Tell us again how this won't happen with the Keystone pipeline

Arkansas residents evacuate as Exxon-Mobil tar sands pipeline ruptures

An Exxon-Mobil oil pipeline ruptured Friday afternoon in the town of Mayflower, Arkansas, forcing the evacuation of 20 homes and shutting down sections of interstate highway. According to Little Rock’s KATV, a hazardous materials team from the Office of Emergency Management has contained the spill and is currently attempting a cleanup. 

The burst pipe is part of the Pegasus pipeline network, which connects tar sands along the Gulf coast to refineries in Houston. Thousands of gallons of crude oil erupted from the breach around 3:00 p.m. on Friday, spilling through a housing subdivision and into the town’s storm drainage system, fouling drainage ditches and shutting down Highway 365 and Interstate 40. 

Residents were evacuated to avoid health hazards from crude oil fumes and to keep stray sparks from igniting the standing oil. Emergency workers contained the spill by hastily constructing earthen dams.

Keeping Monsanto out of your garden

And off your plate.

Friday Follies... and cats.

In honor of Friday Cat blogging.

Study: Pesticides scramble bees’ brain circuits and birds are affected too.

Coal use in China begins to hit home: Potential jump in train traffic subject of forum

Project Censored The Movie - Trailer

What could possibly go wrong? Scientists successfully create living embryo of an extinct species.

North Dakota's anti-abortion law is the most restrictive in the nation ... and it's not constitutional.

Monday mopings...

Um... shouldn't we be worried a bit about this? Vial of easily weaponized virus goes missing in Texas

Overfishing our oceans.

Monsanto's death patents.

Five reasons why not to eat anything from China.

But Chevron is so trustworthy!

Conservapedia Disproves E=mc²

We could have told you this: Researchers link ‘unfounded’ wars to increased risk of PTSD. War for war's sake will destroy armies. Wars for no just cause destroys soldiers.

 Might as well make yourselves useful: Cleaning up the oceans with drones.

Friday Follies

A good overview of the Steubenville rape trial.

Never forget what we did to Iraq.  Even though Donald Rumsfeld would like you to.

Transgender people speak out.

Steven Colbert about the voting rights act.

Yet another robot thing I will have to beat to death if it gets near me.

Dissolving our sea-shelled creatures.

Luke uses the force of his 9 year old self to fight off big corporations trying to take his city's water.

America's rape culture.

More fun at Fukushima

Because everyone enjoys glow-in-the-dark kelp and pre-cooked tuna!

Fukushima loses cooling power 

No electricity to pumps that feed ponds where spent nuclear fuel rods must be kept underwater at a safe temperature 

Fools, Fanatics, Faith, and Fungus

NRA Ridicules Congresswoman Whose Husband Was Shot and Killed in Mass Shooting

Dick Cheney, Ahmed Chalabi Contemplated Value Of Iraqi Oil To U.S., David Frum Writes

Depleted uranium, a gift of war that keeps on giving....

MUST WATCH: A Politician Loses It And Restores My Faith In Humanity

White-nose bat fungus. So now we kill off the bats and wonder why we are being inundated with insects.

Prison Profiteers Are Neo-Slaveholders and Solitary Is Their Weapon of Choice

Locusts

Locusts are grasshopper were-beasts.

Two reddit posts of interest:  what one fact pisses you off and what scam do you think more people should know about.

NRA President’s Son Convicted For Road Rage Shooting, Nears End Of 10-Year Jail Sentence

How the US public was defrauded by the hidden cost of the Iraq war

Wow!  A journalist actually practicing journalism.  This Is What Happens When A Journalist Forces A Banker To Actually Answer A Question

Jaw-dropping quote of the day:

When asked by ThinkProgress if he’d accept a society where African-Americans were permanently subservient to whites, he said “I’d be fine with that.” He also claimed that African-Americans “should be allowed to vote in Africa,” and that “all the Tea Parties” were concerned with the same racial problems that he was. 

At one point, a woman challenged him on the Republican Party’s roots, to which Terry responded, “I didn’t know the legacy of the Republican Party included women correcting men in public.”

Thursday's child has far to go...

What is it with cats and boxes?

Legalize marijuana if you must... but don't let the pharmaceutical companies get their grubby paws on it.

Ryan's oops.

Krugman to Obama: It's the economy.

Jon Stewart with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Jon Stewart with Rachel Maddow.

BPA has leached into all of us...

Blackwater was CIA's extension, founder Erik Prince admits

One more reason not to visit Florida.

From bones to security

The church decorated with bones.

Global warming is making plants grow around the northern latitudes.

