Monday
Aug292011
Bent Objects
August 29, 2011 Have a look at this terrific series of art pieces derived from various common objects.
And visit the artist's site here - http://bentobjects.blogspot.com/
Forging his way through the predictable UK media censorship: Dr Andrew Wakefield Responds to Measles Outbreak in Swansea
August 29, 2011 
Monday
Aug292011
Why progressives should gladly vote for Ron Paul over any Democratic candidate including Obama
August 29, 2011 Ron Paul has proposed many unacceptable positions, such as criminalizing abortion, rejecting climate change as a global threat, withdrawing Government funding from social programs, refusal to tax the rich, support of unlimited corporate donations to election campaigns, and promoting prayer in the public schools. But my objections to these and other positions of Ron Paul pale into insignificance when weighed against his clear and unequivocal promise, if elected, not only to stop our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan IMMEDIATELY, but to bring home all American troops -- not only from Iraq and Afghanistan -- but also from Germany, Japan, Korea and the nearly 800 U.S. military bases maintained around the world.
Print Article | Permalink | tagged Democratic, Gary Null, Ron Paul, Social Security, government | in Politics, Progressives Monday
Aug292011
"Lauren Biron" - Summer's Almost Over, and Still No Solar Panels on Obama's White House Roof
August 29, 2011 http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/08/28-1
Published on Sunday, August 28, 2011 by the McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — In October, Energy Secretary Steven Chu pledged that solar panels and a solar water heater would be installed on the White House roof before the start of summer.
Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House roof in 1979. Now, many months after President Obama promised to reinstate solar panels on the white house, they are still no where to be seen. Now, summer is almost over, the 2012 election campaign is well under way, and there are still no solar panels on the White House roof.
Why? That's a mystery.
The Energy Department will say only that the project is mired in the "competitive procurement process." Spokeswoman Joelle Terry declined to go into details of the holdup. Questions about when that process might be completed also were rebuffed. So were queries about the projected cost of adding the panels and where the panels would be located.
Monday
Aug292011
"Chris Hedges" - The Election March of the Trolls
August 29, 2011 http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/08/29-0
Published on Monday, August 29, 2011 by TruthDig.com
We have begun the election march of the trolls. They have crawled out of the sewers of public relations firms, polling organizations, the commercial media, the two corporate political parties and elected office to fill the airwaves with inanities and absurdities until the final inanity—the 2012 presidential election. Journalists, whose role has been reduced to purveyors of court gossip, whether on Fox or MSNBC, descend in swarms to report pseudo-events such as the Ames straw poll, where it costs $30 to cast a ballot. And then, almost immediately, they blithely inform us that the Iowa poll is meaningless now that Rick Perry has entered the race. The liberal trolls, as they do in every election cycle, are beating their little chests about the perfidiousness of the Democratic Party and Barack Obama. It is a gesture performed not to effect change but to burnish their credentials as moralists. They know, as do we, that they will trot obediently into the voting booth in 2012 to do as they are told. And everywhere the pulse of the nation is being assiduously monitored through polls and focus groups, not because our opinions matter, but because our troll candidates understand that by parroting back to us our own viewpoints they can continue to spend their days lapping up corporate money with other trolls in the two houses of Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court and television studios where they chat with troll celebrity journalists.
Sunday
Aug282011
"Christopher Mims" - Fracking sadface: U.S. has one-fifth the shale gas once projected
August 28, 2011 by Christopher Mims / 25 Aug 2011
"Oops," says the United States Geological Survey, "We used to think the shale on the East coast of the U.S., which gas companies are currently fracking into submission, had a metric buttload of natural gas. Turns out it only 0.2 metric buttloads." (I'm paraphrasing.)
Yesterday, the USGS's estimate of U.S. reserves of gas trapped in the Marcellus shale went from 410 trillion "technically recoverable" cubic feet of gas to 84 trillion in the span of a single report.
Because this week is Ragnarok and, basically, ghouls are in charge, the natural gas industry actually cheered this report, noting that it still represented significantly more reserves than the USGS estimated were in the shale in 2002. Back then, before fracking was widespread, it was estimated there were only 2 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable gas in the Marcellus.
Also important: none of these estimates reflect how much of this gas can profitably be extracted from the ground. Because that mostly depends on how desperate we become and how hard we decide to ignore the down sides of fracking.
Sunday
Aug282011
Sarah Laskow" - European farmers spend millions on knock-off pesticides
August 28, 2011 http://www.grist.org/list/2011-08-26-european-farmers-spend-millions-on-knock-off-pesticides
by Sarah Laskow / 26 Aug 2011
Buying a knock-off Louis Vuitton bag is one thing, but in Europe, farmers are buying knock-off pesticides. Counterfeit pesticides have become a multimillion industry over there, and if that sounds like bad news, it is: According to the Wall Street Journal, these knock-offs contain a solvent that the European Union banned because it's a huge problem for pregnant women.
