Being scientific

Ken Burns protecting America

Protect America's best idea

Beware creeping corporate influence on national parks

The single greatest threat is not Iran.... it's

...us.

Fifteen years ago, the prominent political analyst Samuel Huntington, professor of the science of government at Harvard, warned in the establishment journal Foreign Affairs that for much of the world the United States was “becoming the rogue superpower…the single greatest external threat to their societies.” Shortly after, his words were echoed by Robert Jervis, the president of the American Political Science Association: “In the eyes of much of the world, in fact, the prime rogue state today is the United States.” As we have seen, global opinion supports this judgment by a substantial margin.

Back to the old grind

Tracking Fukushima's contamination to US's Pacific coast

Bill Moyers does his 2014 In Memoriam.  David Barry remembers 2014.

Things that people thought were real but were fake.

Our wonderful 50 states.

Eight books to lead you to enlightenment.

The NYPD has a temper tantrum.

From brilliance to unraveling, the human condition.

The Mysterious Antikythera Mechanism Is More Ancient Than We Thought

Why cats don't give a shit about you.

Coats into sleeping bags, and homeless into workers at the same time.

9 clueless things white people say when confronted with racism

When Australians label the states in the USA.  Or Brits.

Neil deGrasse Tyson proving why he's a cool dude.

Didn't they read The Secret of NIMH?

The ending of the world.

An excellent creche.

Fascinating and sad view of the Iraqi army.

While you were out...

China decides to escalate confrontations with the US, Japan, and Korea.

Monday mumbles

The first year of Parenting.

What others think about the US.

Reading between the lines ... historically.

Things that nom on radiation?!

Apparently this dude thinks rape can be enjoyed.

Noah... as a movie... subtitled God is PISSED.

Google supports solar.

How shocking. I never would have imagined....

I am shocked — shocked— to find that gambling is going on in here!



Denial-of-service tool targeting Healthcare.gov site discovered

Dad Calls Cops on Son to Teach Him a Lesson, Cops Shoot Son Dead

Fracking Victim Sued for Defamation After Proving Drinking Water Flammable

Republicans don't speak for women's rights when they try and deny abortion access.

Teachers aren't actually the problem.

It must be the language that divides us.  And our totally different ways of life and histories across our nation.

Just a thought...

Why doesn't Obama do an executive order and demand that all states provide all legal voters in that state with state issued voter ids?

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.

May we truly believe in what is engraved on the Statue of Liberty

The New Colossus

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

Emma Lazarus, 1883

Happy 4th of OMG!!....

We could see it coming...

But nobody could be bothered to do anything about it. People are making money.

Private Prison Corporations Are Modern Day Slave Traders

Update 5/2:  Steve Bates in comments connects me to this horribly excellent article on the subject.

Arizona follows Utah and Virginia off the cliff

Arizona:Arizona Senate Passes Bill Allowing Doctors To Not Inform Women Of Prenatal Issues To Prevent Abortions

Virginia: Va. governor signs pre-abortion ultrasound bill

The rest of the states are under attack....

The Religious Right's Plot To Take Control Of Our Public Schools

The people who brought you "Jesus Camp" are moving into your neighborhood school. And there's not a damn thing you can do about it.

The beat down of Mr. David Brooks, esq.

Don't think much is left.

Elizabeth Warren

On what America is really all about.

I hear all this, you know, “Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.”—No! There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there—good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea—God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.

Welcome to the world of Norquististan....

RICHARD FREEMAN: We're high for a poor country, in terms of inequality, and we're a rich country. We're about the same level of inequality as China. And, of course, China, half the population are rural peasants who are not part of the modern world.

And if we were to compare us with African countries, dictators in different places, you know, taking a lot of the wealth from normal people, we would be among the top half of the African countries of inequality. So, the U.S. really has reached an extraordinary level of income inequality.

No better than Argentina

America's Disappeared. Our very own concentration camps. Right here in the US. Someone somewhere is making a lot of money.

From Florida to Arizona

Drought.