Le chat du vendredi

Natural and unnatural disasters....

Oops.

Trojan asteroid in Earth's orbit.

Well, at least he admits it: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC): “We’re not generating enough angry white guys to stay in business for the long term.”  So, back to the Dark Ages!

Krugman.

We're all gonna diiiiiieeeee.....By diseases:  TB.... West Nile virus.... Hantavirus.... or by extreme weather that causes  flooding, food wars, or by a Romney presidency....

Update:  The Heartland virus....

Update 8/31: Global warming...

Paul Ryan v the truth

Because facts are tiresome.

The Era of Stupid

Reflected in this:

Republican Congressional Candidate Says 'Holocaust Never Happened 

Art Jones, who hopes to challenge Democrat Dan Lipinski in Illinois' 3rd Congressional District, neither denies nor repudiates his past affiliation with the neo-Nazi Party.

Do you think that maybe Art Jones actually passing his high school history class might have helped?

Because Karl Rove was involved...

It's not a conspiracy theory... New Court Filing Reveals How the 2004 Ohio Presidential Election Was Hacked

A new filing in the King Lincoln Bronzeville v. Blackwell case includes a copy of the Ohio Secretary of State election production system configuration that was in use in Ohio's 2004 presidential election when there was a sudden and unexpected shift in votes for George W. Bush. The filing also includes the revealing deposition of the late Michael Connell. Connell served as the IT guru for the Bush family and Karl Rove. Connell ran the private IT firm GovTech that created the controversial system that transferred Ohio's vote count late on election night 2004 to a partisan Republican server site in Chattanooga, Tennessee owned by SmarTech. That is when the vote shift happened, not predicted by the exit polls, that led to Bush's unexpected victory. Connell died a month and a half after giving this deposition in a suspicious small plane crash.

It's amazing how Republicans yell about non-existent voter fraud and point fingers when they are doing weird shenanigans to block Ron Paul supporters from getting delegates in some states and a voice at the convention. Projection anyone?

What the net can do

When it tries.

Paul Ryan v women

Ryan on abortion exceptions: Rape is just another ‘method of conception’




Mother Jones: The Way It Was

In the same book, a man who assisted in autopsies in a big urban hospital, starting in the mid-1950s, describes the many deaths from botched abortions that he saw. "The deaths stopped overnight in 1973." He never saw another in the 18 years before he retired. "That," he says, "ought to tell people something about keeping abortion legal."

Scattershot news

Americans throw away 40 percent of their food every day

Less government...

Someone who is very displeased with Windows 8.

Why Pennsylvania's Voter ID Law Is Unconstitutional

But will the pharmaceuticals let this kid ruin their business?  I bet no.

Depression comes from eating too much trans-fats.

Never insult an Irishman:

Michael D. Higgins (who was elected president of Ireland last year) is fed up with over-the-top Tea Party rhetoric, and he isn't afraid to show it. Listen to him call out radio host Michael Graham on everything from health care to foreign policy in this heated exchange from 2010. Trust me, you don't want to miss this one.

The Drought Map.  And those who make money off of food shortages caused by drought.

The Problem with Men Explaining Things.

The Republican war on women's naughty bits

Rapists can get child visitation rights.

Sheriff Candidate OK With Deadly Force To Stop Abortions



 If rape victims must have their rapist's baby, then logically...

Update 8/23:


 

Ain't technology great?

Harvard cracks DNA storage, crams 700 terabytes of data into a single gram

Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data

ANOTHER robot I'd need to beat to death when I see it...

Clock.

The little island that could..

Learn from Iceland how to deal with banksters.

edited for extraneous link.

Back to the future

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Because voters might vote Democratic...

The Daily Show
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From cows to cats

Cows are more dangerous than sharks.



Ryan hasn't run the numbers on his budget.  Isn't that what you do first when you figure out a budget?  Because it involves money?

Romney's medicare cuts are the same/different than Ryan's.

American Women are Under Assault from Christian Republicans

Jan Brewer denies deferred action recipients drivers’ licenses; will other governors follow suit?

Northern Gateway: Enbridge Accused Of Misleading Public With Video That Shows Smooth Sailing In Douglas Channel

GPS in your DNA: Genetics can reveal your geographic ancestral origin

Vulture debt collectors

And how to protect yourself against them.

And it's only Tuesday...

A true believer for the second Gilded Age.

Daily sexual harassment of women.

Nothing to see here. Just mutated Japanese moths near Fukushima.

Funniest tweets about Paul Ryan.

