Has the country finally gone completely mad?

While we try to fix the problem:
Newtown families call for stricter gun laws to prevent further tragedy

10 Pro-Gun Myths, Shot Down

Why Was An Anti-Feminist Organization Using Senate Time to Sell Guns

Joe Biden: Gun Laws Won't 'Guarantee' End To Mass Shootings

Gabby Giffords.

Idiots are trying to legislate:

Republican lawmaker’s bill mandates NRA gun training for Missouri first graders

The Mentally Ill Appear at the Gun Hearing

Meet the NRA's enemies list. As you'd expect, it's nuts.

And people are still dying:

Texas prosecutor shot multiple times in broad daylight

Assault rifle found in car of suspected Phoenix shooter

Price Middle School Shooting: Multiple Injuries In Attack At Southeast Atlanta School

Amazing and stupid facts for you to peruse

Amazing facts about the human body.

Explaining what happened (and didn't happen) to the Senate filibuster.

Word for the day:  Defenestration.

Asking Dick Cheney about gun control is moronic... and gun owners heckle a father of one of the dead of Sandy Hook school.   Everyone should have a gun... especially these people.  And GPS makes kids end up getting shot in a man's driveway.  Booman addresses the gun violence problem.

And speaking of moronic, an Alabama GOP Congressman Proposes Amendment That Would Effectively Kill The United States Government and Arkansas introduces a “heartbeat bill” that would jail doctors for performing abortions after 6 weeks and (Fox News link, sorry) Mississippi bill would nullify federal laws

Homemade 'death ray'.

Corporations are so slow in taking toxic chemicals out of our food....

Because this is where the United States citizens have said,"Enough"...

I have copied a lot of the New York Times article on the first responders at Sandy Hook by Ray Rivera.  Please don't let this horrible event go by without changing our attitudes.  Please let the Sandy Hook massacre help change us for the better.

Reliving Horror and Faint Hope at Massacre Site

By RAY RIVERA

NEWTOWN, Conn. — [snip]

“One look, and your life was absolutely changed,” said Michael McGowan, one of the first police officers to arrive at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, as a gunman, in the space of minutes, killed 20 first graders and 6 adults.

[snip]

It is an account filled with ghastly moments and details, and a few faint instances of hope. One child had a slight pulse, but did not survive. Another was found bloody but unhurt, amid her dead classmates. Teachers were so protective of their students that they had to be coaxed by officers before opening doors. And the officers themselves, many of them fathers, instinctively used their most soothing Daddy voices to guide terrified children to safety.

The stories also reveal the deep stress that lingers for officers who, until Dec. 14, had focused their energies on maintaining order in a low-crime corner of suburbia. Some can barely sleep. Little things can set off tears: a television show, a child’s laughter, even the piles of gifts the Police Department received from across the country.

One detective, who was driving with his wife and two sons, passed a roadside memorial on Route 25 two weeks after the shooting, and began sobbing uncontrollably. “I just lost it right there, I couldn’t even drive,” the detective, Jason Frank, said.

Officer William Chapman was in the Newtown police station along with Officer McGowan and others when the first reports of shots and breaking glass came in early on the day of the massacre. The school was more than two miles away. They traveled up Route 25, then right onto Church Hill Road. “We drove as fast as we’ve ever driven,” Officer McGowan said.

They made it in under three minutes, arriving in the parking lot while gunfire could still be heard.

“I got out of the car and grabbed my rifle and it stopped for second,” Officer Chapman said. “But then we heard more popping. You could tell it was rifle fire. And it was up so close, it sounded like it was coming from outside. So we were all looking around for someone to shoot back at.”

As the officers converged on the building, the gunfire stopped again. Officers Chapman and Scott Smith made their way to the front entrance. It was here, only minutes earlier, that a rail-thin 20-year-old named Adam Lanza, armed with a .223 Bushmaster semiautomatic carbine, two semiautomatic pistols and hundreds of rounds of ammunition, had blasted his way through the glass.

Leonard Penna, a school resource officer who had raced to the scene from his office at the Newtown Middle School, entered the school with Sgt. Aaron Bahamonde and Lt. Christopher Vanghele, through a side door that leads to the boiler room, he said. Officer McGowan and two other officers entered through a locked rear door. One of them knocked out the glass with his rifle butt so the rest of the officers could get in.

The halls were familiar to Officer McGowan. He attended the school as a child. But now, they were eerily silent.

“The teachers were doing a phenomenal job keeping their kids quiet,” Officer Chapman said.

The officers turned their radios down. They entered the front lobby and saw the first bodies, those of Dawn Hochsprung, the principal, they would later learn, and Mary Sherlach, the school psychologist.

“You saw them lifeless, laying down,” Officer Penna recalled. “For a split second, your mind says could this be a mock crime scene, could this be fake, but in the next split second, you’re saying, there is no way. This is real.”

