Defective tires.

Use of illegal drift nets.

Fake kosher food.

Insecticide-tainted dumplings.

More than 40 percent of drinking water in rural China is unfit for drinking.

Poisoned chocolate.

Toxic drywall which caused houses to be uninhabitable.

Fake Cisco routers

Misuse and overuse of antibiotics. "Studies in China show a "frightening" increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus bacteria, also know as MRSA."

The list will inevitably be added to. When are we going to learn this is what happens to corporations when there is no regulation?

The fungus among us...

Why does the far right seem to ooze out from under the rocks when the economy is shaky and politics are polarized? Easier to blame others and reach for guns rather than work together to fix things?:

The far right is on the rise across Europe as a new generation of young, web-based supporters embrace hardline nationalist and anti-immigrant groups, a study has revealed ahead of a meeting of politicians and academics in Brussels to examine the phenomenon.

Research by the British thinktank Demos for the first time examines attitudes among supporters of the far right online. Using advertisements on Facebook group pages, they persuaded more than 10,000 followers of 14 parties and street organisations in 11 countries to fill in detailed questionnaires.

The study reveals a continent-wide spread of hardline nationalist sentiment among the young, mainly men. Deeply cynical about their own governments and the EU, their generalised fear about the future is focused on cultural identity, with immigration – particularly a perceived spread of Islamic influence – a concern.

"We're at a crossroads in European history," said Emine Bozkurt, a Dutch MEP who heads the anti-racism lobby at the European parliament. "In five years' time we will either see an increase in the forces of hatred and division in society, including ultra-nationalism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and antisemitism, or we will be able to fight this horrific tendency."

I have to admit I was shocked at the rabid savagery aimed at protesters of the Iraq invasion during Bush's reign of terror. The delight at going to war.. any war... after 9/11. The belittling of the humanity of the citizens of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, etc etc. The bizarre embrace of torture with assurances it wasn't really torture and besides the detainees were islamofascists and Jesus would have approved. The suggestion that using nukes really wouldn't be so horrible. We have our own American Taliban and Nazis right here, despite our best efforts in education and exposure to other cultures.

They must hatch like toadstools, surrounded by bullshit and darkness. Sunlight is the only cure.

This and that...

Goldwater knew back then not to open Pandora's box. But did anyone listen? NooOOooooo...

Judges for sale.

Harvard students walk out on econ prof. Veterans march for Occupy Wall Street.

Asteroid decides to miss Earth... this time.

Diana Whitten, her film is called Vessel. A vessel that sails in international waters, briefly entering ports in Brazil. They display a phone number on the side of the ship for women to call who want an abortion. They mail the women the over the counter medicine Misoprostol to use in the privacy in their own home. Taken under the tongue, the result is identical to a regular miscarriage with fewer complications than the prevalent illegal abortions.

In space, the Eye of Sauron! Tolkein was right!

Murmuration:

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

An effective one person protest movement

Done with courtesy and a sense of humor.

More of her kind, please.

Michigan State Senator Gretchen Whitmer yesterday ripped Senate GOP a new one over passage of a "bullying" bill that was gutted so heavily that it actually creates, as Whitmer notes in her speech, "a blueprint for bullying."

Occupy it all

And so, at bottom, we have a spiritual crisis. How long can people of goodwill support billy-clubbed police officers knocking about citizens who are peaceably assembling, as is their right? If they assemble for longer than you want them to, then it's inconvenience versus the First Amendment. It is not OK to shout "fire" in a crowded theater just because you don't like the movie.

Really, the police and the city officials should be guarding the rights of those with legitimate grievances. They should protect those who have been laid waste by the rest of society. That's what government is for, to ensure that constitutional liberties are maintained. Anything else is just oligarchy.

There is a constituency here, people who have lost their homes or their jobs or life savings because of a system designed to make them suckers. They have experienced a profound loss of faith, and that is what will still be true come spring. I don't think this thing is going away anytime soon.

What would Jesus do? Chase the moneychangers from the temple, is my guess. There's precedent.

Things that go bump in the night...

And it's NOT Halloween...

Unexplained radiation coming from a shipping container.

Snakes in Florida that can eat deer.

Bank of America forecloses on house lost in hurricane.

Living in an oligarchy.

Greeks and Germans and the world economy.

The House of Representatives proving they are completely unable to think of how to create jobs.

Learning what living on 30 dollars a week for food is like.

Getting excommunicated by the Mormon church.

Reaching 7 billion people on earth and realizing that number doesn't affect an attitude change in those demanding that every sperm/egg union is sacred.

