Some positive news

A Dutch 'boy genius' said he could get the ocean to clean itself. Turns out, he's right.

Sunday funnies

A young Dutch man may be the one to clean up our oceans.

Neoliberalism is at the root of our problems today:

After Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan took power, the rest of the package soon followed: massive tax cuts for the rich, the crushing of trade unions, deregulation, privatisation, outsourcing and competition in public services. Through the IMF, the World Bank, the Maastricht treaty and the World Trade Organisation, neoliberal policies were imposed – often without democratic consent – on much of the world. Most remarkable was its adoption among parties that once belonged to the left: Labour and the Democrats, for example. As Stedman Jones notes, “it is hard to think of another utopia to have been as fully realised.”

To the old men’s fusty opinions about uteri:  shut up.

Twelve months of Donald Trump by Tom Tomorrow.

Tom Brokaw's take down of Donald Trump is making the rounds again.

Letter from a very tired Christian.

Decide to save humanity.

Mischievous writer takes on rumpus at a motel.

Russian mother, baby, officers, and bears.

Did dinosaurs learn grammar on the ark?

Grammar mistakes people make.

Neoliberalism has been fatal to people and this planet.  That and atrazine. And nuclear radiation and suffocating the oceans.

The NRA Fights For The Right To Leave Unsecured Guns Around Children

The biggest myth about abortion.

Electric rays found in Canada's Pacific.

Reporter tours The Glendive Dinosaur and Fossil Museum in Glendive, Montana and writes up the "facts" established by this creationist "museum".

The gnashing of teeth and the wailing of women...

How DARE Obama get the prisoners out of Iran using diplomacy!11!!1  We need a WAR to prove how manly we are!1!!1

The oceans are warming at a faster rate than we calculated. They are also filling up with plastic.

Nuclear gypsies:  those who are attempting to clean up Fukushima.

George Washington was right.

Actually, there hasn't been a mass shooting every day in 2015.

Now they are not allowed to tell us where our meat has been raised or processed.  That makes me feel so safe.

The Onion actually has a good take on the idiots in Oregon.

Quantum knots.

Monsanto Files Lawsuit to Stop California From Listing Glyphosate as Known Carcinogen

Stalking women, drought, voting fraud, and guns.

Ben Carson's view of women.  Stalking is not romantic.

How to understand and end California's drought.

Lion cub learning how to swim.

Dealing with the radiation fears about Fukushima.

Have self-compassion.

Kansas voting is manipulated.

President Obama is a class act.  Dealing with Native Americans.

Understanding China's economic slowdown.

Ideas for dealing with oceans filled with plastic.

Stating the obvious: The States With The Most Gun Laws See The Fewest Gun-Related Deaths

Hacking, Porcupines, and Robocalls

Why hacking and invading privacy matters.

Porcupines like salt.  Really like salt.

We're boiling our oceans.  As well as melting all the sea ice.  And killing all the fish.

Jeb Bush is meaner than he looks.  And things are going to get serious.

Since Sandy Hook there have been 72 mass shootings.

Christian pastor stunned by secular Scandinavians.

How to be polite. (It may save the world.)

A petition to sign to end robocalls.

Asteroids to trash to drought. What's not to love?

Huge asteroid will pass close to Earth Monday... can be seen with 'strong binoculars'.

A Dutch man decides to pick up plastic trash on his way to work.  A 20 year old tells us he can get the plastic out of our oceans.

Racism defined by a self-described redneck.

How we can address gun violence and gun safety.

It's not just California having an epic drought.

Republicans seem to want to go back to the good old days... even though there never has been any good old days.

Debtors prisons were so nineteenth century...

How socialism has helped the United States.  And how Merikans don't know it.

People Finally Realizing For-Profit Education Is A Scam — University Of Phoenix Loses Half Its Students

Medieval medicine still works today... and works better than some modern medicines.

Breathe deeply.  Save our oceans.

Separation of church and state.  The US is actually NOT a Christian nation.

Jeb Bush thinks Governor Mike Pence did the right thing.  Do not forget the Terri Shiavo case. These indicate clearly where Jeb would go as president. Odd how the Republicans have hijacked the term, "religious freedom" so they can make it mean whatever they want it to mean.

Whales, net neutrality, Mr. Rogers, and irradiated green tea.

Pacific whales are moving to the Atlantic. Climate change is slowing ocean currents.  An excellent discussion with megadrought scientists.  Costa Rica shows us how to do it.

Kochs buying the ability to pollute the planet at will.

Net Neutrality is still under attack.

How other countries view the US gun laws.

Why does the GOP want a war with Iran?

Radiation found in Japanese green tea.

Proof that playing D&D is not the cause of modern juvenile delinquency.

The wonderful Mr. Rogers.

Manly methods of dealing with bears, lightning, ice, and other manly threats.

