To counterbalance all the awfulness in the world, have a puppy who wants more.

scritches overload!

Exactly

Back in time and ahead to the future...

This isn't the dog park!

Periods of geologic time.

We need our sleep.

Goosebumps on a comet.

The Punisher (Ukrainian grandmother)

7 lies about the American Sniper.  And more.

New police radars can 'see' inside your home.  But of course they would never misuse them....

Climate change to WWII and O'Reilly in between!

Climate change?  What climate change?  What climate change might unleash.

Whale graveyard in Chile.  Counting whales from space.

Poor Bill O'Reilly... scared of tough wimmen.  Maybe he feels like this?

Therapy dogs.

Plastic in our food... is good for us.  Right?  How about raw fish?

Harry Potter and the aftermath.

President Obama hanging out with scientists.

Fukushima radiation affected the USS Reagan and its crew.

Finding the forgotten Russian soldiers from WWII.

Merika the Beuuutiful...

WTF Americans?!

The face of guilt.

Militarized police overreach (After the raid, the shooting of the family dogs and the trashing of their house)

Two days later, after the raid had made national and international news, the Prince George’s County Police Department finally cleared Cheye Calvo and his family of any wrongdoing. They did it by way of a press release they put out at 4:30 p.m. on a Friday, the time and day of the week when bad news is typically buried. It also happened to be the night of the opening ceremonies for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. 

Perhaps even more baffling, officials continued to insist that the raid shouldn’t have happened any other way. Even as they acknowledged that Calvo and his family were innocent, in the months and years following the raid they would repeat again and again that not a single officer did anything wrong, and that no one had any reason for remorse.

And when they give up all pretense, you get this: Payday Loans And High-Powered Weaponry: Arizona Businessman Linked To Armed Patrols In Wisconsin Woods and more about it here.

Because they don't really care about children or fetuses, they care about saying no to sex. Your sex. Texas Abortion Bill Author In 2007: No Health Care For Unborn Because 'They're Not Born Yet'  Apparently politicians would back off trying to control women's bodies if we had vaginas that shot bullets...

One reason why I'm really careful about where my seafood comes from:

Japan’s nuclear watchdog said Wednesday the crippled Fukushima reactors are very likely leaking highly radioactive substances into the Pacific Ocean. 

Members of the Nuclear Regulation Authority voiced frustration at Tokyo Electric Power (TEPCO), which has failed to identify the source and the cause of spiking readings of radioactive materials in groundwater. 

“It is strongly suspected that highly concentrated contaminated waste water has leaked to the ground and has spread to the sea,” the authority said in its written review of TEPCO’s recent announcements.

Resistance to Monsanto's control of seeds.

The international resistance against Monsanto and the genetic manipulation of the food supply has advanced to an all new level, with countless citizens around the world taking the fight online and partaking in the Monsanto Video Revolt grassroots movement. Though scheduled to officially take place on July 24th, we’ve seen thousands of citizens around the world upload their videos exposing Monsanto from as far away as Nigeria and Thailand.

And pesticide sales are skyrocketing even though people are aware of "the declining effectiveness of GMO-seed giant Monsanto's flagship products: crops engineered to resist insects and withstand herbicides."

Making fake food look real by putting in fake imperfections.

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.

From West Point to Frankenfoods....

West Point cadet left because of religious oppression.

Pesticide Action Network.

Right-wing extremism:  armed and dangerous.

Sunportal makes pipes that bring sunlight inside buildings.  And a nanomesh triples solar cell efficiency.

The drought will be worse than Hurricane Sandy...

A good doggie and his charge:



How to be clear about what the 'Right to Work' means:



Exxon hates your children:



Ed Asner explains our failing economy:



Bill Maher and Frankenfoods:

Usual Thursday....

First the parrots...They are plotting to take over the world!

What can happen to women denied abortions.

Scary muslim pictures.

Mass shooting for the last 30 years... brought to you by the NRA, the gun companies, and a cowardly Congress.

High Fructose Corn Syrup... apparently not even related to corn anymore:

While “trans-fat free” and “no MSG” are widely misused in the food world, nothing seems to come close to the ultra popular “natural.” With no definitive guidance from the FDA as to the meaning of the term, food manufactures slap it on products with abandon. Author and blogger Bruce Bradley, a 15-year veteran of the food product marketing world, says, “There is no FDA definition of ‘Natural,’ and in that vacuum, processed food companies have filled the void with their own, self-serving interpretations.” As an example, Bradley cites high fructose corn syrup, which he describes as “anything but natural…the result of an extraordinarily intensive process involving a series of enzymatic and chemical reactions. In fact, as one pro-HFCS group states, ‘the corn undergoes so much processing, and the products of the processes are so removed from corn that there is no detectable corn DNA present in HFCS.’” As the litigation lingers on, it will hopefully have the side effect of informing all those still clueless shoppers out there that what they see advertised about a food may bear little or no relationship to what they actually get – and in that way, can and will “benefit the public” after all.