Paul Krugman on weaponized Keynesianism

Appeals to confidence have always been a key debating point for opponents of taxes and regulation; Wall Street’s whining about President Obama is part of a long tradition in which wealthy businessmen and their flacks argue that any hint of populism on the part of politicians will upset people like them, and that this is bad for the economy. Once you concede that the government can act directly to create jobs, however, that whining loses much of its persuasive power — so Keynesian economics must be rejected, except in those cases where it’s being used to defend lucrative contracts.

So I welcome the sudden upsurge in weaponized Keynesianism, which is revealing the reality behind our political debates. At a fundamental level, the opponents of any serious job-creation program know perfectly well that such a program would probably work, for the same reason that defense cuts would raise unemployment. But they don’t want voters to know what they know, because that would hurt their larger agenda — keeping regulation and taxes on the wealthy at bay.

Booo!

Japanese debris field in the Pacific

Washes back and forth and impacts Hawaii from both sides.

Posted this three years ago....

And we're still paying for his eight year reign of incompetence

It will have so many uses...

I'm sure the military and the police will think about spying, tracking, and searching, but wouldn't it be cool if we could land one of these on the moon or Mars?

*edit note.... Ole Phat Stu has kindly reminded me there is NO ATMOSPHERE on the Moon and Mars, so no flying devices that need air to move...

*My astronomy prof would be embarrassed...

One year after the BP oil disaster

The Gulf fishermen can see what the dispersants and oil did to the seafood industry.

Lions and volcanoes and Brits

Lions and tigers and ... LIONS!

Rapidly Inflating Volcano Creates Growing Mystery

Uturuncu is a nearly 20,000-foot-high (6,000 meters) volcano in southwest Bolivia. Scientists recently discovered the volcano is inflating with astonishing speed.

[snip]

Researchers realized about five years ago that the area below and around Uturuncu is steadily rising — blowing up like a giant balloon under a wide disc of land some 43 miles (70 kilometers) across. Satellite data revealed the region was inflating by 1 to 2 centimeters (less than an inch) per year and had been doing so for at least 20 years, when satellite observations began.

"It's one of the fastest uplifting volcanic areas on Earth," de Silva told OurAmazingPlanet."What we're trying to do is understand why there is this rapid inflation, and from there we'll try to understand what it's going to lead to."

The peak is perched like a party hat at the center of the inflating area. "It's very circular. It's like a big bull's-eye," said Jonathan Perkins, a graduate student at the University of California, Santa Cruz, who recently presented work on the mountain at this year's Geological Society of America meeting in Minneapolis.

Scientists figured out from the inflation rate that the pocket of magma beneath the volcano was growing by about 27 cubic feet (1 cubic meter) per second.

Mississippi tries to retreat to the Dark Ages with their 'Personhood Amendment'.

Delightful review of the upcoming Sherlock Holmes Part 2.

Trying to understand the British.

Dammit. I didn't know some grapes and kiwi fruit were being treated with a growth hormone.

Having poor in your society hurts the rich

(Maybe that will get their attention?)

Taking blood sucking to new heights...

To the very top one percent.

Birds and bees

Mandatory bird.

Phila of Bouphonia's Friday Hope.

I guess the Koch brothers didn't buy the right scientist...

Koch-Funded Berkeley Temperature Study Does “Confirm the Reality of Global Warming”

Honeybees and bumblebees. And lighting their hives on fire.

How Japan cleans up after a disaster.

Now they've pissed off the nurses...

Outraged by the arrest of two nurses and a union organizer volunteering at the Occupy Chicago protest over the weekend, National Nurses United is planning a protest at Mayor Rahm Emanuel's office today.

The group, the nation's largest union of registered nurses, is calling on its membership in Chicago to picket City Hall this morning to demand that misdemeanor trespassing charges against the nurses and all of the protesters be dropped.

Do you think they've learned anything? The Iraq war is finally over. And it marks a complete neocon defeat

About time:

Regulator throws lifeline to underwater borrowers

and

'We can't wait': Obama to use executive authority to boost economy as Republicans dither on jobs

And magic! There is no more poverty!

The Post Office is one agency explicitly authorized by the Constitution

As it says here. But Issa wants to change all that....

"This one could take them all down" Chris Hedges

Ribbons on kittens...

Cave dwellers counting on bones, medieval manuscripts hiding ancient Greek mathematics, comets that crash into alien worlds, a Viking burial mound in Scotland, these are a few of my favorite things...

Our voices will be heard

Even if there are those who are working hard to silence us.

Don't know much 'bout economy...

But should I be worried?:

Cost of the Bush tax cuts.

Don't know much 'bout geography... of the US or the world (via Marcellina of The Practice Room).

Prepare for loss of brain cells

P Z Myers warns us.