Surviving Mengele.

Bee venom is good for something... destroying HIV cells.

A woman speaks out about how men should be taught not to rape... and gets truly ugly threats about rape.

Unknown microbes found in Antarctic ice lake.  Isn't this how the horror story begins?

The frightening buildup of hate groups in reaction to a black president and the gun control movement. (pdf)

Getting rich off of schoolchildren.

Policy Basics: Top Ten Facts about Social Security

Har har har....

Go ahead and try it, buster.

Jeb Bush on 2016 run: ‘I don’t think there is any Bush baggage at all’

update:



Update 3/11 from Talking Points Memo, a very insightful piece on the difficulties of the Republican party:

I mean, George Bush as “strong leader?” Really? I was there. I watched it happen. The guy was a potted plant who they imagined into faux greatness by sheer force of Noonanian gibberish and the D.C. establishment’s will to believe it. 

To my mind, that moral and intellectual bankruptcy has been obvious since at least 2005. The failure of the Social Security privatization push, the Schiavo debacle, the disintegration of Iraq into murderous chaos, and the hailing of a financial industry edging ever closer to outright criminality as the Miracle of Markets Creating Wealth and Prosperity for All. 

All of these disasters—political, social and economic—were the consequence of Bush Administration’sapplication of the Reagan realignment policy paradigm to social and economic circumstances that no longer remotely resemble those existing in 1980. Privatization, tax cutting, the embrace of politicized Christian fundamentalist as policy, militaristic interventionism, and deregulation—of course the Bush Administration’s zealous application of those policy principles led to serial disasters for the GOP and the nation. All of the problems—real or perceived—that these policies were implemented to fix had long since been as “fixed” as it was possible for those principles to fix them. And yet they were compelled to keep acting like top marginal rates were at 90%, the Evil Empire had to be rolled back and business was groaning under the weight of oppressive regulation and mired in strangling red tape because the constituencies that were the pillars of the party’s electoral constituencies.

Update: Rotating 360 on immigration.

Update:  What writing his 'book' about immigration actually means.

Puzzled cats are puzzled.

North Korea prepares for war ... with somebody.  Anybody?

This is why Congress is broken, the Republicans want to stay ignorant about anything Obama offers.  They will refuse to do anything he suggests.  The teabaggery party has won.

How to deal with angry bees.  Killer bees or not.

Bees instinctually target the eyes, nose, ears and face. If you lack a helmet and veil, the bees will sting your repeatedly in the head and upper trunk, and at some point this will cause your eyes to swell shut and then you are in big trouble. If you are blind, escaping these insects is difficult or impossible, and the likelihood of you running into other objects or falling down in addition to being attacked--goes up. This is how people sometimes die in these confrontations. They get stung repeatedly in the face, the flesh swells around their eyes, they are still being stung repeatedly which hurts like hell and is scary, and they run into a wall or tree, or fall over items in their path and hurt themselves, or knock themselves out, meanwhile more bees appear, just to sting the person, while they are down and unable to get back up.

Saving Britain's heritage...by losing Shakespeare's house.

How does an anti-virus program work?

A chart that helps define the different conservative branches.

Creating a superbug one antibacterial soap at a time.

A testament to love.

You don't say!

A Brief History Lesson for Justice Antonin ‘Racial Entitlement’ Scalia

Baby elephant hugs.

Writing the Unwritten Handbook: Antifascism and Neighborhood Resistance in Athens

State Department’ Keystone XL Report Actually Written By TransCanada Contractor

Poor Jeb Bush.

Here Are Some Rich New Yorkers Whining About Feeling Poor (The comments are enlightening.)

Howard Fineman: We Are Living in the World Dick Cheney Made

The rich poor divide.

To help you win climate change arguments.

A veteran's remorse: what have we done to Iraq?

Duck ... duck...

Goose!

Paging Dr. Freud

Lawmaker Compares Gun Control to Castration  

Illinois state Rep. Jim Sacia (R) went on an epic tirade against Democratic legislators for forcing gun control on the entire state to deal with Chicago's "run away gun problem" and said the state's gun control laws are akin to asking him to get "castrated" because Chicagoans are having too many babies.

Said Sacia: "Here's an analogy folks, I ask you to think of this: You folks in Chicago, want me to get castrated because you're families are having too many kids. It spells out exactly what is happening here! You want us to get rid of guns..."

Cat and crumbles

Kite flying is very handy in archaeology.

Fast food makes us want to eat more fast food.  Oh noes!  They just exposed what Cheezites are made of!

Anti-bacterial soap is not so clean....

London panoramic.