From Cats to Jellyfish to Chickens

Friday cat blogging on Sunday.

A wonderful perspective on religion and God from a religious man.

Sexy avatars in games affect players in the real world.

I may not want to eat anything ever again.... besides... we're all gonna die anyway.

Invasion by jellyfish the world over... could it possibly be because the oceans are warming?  If not death by jellyfish, how about being choked to death by weeds?

Can you spell hypocrite?

A sensible horror film.

Elizabeth Smart is just that.  Googling women and a verb.

Republicans went crazy in stages.  Tea party logic.  Lies told in Texan charter schools.

Changing oceans.

How historically correct is 12 Years a Slave?

One way to deal with the homeless.

Infected chickens sold by Foster Farms were not recalled.

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.

One sentence news

It gets better.

Finding a lost church.

Making friends under the sea.

Rachel Carson didn't kill millions of Africans.

Does eating today's type of wheat poison you?

Dumping the 'junk DNA' theory.

The way governments begin to topple.

Republicans can't afford to give women equal pay.

Come back!!  You have my car keys!

Do Democrats really support the privatization of public schools?

Artist of the weird.

Ohio Secretary of State on the mat to explain obstruction to voting.

Sometimes being rude is good.

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.

On the road again...

A stove that makes electricity.

Mitt Romney fired this guy.

HOLY CRAP!  Landslide in British Columbia.

Mitt Romney is hiding his taxes because of Stericycle?

Stericycle, a medical waste company that, among other things, disposed of aborted fetuses.

Inside the corpse-harvesting industry

Becoming one with the ocean.

Shackleton and Scott's Antarctic huts are put online by Google

Imagine the world without plastic

No, I can't either.  Will we ever be able to clean up what we have done?  Can we stop?

Yum yum

Eyeless shrimp, fish with oozing sores... enjoy your ocean and your seafood courtesy of BP.

Help! Radioactive kelp!

The fallout from Fukushima is showing up along the Californian Pacific coast in giant kelp.

Radioactive iodine was found in samples collected from beds of kelp in locations along the coast from Laguna Beach to as far north as Santa Cruz about a month after the explosion, according to the study by two marine biologists at Cal State Long Beach. The levels, while most likely not harmful to humans, were significantly higher than measurements prior to the explosion and comparable to those found in British Columbia, Canada, and northern Washington state following the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, according to the study published in March in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. Giant kelp, or Macrocystis pyrifera, is a particularly good measure of radioactive material in the environment because it accumulates iodine, researchers said. They wrote that radioactive particles released into the atmosphere, in particular radioactive isotope iodine 131, made its way across the Pacific, then was likely deposited into the ocean during a period of significant rain shortly after the meltdown in Japan. The highest levels were found in Corona del Mar. Researchers wrote that the levels were probably highest there because the kelp is also exposed to urban runoff, which may have increased the amount of rainfall it received. The study’s authors said that while the effect of radioactive material in kelp is not well known, it would have been consumed by organisms that feed on the kelp such as sea urchins or crustaceans. Certain species of fish, including opaleye, halfmoon or senorita may be particularly affected because their endocrine systems contain iodine, according to researchers.

Come to California, where we glow even without the sun!

BP poisoned the Gulf. Life there is still suffering.

A study of 32 dolphins were

underweight, anaemic and suffering from lung and liver disease, while nearly half had low levels of a hormone that helps the mammals deal with stress as well as regulating their metabolism and immune systems.

Imagine an ocean with nothing in it...

Ocean acidification may be worst in 300 million years

WASHINGTON — High levels of pollution may be turning the planet’s oceans acidic at a faster rate than at any time in the past 300 million years, with unknown consequences for future sea life, researchers said Thursday. The acidification may be worse than during four major mass extinctions in history when natural pulses of carbon from asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions caused global temperatures to soar, said the study in the journal Science.

Maybe because we're heating the oceans to boiling point?

Marine scientists are trying to find out why previously unknown blooms of toxic algae are suddenly proliferating along the California coast, killing wildlife and increasing the risk of human sickness. The mysterious blooms have recently been bigger and have occurred more frequently than ever before, an alarming trend that a team of scientists led by UC Santa Cruz is attempting to figure out.

[snip]

Scientists will also try to determine whether climate change is having an effect on the size, frequency and location of deadly algae blooms. "We can't say for sure that it is tied to something like climate change," Kudela said, "but it does seem to be spreading globally, so something is changing, and we are trying to find out what that is." Algal blooms are already known to be relatively common in the coastal waters of Oregon, Washington state and Canada. Recently, though, unusual toxic algal blooms have also been detected in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, in Chesapeake Bay and the Gulf of Maine, according to researchers. Future outbreaks may be unstoppable, Kudela and others admit, but they hope the study will eventually help them develop a computer model that will predict blooms before they have a chance to cause havoc in the marine environment.