Environmentalists are ruining the pipeline scheme.

White Dudes Unite!



Social Security facts:

 

And so forth and so on...

Martian plate tectonics!  360 degree panorama!

She wasn't a fetus so the Republicans don't care.  But if there's a fetus involved: Kansas Doctor Under Attack For Not Forcing Ten Year Old Rape Victim To Give Birth

Ohio is afraid of letting people vote.

Good guy bank.

You can fool some of the people all of the time.  The Ryan plan, and what choosing Ryan didn't and did do for Romney.

Romney supports Tranquility Bay, a Mormon behavior reformation camp that tortures kids.... and more on this.

Mute button.

The starfish story.  Found on this thread of Reddit.

How to start a revolution

The fun never ends

Well... it's one way to get that tithing money...Mormon Church 'owns unregulated gun sale website'

 Did Mitt Romney Take the 2009 Swiss Bank Account Amnesty and An Ex-Mormon Describes Some 'Secrets' Of The Church... that just might affect a president Romney's actions...

A State-By-State Guide to 2012’s Anti-Choice Laws (So Far) and the shift to deny even rape and incest victims an abortion.

 Missouri Votes to Allow Christians to Discriminate Against Non-Believers

 Sobering: Almost Half of Americans Die Close to Penniless

The perils of plastic pellets

Following the aftermath of Typhoon Vincent this week, the worst typhoon to hit Hong Kong in 15 years, hundreds of 25kg plastic sacks filled with pre-production plastic pellets (aka Nurdles) produced by SINOPEC Petroleum Hainan are now washing up on the beaches of Hong Kong. 

[snip] 

So far we have discovered 250 plus sacks, of which approximately 50% have spilled their deadly contents into the ecosystem. This is the equivalent of a SOLIDIFIED OIL SPILL. Each sack contains approximately 1 million pellets. The 250 sacks were all on our local beach, we have put out a call to action asking ocean lovers all over Hong Kong to visit their local beaches and check them for these "white plastic sacks of death," and if found to report them to Sea Shepherd Hong Kong who are working with local authorities on the cleanup operation. The biggest problem is that this material absorbs toxins and pollutants, turning it a yellowish brown color. The darker the pellet becomes the more toxic it is. Small fish, birds, and even large filter feeding species such as whales, whale sharks, and manta rays eat these pellets, mistaking them for fish eggs. Once eaten, the animals become toxic and often die. Bigger fish eat the small fish and this continues up the food chain, spreading the toxicity into seafood that will end up on our tables for human consumption.

Just finished reading The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. One of the book's chapters addresses the horror of the many plastic gyres in the oceans... and the small toxic glop that is poisoning the marine life. Can we possibly fix this problem before we kill off everything? We can only wait and see.... Update: It is suggested that plastics could be linked to diabetes and obesity.

How dare you!!

Banks: How dare you tell us we can't make money dealing with Iranians!

Religious extremists: How dare same sex couples raise children! We must kidnap them! 

Romney campaign: How dare you get the economists we quote to indicate they don't agree with our conclusions!

Global climate change deniers: How dare you use the melting of Greenland to show that July's heat broke records all over the world!

Texas:  How dare you tell us we can't execute mentally handicapped people!  It's the obviously Christian thing to do!

White supremacist Nazi racist moron:  How dare you insult my dominant white manliness by saying I didn't know the difference between Sikhs and Muslims when all that mattered was that I could tell they were different than me and therefore obviously responsible for all my problems and that shooting them would solve everything or something....

Um...

This is my 7002nd post on this blog.  Is that a lot? I don't talk too much, do I?  What do you think?  Do I?  Could it be that I post a lot because politics and news and war are relentlessly bad and I can't stand it and I must say something or my head will blow off and then there'd be a mess at my computer and we couldn't have that so I must rant and complain loudly?  And often.

I dedicate the seven thousand and two post to zombie bees.



Poor bees.  First we poison them with pesticides and they get Colony Collapse Disorder and now they have zombie-making parasites.  Apparently we really do want to destroy humanity... bees first.

From markets to math

Watch this graph to watch financial market insanity:

This astonishing GIF comes from Nanex, and shows the amount of high-frequency trading in the stock market from January 2007 to January 2012. (Which means that the Knightmare craziness of last week is not included.)

I bet this school cut back on sex education as well, what do you think? Get Tested Or Get Out: School Forces Pregnancy Tests on Girls, Kicks out Students Who Refuse or are Pregnant

Protecting your identity online and more.