An emphatic NO to business as usual

Around the world.

Is there ANY politician who hasn't been bought by the Koch brothers?

Herman 999 Cain is not just a millionaire who produced pizzas:

Republican presidential hopeful Herman Cain has cast himself as the outsider, the pizza magnate with real-world experience who will bring fresh ideas to the nation's capital. But Cain's economic ideas, support and organization have close ties to two billionaire brothers who bankroll right-leaning causes through their group Americans for Prosperity.

His pizzas have Kochroaches.....

Looking up hopefully

NTodd of Dohiyi Mir and his family went to a protest.

Phila of Bouphonia offers his Friday hope post.

Excellent advice on what to do while protesting

How to protect yourself from an errant police baton and how to handle pepper spray.

Koch brothers? Meet FDR

“The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it comes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is fascism - ownership of government by an individual, by a group,”

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Nobody could have predicted....

Herbicide-resistant superweeds overpowering crops

Farming costs, food prices and agricultural pollution may rise as a result of nature's strike back against a biotechnology that has revolutionized modern farming.

"Superweeds" resistant to the herbicide glyphosate, also known by the trade name Roundup, have infested millions of hectares of cropland through much of the U.S. and areas of southwestern Ontario.

That means farmers may no longer be able to reap the benefits of Roundup Ready crops, which are genetically modified to be resistant to glyphosate, allowing farmers to control weeds with the herbicide without harming the crops themselves.

So the end result is to add MORE chemicals and create more genetically modified crops which then will make the weeds evolve to handle those as well which means more chemicals ....

It adds a certain piquant flavor...

One reason I have cut back on seafood... the choices are pre-cooked radioactive fish from the Pacific or pre-oiled polluted and toxic seafood from the Gulf

New Study Says FDA Underestimated Seafood Contamination Risk After BP Oil Spill

Finally getting down to the basics

New GOP Bill Would Allow Hospitals To Let Women Die Instead Of Having An Abortion

The party of family values and right to life supports letting the hussy die.

Returning to their roots....

Alabama brings back slavery for Latinos: Here's how: pass a draconian immigration law, lock up 'illegals' in private prisons, then get the new inmates to work in the fields

Economic injustice

I don't think spelling it out loud will help....

Meanwhile the elite economic royalists are panicking:

The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

Flotsam and jetsam

Dumb Alabama Immigration Law Working So Well Its Crops Are Rotting And this link explains why...

11 Facts You Need To Know About The Nation’s Biggest Banks

Facebook shows the student who will fail chemistry....

No loopholes for millionaires. Ronald Reagan wouldn't even get nominated let alone elected in this day and age....

The breathtaking quotes from Ron Paul.

Krugman about Occupy Wall Street protesters:

What can we say about the protests? First things first: The protesters’ indictment of Wall Street as a destructive force, economically and politically, is completely right.

Is the school motto: I Don't Recall?

Gonzales Hired To Teach At Unaccredited Belmont Law School in Tennessee

They want a message?

Here it is.

Update: Here is the transcript (via Bryan of Why Now?)

Tone deaf or just stupid?

The Chicago traders, confronted by the protesters’ “We are the 99 percent” message, crafted their own not-so-subtle reply, hanging signs in eighth-floor windows that said, “We are the 1%"

You guys, you do know that buildings can come down just as easily as they went up, right? Way to galvanize the pitchfork and torch mob.

And realize, you will have to walk down on the pavement with the 99 percent one of these days....

Those who preach God is love are often filled with hate

Amelia shares what happened when the blog post about her possibly gay son went viral:

These people would tell my innocent little boy (who currently wants to be a fireman-ninja when he grows up) he is the biggest threat the American family... because he wants to kiss boys and not girls.

The reality is they are pounding these words of ignorance and hate into the ears and minds of gay children every day. And those children are hearing them. I know because many of those kids are now writing to me. Kids as young as 14 have sent me messages. So many are scared children, who sure as hell did not choose this for themselves, living in fear of their family finding out because they know full well what their mom and dad will say. And they tell me they wish I was their mom.

I want to keep all this talk, all these lies, all this hate, away from these kids. Of course, there is an inherent problem with that. We can't pick out the gay kids simply by looking, and behavior isn't a clear indicator (some little straight girls are tomboys, and some little gay boys love their monster trucks). The only way we can truly know someone's orientation is if they tell us, which for some doesn't happen until well into adulthood.

Lift the rocks and get the bug spray

Koch brothers and their business practices.

A ray of hope

Phila of Bouphonia does the honors.

Occupy Wall Street

List of demands. Sounds good to me.