Belly buttons.

Doggies and video game dragons.

Teaching girls to become engineers.

ARRRrrrrrrrrrr....

Talk like a pirate day... or maybe not.



Damned females getting all the jobs!  Or something.

Dogs.

Roman tile floor found in Turkey.

Russia has a huge site of diamonds... enough to flood the world with sparklies.  And drop the bottom out of the diamond business....

Put a burka on it!

Soon, EVERYONE will have a giant marble to run their electronics, their house, their car.....



The Bible is more violent than the Koran.

Update:  Found over via Bryan of Why Now?'s place:


Top Ten Pickup lines for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day

(We came up with these in an effort to interest The Other Dave (Letterman) in TLAPD. His staff liked 'em, but alas, his show was"dark" the week of Sept. 19.)

10 . Avast, me proud beauty! Wanna know why my Roger is so Jolly?

9. Have ya ever met a man with a real yardarm?

8. Come on up and see me urchins.

7. Yes, that is a hornpipe in my pocket and I am happy to see you.

6. I'd love to drop anchor in your lagoon.

5. Pardon me, but would ya mind if I fired me cannon through your porthole?

4. How'd you like to scrape the barnacles off of me rudder?

3. Ya know, darlin’, I’m 97 percent chum free.

2. Well blow me down?

And the number one pickup line for use on International Talk Like a Pirate Day is …

1. Prepare to be boarded.

Bonus pickup lines (when the ones above don't work, as they often won't)

They don’t call me Long John because my head is so big.

You’re drinking a Salty Dog? How’d you like to try the real thing?

Wanna shiver me timbers?

I’ve sailed the seven seas, and you’re the sleekest schooner I’ve ever sighted.

Brwaack! Polly want a cracker? … Oh, wait. That’s for Talk Like a PARROT Day.

That’s the finest pirate booty I’ve ever laid eyes on.

Let's get together and haul some keel.

That’s some treasure chest you’ve got there.

Top Ten Pickup Lines for the Lady Pirates

By popular demand ...

10. What are YOU doing here?

9. Is that a belayin' pin in yer britches, or are ye ... (this one is never completed)

8. Come show me how ye bury yer treasure, lad!

7. So, tell me, why do they call ye, "Cap'n Feathersword?"

6. That's quite a cutlass ye got thar, what ye need is a good scabbard!

5. Aye, I guarantee ye, I've had a twenty percent decrease in me "lice ratio!"

4. I've crushed seventeen men's skulls between me thighs!

3. C'mon, lad, shiver me timbers!

2. RAMMING SPEED!

...and the number one Female Pirate Pick-up Line:

1. You. Pants Off. Now!

Weird, wise and wonderful... and simply stupid

21 Pictures That Will Restore Your Faith In Humanity

Dog

The dangers of privatizing things that governments do.

Solar cell breakthrough taps previously unused energy source

11 Bizarrely Wrong Beliefs Americans Have About Themselves

Throwing trash into a volcano as an experiment. I'd be freaked out.





11 facts about the Affordable Care Act

Krugman:

None of this should be happening. As in 1931, Western nations have the resources they need to avoid catastrophe, and indeed to restore prosperity — and we have the added advantage of knowing much more than our great-grandparents did about how depressions happen and how to end them. But knowledge and resources do no good if those who possess them refuse to use them. And that’s what seems to be happening. The fundamentals of the world economy aren’t, in themselves, all that scary; it’s the almost universal abdication of responsibility that fills me, and many other economists, with a growing sense of dread.

To Everything There Is a Season

And hope and laughter are included.

Phila of Bouphonia's Friday hope.

And then there's a puppy tasting a lime...

Hope and humor

An all electric car

Contentment.

Standing up for veggie gardening!



And, as always, Phila of Bouphonia's Friday hope blog.

Therapy

Mud.

Often in tragedy

Animals help us express our deep emotions.

(and yes, they were saved.)

How to keep a baby from crying?

Get a dog.

Doggie winter sledding

You guys need a laugh

A really deep belly laugh....

Friday Fuzzy story

Dog Saves Life of 3-Year-Old Girl Lost in the Woods



Good doggie.

And now for something completely furry

Online TV Shows by Ustream

Doggie early warning system

Info at YouTube:

Sophie is seen 15 seconds prior to the start of the earthquake, looking sharply at the floor and dismissing it. About 15 seconds later she again looks sharply at the floor and bolts to the other end of the room when the rumble starts, trying to locate her owner -- who is not the first person out the door, but the third person out,Jessica. Sophie can be seen directly behind Jessica as her back and tail graze the lower right-hand corner of the screen in the first segment. In the second segment Sophie spotted Jessica coming from the sink where she was washing her hands and ran to catch up. She then escorts Jessica safely down the stairs and out of the building.

What a good doggie.

h/t to JJ of Unrepentant Old Hippie