The officers went from room to room, urgently hunting for the killer before he could do more harm.

They found a wounded staff member in one room, made sure her co-workers were applying proper first aid and moved on.

As Officers Chapman and Smith approached the second classroom in the hallway on their left, they spotted a rifle on the floor. Inside, they found the gunman, Adam Lanza, dead by his own hand, along with the bodies of several children and other adults.

The officers searched the room for any other gunmen, then began searching for signs of life among the children. One little girl had a pulse and was breathing. Officer Chapman cradled her in his arms and ran with her outside, to an ambulance. Officer Chapman, a parent himself, tried to comfort her. “You’re safe now; your parents love you,” he recalled saying. She did not survive.

Most of the bodies were found in the classroom next door, where, Detective Frank recalled, “the teacher had them huddled up like a mother hen — simple as that, in a corner.”

Officer Penna, who was the first officer to enter the second room, found a girl standing alone amid the bodies. She appeared to be in shock, and was covered in blood, but had not been injured. He, not knowing the gunman had been found, told her to stay put.

He ran into the next classroom and saw the dead gunman, with Officers Chapman and Smith standing nearby. State troopers and other officers were now flooding in. Officer Penna returned to the second classroom, his rifle slung around his chest, grabbed the uninjured girl by the arm and ran with her out to a triage area set up in the parking lot.

With state troopers coming in, the officers began to evacuate the children who were still behind locked doors. But many of the teachers, seeking to protect their students and following their own training, refused to open up.

“We’re kicking the doors, yelling ‘Police! Police!’ ” Officer McGowan said. “We were ripping our badges off and putting them up to the window.”

Detective Frank, who had been off duty and rushed to the scene so quickly that he had to borrow a gun from a colleague once he arrived, remembers ripping the handle off one of the doors, “just trying to get through.”

[snip]

“Words can’t describe how horrible it was,” said Detective Joudy, who has been with the department for 27 years.

As he left the building that day, Officer Tom Bean, who had also been off duty when he rushed to the scene, realized he had not told his wife where he was. He fumbled for his phone in the parking lot, and called her. “That’s when I broke down in tears, crying,” he said.

More than a month later, the officers continue to feel the pain of that day. Some spoke reluctantly, not wanting to compare their torment with the agony of the families of the children and adult victims. But they also worried about their ability to do their jobs, as they continue to suffer. They said they omitted some details out of sensitivity to the victims, and to protect the investigation as it continued.

At least one person, Officer Bean, said he has already received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder. He said he had been unable to return to work since the shootings, and had needed medication to sleep.

The officers and their union are reaching out to state lawmakers, hoping to expand workers’ compensation benefits to include those who witness horrific violence.

[snip]

Sunday drive through the blogosphere

China isn't the only one producing questionable drugs:  Bad pharma: Drug research riddled with half truths, omissions, lies. Industry-funded trials are too common, can't be trusted -- and bring pills to market that likely don't work

State EPA plans to list BPA as harmful

Procter & Gamble Must Scrub Carcinogen Dioxane From Tide

Climate change..  predictions are a lot worse than imagined.

A pet fox.

A Belgian's experience traveling in the US.

If abortion is made illegal... women will have illegal abortions.

What's going on with the banks?

Fondly remembering Mussolini... and forgetting how he ended up.

Farmers who don't give in to monocrops.

Our DNA will become our own computers.

Crafting a homemade book.

Caturday

Why are we not surprised?

China, continuing the poisonous trend:

Fake Medicine from China Threatening Lives in Africa

 *sigh*

Add it to the list:

BEIJING—The discovery of unusual levels of mercury in Chinese-produced infant formula reignited fears about the safety of the country's scandal-ridden dairy industry, and underlined the severe challenges the government faces in improving food safety.

Mercury in baby formula.

Pills for human consumption containing human remains.

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?

 Asbestos, Cadmium, China, Flour, Forchlorfenuron, Gluten, Honey, Melamine, Pets, Pigs, Pork, Pulverized Lime, Toothpaste, Toys, Vinegar,Watermelon

What?

What privacy?

What reproductive control? New Mexico Bill Would Imprison Rape Victims Who Receive Abortions and Washington police failures on rape detailed in groundbreaking report but wait!.... uh... Catholic Hospital Argues Fetuses Are Not People In Malpractice Suit

What gun safety by knowledgeable gun owners?

What super viruses?

What deficit?

What part of the Grey Lady will be left?

What Sandy Hook conspiracy?

What American Dream?

Obama has got it in for you....

If you've hoarded all that food and ammo and super duper weaponry, if you've prepared to go Galt, shifted your cash into gold, planted your vegetables, found a subservient woman, made your house into a bunker, if you've prepared for the Rapture and carefully cultivated a deep suspicion and hatred of the 'other'.... you really really WANT the government to fail.