As true now as then

Transcript: "There's a reason education SUCKS, and it's the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It's never going to get any better, don't look for it, be happy with what you've got. Because the owners of this country don't want that. I'm talking about the REAL owners, now. The REAL owners, the BIG WEALTHY business interests that control things and make all the important decisions -- forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. YOU DON'T. You have no choice. You have OWNERS. They OWN YOU. They own EVERYTHING. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations; they've long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the City Halls; they've got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They gotcha by the BALLS. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying -- lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want -- they want MORE for themselves and less for everybody else. But I'll tell you what they don't want. They DON'T want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don't want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They're not interested in that, that doesn't help them. That's against their interests. That's right. They don't want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they're getting FUCKED by system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin' years ago. They don't want that. You know what they want? They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passably accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they're comin' for your SOCIAL SECURITY MONEY. They want your fuckin' retirement money. They want it BACK. So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They'll get it. They'll get it ALL from you sooner or later -- 'cuz they OWN this fuckin' place. It's a big CLUB. And YOU AIN'T IN IT. You and I are NOT IN the big club. By the way, it's the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the in their media telling you what to believe -- what to think -- and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-workin people -- white collar, blue collar -- doesn't matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-workin people CONTINUE -- these are people of modest means -- continue to elect these RICH COCKSUCKERS who don't GIVE a fuck about them. They don't give a fuck about you, they don't GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU. T HEY DON'T CARE ABOUT YOU -- AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. You know? And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care ... that's what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that's being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth -- it's called the American Dream ... 'cuz you have to be asleep to believe it."

News you never read about

Project Censored: Media Democracy in Action.

Did you know?

1. More US Soldiers Committed Suicide Than Died in Combat

2. US Military Manipulates the Social Media

3. Obama Authorizes International Assassination Campaign

4. Global Food Crisis Expands

Read all 25 of the top censored news you never read or heard about.

Way to govern, you guys.

Some of the bills Republicans have blocked. Rand Paul adds to the list.

Ack!

In shifting to a new Google Blogger template, it kindly erased my directory! I will add as many as I can, but if I have dropped you accidentally and you mind, remind me in comments.

Excellent story by a jailed journalist

Who tried to interview the pepper-sprayed women and was arrested. I think the NYPD will regret this....

Anti-antichrist

Why the Antichrist Matters in Politics

The left is in disarray while libertarianism is on the ascent. A new generation of evangelicals — well-versed in organizing but lacking moderating influences — is lining up behind hard-right anti-statists. While few of the faithful truly think that the president is the Antichrist, millions of voters, like their Depression-era predecessors, fear that the time is short. The sentiment that Mr. Obama is preparing the United States, as Roosevelt did, for the Antichrist’s global coalition is likely to grow.

Barring the rapture, Mrs. Bachmann or Mr. Perry could well ride the apocalyptic anti-statism of conservative Christians into the Oval Office. Indeed, the tribulation may be upon us.

Well this is good to know, now that President Obama has been proclaimed the Antichrist. (Is that like anti-matter? Unseen, mysterious, and explosive?)

Accidentally on purpose

Decided to play with my blog layout.

Anybody want to complain?

Oh boy....

Police brutality

At its most stupid and unnecessary show of power:

NYPD Deputy Inspector has been identified. I hope he thinks his smirking delight in spraying pepper spray into the faces of corralled women protesters was worth it. He's just made a whole bunch more people angry and rededicated to the cause.

Exactly.

Whiplash...

Yes!:

Obama lets states opt out of No Child Left Behind

WTF??

Police pen up and mace female ‘Occupy Wall Street’ protesters

ROTFLMAO

NRA claims ‘massive Obama conspiracy’ not to ban guns

Friday Hope on Saturday

Phila of Bouphonia's Friday Hope blog.

And a cat:

The Voice of Choice

Calling back those people who threaten abortion providers, their landlords, the children of the landlords, the people who deliver towels and office supplies... turning their tactics back on them. Voice of Choice.

Obviously it laid eggs....

This article made me think of this: ... my very first picture on the blog...

Dear God! They're attacking from the drainage ditches!

"Five pound snail emerges from Bayou Blue pond."

"From a distance, it looked like a football-like object hanging from a shrub near the pond’s edge. Once she got closer, Arnold realized that what was hanging from the branch was one of the snails she purchased three years ago.

"It was gigantic," she said. "I thought it was a wasp’s nest when I saw it.""

( Toni Arnold of Bayou Blue snapped a shot of Moses the 5-pound snail as it hung from a shrub in her pond Tuesday.)"

POSTED BY ELLROON AT 10/27/2006 03:57:00 PM

I don't think squashing them with your shoes will work...