Tasers kill

500 Deaths From Tasers in USA

Dolphins!

Because that's what we do...

Going Against Nature: USDA Found to be Exterminating Bees, Crops, and Birds

Caturdays

Some days I feel like



and some like



On bad days I'm like



And with this Republican presidential candidate campaign I'm like



But today I'm cool and gonna have a good meal and let things just air out....

Stuff I read today....

Radiation detected 400 miles off Japanese coast

Radioactive contamination from the Fukushima power plant disaster has been detected as far as almost 400 miles off Japan in the Pacific Ocean, with water showing readings of up to 1,000 times more than prior levels, scientists reported Tuesday.

300 million year old forest

Netherlands Closing 8 Prisons Due To Plummeting Crime Rates

DEAR ENTREPRENEURS, ATHLETES AND LOTTERY WINNERS: Here's How To Keep All That Money You Made

 SwedishMealTime chef

 The great escape: the bath toys that swam the Pacific

When 28,800 bath toys fell off a cargo ship in the Pacific 20 years ago, they began an incredible journey. While some washed up in British Columbia and Hawaii, countless others circumnavigated the globe.

Tiny 'Soccer Ball' Space Molecules Could Equal 10,000 Mount Everests

Opus Dei: Neofascism Within the Catholic Church

Teaching science and evolution to religious rural kids.

Yes, Virginia, there is a law protecting the rights of women...

So if Virginia passes the personhood/ anti-abortion/ vaginal probing crap, will they start stopping pregnant women at the state border to see if they are leaving the state to have an abortion? If they don't pee in a cup they can't travel out of state? Would they prosecute the woman if she comes back not pregnant? How far are they going into the land of Gilead?

Compare and contrast headlines

This FOX News’ Dr. Ablow Wants Male Veto Over Reproductive Rights

I believe that in those cases in which a man can make a credible claim that he is the father of a developing child in utero, in which he could be a proper custodian of that child, and in which he is willing to take full custody of that child upon its delivery, that the pregnant woman involved should not have the option to abort and should be civilly liable, and possibly criminally liable, for psychological suffering and wrongful death should she proceed to do so.

to this: She, the decision maker.

In a significant decision, the Punjab and Haryana High Court last week ruled that the right to abort a pregnancy in a marriage rests with the wife and not husband. “A woman is not a machine in which raw material is put and a finished product comes out. She should be mentally prepared to conceive, continue the same and give birth to a child. The unwanted pregnancy would naturally affect the mental health of the pregnant woman…” said the court.

This Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not

What happened next was extraordinary. The belief that citizens had to pay for the mistakes of a financial monopoly, that an entire nation must be taxed to pay off private debts was shattered, transforming the relationship between citizens and their political institutions and eventually driving Iceland’s leaders to the side of their constituents. The Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, refused to ratify the law that would have made Iceland’s citizens responsible for its bankers’ debts, and accepted calls for a referendum.

to this: Factbox: Greek austerity and reform measures

Greece's cabinet approved late on Saturday 325 million euros ($428 million) of extra austerity measures needed to complete a 3.3 billion euro package of cuts -- the price demanded from Athens for a new EU/IMF bailout. 

This: In a 325-Page SEC Letter, Occupy's Finance Gurus Take on Wall Street Lobbyists

Yesterday, a group affiliated with Occupy Wall Street submitted an astounding comment letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Point by point, it methodically challenges the arguments of finance industry lobbyists who want to water down last year's historic Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms. The lobbyists have been using the law's official public comment period to try to kneecap the reforms, and given how arcane financial regulation can be, they might get away with it. But Occupy the SEC is fighting fire with fire, and in so doing, defying stereotypes of the Occupy movement.

to this: Thomas Frank Talks With Truthout on How Wall Street Doubled Down on Trashing America's Economy 

It is the absurd theme that runs throughout "Atlas Shrugged," where the main character, who has organized a strike of the billionaire class, describes himself as "the defender of the oppressed, the disinherited, the exploited - and when I use those words, they have, for once, a literal meaning." That's right, in one of the most popular novels in recent history, billionaires are said to be - insisted to be! - the "disinherited" and "exploited" class.
Understanding how conservatives get themselves to this point is slightly trickier. They merely understand "elitism" in a different way than you and I. The true powers of society are not the rich, but the professionally-credentialed and the government-connected. Conservatives basically invert the populist categories of yore. Instead of blue-collar workers or farmers being the exploited producer class, it is entrepreneurs, who work so hard and have to comply with regulations and pay taxes and put up with the whining of their tattooed hipster employees. And it is the rest of us who are the real parasite class. 