You want to be able to say, "I told you so!".  You want to be able to drive past empty grocery stores with rioting mobs feeling only scorn and superiority. You want to justifiably shoot your zombified neighbors through the door as they beg for your delicious food. You want to see the dollar bill become useless, the banks to crash, the world economy to shriek grindingly to a halt while you start a new economy based on gold traded between like-minded heavily armed encampments. And finally you want to rapture up into heaven where you get to mock those stupid 'others' dying in horrific and agonizing ways because they did not happen to be white evangelicals from your particular church.

It's the tedious waiting and waiting and waiting for all this to come about that makes some of the guys understandably try and activate the revolution/ crash/ Rapture by themselves, going out to the school, the mall, the theater or their job site to shoot up a few extraneous people.

Facts don't matter.  What you think is the only thing that matters.  And you know that Obama is going to personally come to your house and take all your guns away and make you weak and feeble like those hippie fascist commie liberals.

Jon Stewart agrees.

NTodd has a great deal to say.  So does Steve Bates.  And Bryan.  Maddow catches a Texas senator denying there is a gun show loophole.  Another entire family completely destroyed by guns.  And more die while we talk.  Even Republicans are not sure about some pro-gun bills.

Well, DUUuuUUhhhhh

Insecticide bad for bees.  So sign this petition!

Jon Stewart exposes how the GOP and the NRA have tied the AFT's hands so that even the 'current gun laws' are unenforceable.  (Lots of videos and links)   The NRA attempts to rewrite history.   And every gun owner is a responsible citizen... right?

We should demand that the CEOs of these companies must drink the water from the fracking sites...EPA's Water Contamination Investigation Halted In Texas After Range Resources Protest

Watch the extreme weather in the US for 2012.

Rush Limbaugh decides to call for shooting women who are getting abortions.

A colander fits just as well as a tin foil hat....

Sandy Hook school shooting was fake/ staged/ not real and set up just so Obama could take guns away.

Stupid is as stupid does...

Ann Coulter said what?    You mean all those lone white male shooters were ... fake?

Harassing a man who helped during the Sandy Hook tragedy because... um... he uh.. because Sandy Hook is a conspiracy to take away your anti-tank gun.  And James Yeager, Tactical Response CEO is apologizing for threatening to kill people with the guns people are trying to take away from him because um.. bad press?...

No, rape does not happen by 'accident'.  And in India,  some are sure it's the Western World's fault.  (And thankfully, some are sure it's not.)

Fast food is killing us.

What denying access to abortions does to women.

What 'nuclear gerrymandering' will do.

Quickly about the net

Australia... pics of one hell of an incoming cyclone.

Parenting with puppies.

White House says no Death Star.

All Arab dictators will fall.

Fox News refuses to accept warmer 2012.

Gun groups predict failure of ban.

Starting off the new year by shooting ourselves in the foot?

Warren is outraged AIG is thinking about suing the government... which means the very people who saved their sorry ass.

KBR wants us to pay for their negligence.

Australia is on fire.  And the world is overheating...

And then there's this: Gun-toting soccer mom found shot dead and another school shooting in California and YouTube gun activist Keith Ratliff  is found shot dead and NRA Vows To Stop Tucson From Destroying Guns and NRA: White House Meeting 'Had Nothing To Do With Keeping Our Children Safe' and  Tactical Response CEO Threatens To 'Start Killing People' Over Possible Obama Gun Measure  (and an update where he tries to clarify things) and Steven Colbert agrees with the NRA (*cough*) and NTodd notes the historical silliness and Alex Jones goes off about guns talking with Piers Morgan.

(updated)

Monday Monday....

Good morning, Monday!

The NRA: dead children are a cost of doing business.

Finally, a good use for dryer lint!

Underwater crop circles.

A good section of Obamacare kicks in.

When you chase all the immigrant workers away, you have to work with prisoners... prisons that are run by corporations who are demanding of states to guarantee a steady stream of prisoners.  What is wrong with this picture?

National Geographic photo competition 2012.

Black holes:  engines of the universe.

Armed volunteers to guard schools.... what on earth could go wrong?

A giant squid in the deepest parts of the ocean.

Oil and gas companies want to stop residents from speaking about local drilling at rule hearing.

Asteroid Apophis is trying to kill us.

Is it safe?

Not yet...

Tetris to torture.

Why we love Tetris.

Make your own solar system.

Clinging to their guns... so they can take down the government...

Dryer sheets are filled with toxic chemicals?

Mars mystery 'flower'.

A letter to Kathryn Bigelow on Zero Dark Thirty's apology for torture

Off to a running start...

The winners of the 2012 Golden Duke awards.

States that allow cameras in dressing rooms

Parenting in timelapse

Hunting pythons... in Florida.

Italy looks fondly back on Mussolini.. things must really be getting bad over there.

Ezra Klein's take on the fiscal cliff/ curve/ curb.  And BooMan reassures us.