Mitt the Ripper

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Reinventing feminism

Virginia Foxx... instead of looking for the kill..

Is feeding from the trough.

Unfortunately, there is more bad news. Foxx recently introduced HR2117: "To prohibit the Department of Education from overreaching into academic affairs and program eligibility under title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965." In other words, "no regulations allowed." Dismantling oversight, transparency, disclosure and regulation is a necessary condition for the for-profit colleges to continue their parasitic business plans, and the industry is looking for people just like Foxx to represent them so they can reconfigure government to aid and abet their plunder.

Paid industry go-fers like Foxx are everywhere. The corporate media, such as The Washington Post (owner of Kaplan University) or any of the cable or "corporate news networks" continue to advance the notion of for-profit colleges as "real" colleges and universities, when, in fact, they are nothing more than diploma mills that steal money from Title IV funds and leave students - mostly minority and working-class students - with phony degrees and in debt peonage for life. Add to this the amount of money these schools pay for marketing and advertising, especially in low-income and minority neighborhoods and venues - a whopping 25 percent or more of their costs - and we see that these companies are set for spiraling growth unless the system is changed.
And this is the whole point: by commodifying education and removing public competition through outright ownership of the government, the for-profit neoliberal providers will continue to snake into the public treasury and nefariously destroy education and intellectual life in America and internationally, where they are now busy creating new burgeoning markets while leaving deracinated youth in their wake. These vulture capitalists will stop at nothing in their efforts to reduce education to little more than a commercialized online video game show - a project which, if successful, will have the consequence of destroying both intellectual life and democratic reality. 

Touching the third rail?

Romney and Bain Capital?  Do it again, Newt and Rick!

Update:

Oops.

I accidentally deleted my last Friday cat.  With a hat.  Can't have that.

Greece, Russia... it's all the same

To Fox News...

And by the way... This last week was the warmest on record for the US.  Not that it means anything to anyone except beige-wearing, latte-drinking, tree-hugging liberal islamofascistic socialists.

Quietly trying to gut public schools.

The Germans have plans to keep net neutrality...  German Hackers Are Building a DIY Space Program to Put Their Own Uncensored Internet into Space

Don't tell anybody, but Medicare is still more cost-efficient than private insurance

Science vs. Stupidity

Do you know how many food items have corn products in them?

Over the holidays, the USDA approved a strain of Monsanto's genetically engineered corn that can now be planted freely in the environment and distributed throughout the U.S. food supply, with no oversight or efforts to track its safety. Monsanto says the strain is drought-tolerant, but the USDA itself has actually found otherwise. Instead, the agency ignored its own results as well as concerns from the public, which has little trust in the safety of the crop. Nearly 45,000 public comments were written in opposition to the particular corn variety and only 23 comments were written in favor, according to the Cornucopia Institute.

Update: Bugs may be resistant to genetically modified corn. Imagine our surprise!  Who could have predicted?

 And there's more! Back in July 2011: 270,000 Organic Farmers Sue Monsanto. Their case update here.

Debt

Nobody understands it.

Weather or whether, Sherlock...

Extreme Weather:

 

And more pictures.

The year in pictures. One, two and three.

 How to Occupy Populism.

The reason why corporations are dangerous without regulations?  Psychopaths are in power.

 Reviewers really liked the BBC's second season of Sherlock.