Merika the Beautiful.

Water Wars.

Finding lost pyramids with Google Earth?

Romney's Mormon sense of entitlement includes lying.



The gun.

If you don't have a facebook account you are a terrorist!... or just weird.

A creationist science text book.  And their distrust of set theory.

How safe is the chicken you eat?

Answer:  Not very.  And getting worse.

From my facebook thread

What is wrong with this picture? A flipped out nazi racist shoots up a Sikh religious group even as we land a SUV-sized rover on Mars. We are told by Fox News and the NRA that we must accept these shootings of innocent people as an expression of our freedoms and that we are to shrug off the deaths as mundane. On the other hand, we casually accept the fact we are capable of sending a huge and complex appliance to Mars millions of miles away and land it gently in a carefully chosen crater to look for intelligent life and to study geological strata. If we are capable of such fantastic science and logical thought, why do we accept acts of such heartbreaking stupidity? Why can't we fix this?

Suzie Kidnap: we can fix it. we need to get people of normal intelligence to pay attention to politics. right now, the oligarchy has a brain dead army of simpletons who will carry out their kings' every command, and vote as they are told. and that army is basically unopposed at this point.

Ellroon Gravenstone: Which is why education and science are being mocked, and faith is praised more than intelligence. I just can't get my head around how we can walk into this Era of Stupid without protest. How can the army of simpletons be greater than those of us who think?

Suzie Kidnap: i don't think they are greater in number. i think they are more motivated because they have been stirred up by wedge isssues; race, abortion, the gays. they are paying attention, and most of the normals still aren't. i fear what it might take to wake people up. the pace of these massacres in increasing in an alarming way. i am starting to be afraid to go out of the house.

Ellroon Gravenstone: Recall the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia where they killed all the doctors and other educated 'elites'... and then wonder when Fox News will incite the next moron to go kill those who dare to read books. (Fahrenheit 451 anyone?)

Ellroon Gravenstone: I remember one man entering our living room which is lined with book shelves. His first sentence was an aggressive,"Have you read all these books?".... He was mollified to hear I hadn't. Didn't show him the rest of the house ... bookshelves in every room.

Mars!!

Can you believe it?   Mars!!

update:  xkcd's take.

And more on the landing process.

A bunch of happy scientists celebrating some very expensive blurry black and white photos :)



Some still photos of  the same happy group.

Confetti News

A gay couple's take on the Chik-Fil-A rumpus.

Chris Hayes and his show UP with Chris Hayes.  One of the best ones out there.

Texts from Hillary.

What's involved with the newest Mars landing.

What has Romney NOT lied about?

Private prisons, public money.

Napoleon was right.

"When a government is dependent upon bankers for money, they and not the leaders of the government control the situation, since the hand that gives is above the hand that takes. Money has no motherland; financiers are without patriotism and without decency; their sole object is gain." Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France.

Albert Einstein: “No problem can be solved from the same consciousness that created it.”

Romney's 'tax' plan.

Ann Romney's horse behaves itself.

Climate change.  And North Carolina decides to deny science.

Obamacare helps women.

US resists losing control of the Internet... to a UN agency.

Murray's law.

Traditional biblical marriage.

Jim Hightower warns us that police will be using drones. What could possibly go wrong?

Aaannnnddd... here we are. Birth defects in Iraq. All that depleted uranium in Bush and Cheney's wonderful awesome bunker buster bombs has arrived. War crimes anyone?

Bill Moyers Makes It Clear: Requiring An ID Is Voter Suppression And Unconstitutional:

 

After losing her four children and husband to yellow fever

And everything she owned in the Chicago fire four years later, she became a ferocious fighter for the worker.  Mother Jones.  Not really a feminist, she didn't support the need for women to vote:

Mary Jones was ideologically separated from many of the other female activists of the pre-Nineteenth Amendment days due to her aversion to female suffrage. She was quoted as saying that “You don’t need the vote to raise hell!”[9] Her opposition to women taking an active role in politics was based on her belief that the neglect of motherhood was a primary cause of juvenile delinquency.

But having lost all her babies (all under the age of 5 when they died) I can understand her desire to protect the bond between mothers and their children.  She even organized a Children's Crusade to protest mining conditions for children workers.

 

Mary Harris “Mother” Jones begins the “Children’s Crusade.” Accompanied by child mine and mill workers, she walked from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to President Theodore Roosevelt’s home in New York state to protest the plight of child laborers.

Where are these kinds of people now?