Roar!

Sex and Santorum

Really. What's with this guy?

Watching Goldman Sachs take over the world...

Guess what law goes into effect the same exact year oil is supposed to hit $5 a gallon? OMFG, you guessed it! A law allowing Goldman Sachs to buy 25% of all oil on the market.

Because it always was about sex.

[Englin] noted he had a conversation with one GOP lawmaker regarding his amendment where the lawmaker had told him that women had already made the decision to be "vaginally penetrated when they got pregnant."

Monsanto

Three articles of interest.... Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning in France

Eight Ways Monsanto Fails at Sustainable Agriculture

Insects find crack in biotech corns armor

Update 2/15:  300,000 Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto in Federal Court: Decision on March 31st to Go to Trial

Religious extremists want to bring back back alley abortions

And we will have women dying.  Because God is Love or something.

Food stamp president

Benighted, bigoted, burka'ed

If only all our political arguments were this simple.

Or religious ones.

Dibs and dabs

How I feel after watching too much politics on tv.

How Swedes and Norwegians Broke the Power of the ‘1 Percent’

The 35 Most Unforgivable Facebook Statuses

I'm going to have to shop at J C Penney now...

Because the One Million Moms group is trying to start a boycott of the store for daring to use Ellen DeGeneres as a spokesperson. J C Penney has refused to submit to bullying and will continue to use DeGeneres. Ellen DeGeneres believes in honesty, equality, kindness, compassion, treating people the way you want to be treated and helping those in need. Apparently to some people her being gay negates all those 'Christian-claimed' traditional values.

Update: new video.

Exactly.

Wow.

5.6 Million Americans Have Switched Their Banks In The Last 90 Days

Let's all glow in the dark together!

New Leak at Fukushima: Frozen Pipe "Drops Off"

San Onofre nuclear reactor turned off after radiation leak

Friday's cat

Because we need somebody like FDR right about now...

I'll quote again Roosevelt's prescient statement:

Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people. The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is fascism — ownership of government by an individual, by a group or by any other controlling private power. The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living. Both lessons hit home. Among us today a concentration of private power without equal in history is growing.

This is what climate change looks like

In case facts and graphs can impress you....

Another one bites the dust...

Whole Foods Market Caves to Monsanto

After 12 years of battling to stop Monsanto's genetically-engineered (GE) crops from contaminating the nation's organic farmland, the biggest retailers of "natural" and "organic" foods in the U.S., including Whole Foods Market (WFM), Organic Valley and Stonyfield Farm, have agreed to stop opposing mass commercialization of GE crops, like Monsanto's controversial Roundup Ready alfalfa. In exchange for dropping their opposition, WFM has asked for "compensation" to be paid to organic farmers for "any losses related to the contamination of his crop." Under current laws, Genetically-Modified Organisms (GMOs) are not subject to any pre-market safety testing or labeling. WFM is abandoning its fight with biotech companies in part because two thirds of the products they sell are not certified organic anyway, but are really conventional, chemical-intensive and foods that may contain GMOs and that they market as "natural" despite this. Most consumers don't know the difference between "natural" and "certified organic" products. "Natural" products can come from crops and animals fed nutrients containing GMOs. "Certified Organic" products are GMO-free. WFM and their main distributor, United Natural Foods, maximize profits by selling products labeled "natural" at premium organic prices.

We kinda figured that out, Mittens.

Romney: ‘I’m Not Concerned With The Very Poor’.

 Guess what? Mitt Romney Has No Idea That 50% of Americans Are Poor Or Low Income

 Surprise!

It's so difficult to connect with the rabble when you live in the rarefied air of the .01 percent of the 1 percenters....