The WSJ's article also makes the E.U.'s efforts to deal with the problem sound like a giant clusterf*ck. There are loopholes in counterfeiting laws that mean customs can't seize the fake pesticides. The company that's been ripped off has to deal with the goods and try to recoup costs from counterfeiters, who are obviously the sort of people who'll say, "Whoops, you found me! Here are the millions of euros I made selling nasty, dangerous goods under your name!" (Or, as the WSJ puts it: "[P]ractically this can prove complicated and even impossible, as many of these companies are beyond EU jurisdiction or completely bogus.")
This stuff makes it into the food supply, too. In 2006, Spanish farmers used the pesticides, grew a bunch of vegetables, and shipped them out to the rest of Europe before anyone noticed something was amiss. And in Eastern Europe, 50 percent of all pesticides are counterfeit, and some farmers buy them on purpose:
Farmers who responded to a questionnaire from the European Business Association in Kiev on behalf of The Wall Street Journal said that half had bought counterfeit pesticides in the past -- a fifth of them knowingly, because they are cheaper than the branded goods or because they didn't realize the risks. In 10%-20% of cases, farmers said they lost their entire crop because of the chemicals.
Sunday
Aug282011
"Climate Central" - Climate change has made New Yorkers more vulnerable to Irene
August 28, 2011 by Climate Central / 27 Aug 2011
Hurricanes inflict some of their greatest damage by pushing walls of water onto land, in what are called storm surges. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) estimates that Hurricane Irene may generate peak surges of up to 10 feet high in places along the Mid-Atlantic coast. Tall wave action will compound the threat in exposed areas. And over the last century, mostly due to global warming, sea level has risen about a foot along much of the coast, placing even more people and homes at risk than would have otherwise been the case.
This map below shows lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn and New Jersey. The blue area identifies the land zone within five vertical feet of the average high tide line, toward the upper end of the range of surge heights NOAA is predicting for the immediate area. Based on 2010 Census information and Climate Central's map analysis, almost a quarter million (233,000) people live in this zone for all of New York City. That's 28 percent (65,000 people) more than live within the four-foot zone -- the line we would be talking about if the sea hadn’t risen a foot over the last hundred years. About two-thirds of that rise appears to come from global warming.
This map is not intended to predict the flooding risk from Irene, which will come from complex combinations of surge, wind, and wave action. It merely illustrates land area less than five feet above the average high-tide line.
Sunday
Aug282011
"Bruce E. Levine" - 3 Things That Must Happen for Us To Rise Up and Defeat the Corporatocracy
August 28, 2011 Sunday
Aug282011
"Joshua Holland" - The 10 States With the Best Economies in America
August 28, 2011 http://www.alternet.org/economy/152187/the_10_states_with_the_best_economies_in_america/
August 26, 2011
The best local economy in the United States, by far, is the DC metropolitan area. Average incomes in the region top $150,000, more than triple the national average. The reason for Washington's affluence (or parts of Washington's affluence – the Capitol also has abundant poverty) is clear: while the rest of the economy is facing a crisis in demand as a result of high unemployment and stagnant wages in the private sector, the Capitol, in classic Keynesian style, is making up for it with plenty of public spending, which has skyrocketed since 9/11 – defense and homeland security contractors, and other firms providing goods and services to the government are flush.
It's the same model that got us out of the Great Depression, but in this age of austerity, Washington isn't spreading enough public dollars around to help those of us living in the 50 states. Even so, not all states have seen the same kind of economic pain since the Great Recession began. Here are 10 that are doing pretty well, with relatively low unemployment, fewer homes in foreclosure, decent wages and a large share of their populations enjoying health insurance. It's not a comprehensive analysis of the thousands of economic metrics one might examine, but it does provide a handy snapshot of some of the states that are weathering the storm fairly well.
Sunday
Aug282011
"Adele M. Stan" - 5 Reasons Progressives Should Treat Ron Paul with Extreme Caution -- 'Cuddly' Libertarian Has Some Very Dark Politics
August 28, 2011 August 26, 2011
There are few things as maddening in a maddening political season as the warm and fuzzy feelings some progressives evince for Rep. Ron Paul of Texas, the Republican presidential candidate. "The anti-war Republican," people say, as if that's good enough.
But Ron Paul is much, much more than that. He's the anti-Civil-Rights-Act Republican. He's an anti-reproductive-rights Republican. He's a gay-demonizing Republican. He's an anti-public education Republican and an anti-Social Security Republican. He's the John Birch Society's favorite congressman. And he's a booster of the Constitution Party, which has a Christian Reconstructionist platform. So, if you're a member of the anti-woman, anti-gay, anti-black, anti-senior-citizen, anti-equality, anti-education, pro-communist-witch-hunt wing of the progressive movement, I can see how he'd be your guy.
Paul first drew the attention of progressives with his vocal opposition to the invasion of Iraq. Coupled with the Texan's famous call to end the Federal Reserve, that somehow rendered him, in the eyes of the single-minded, the GOP's very own Dennis Kucinich. Throw in Paul's opposition to the drug war and his belief that marriage rights should be determined by the states, and Paul seemed suitable enough to an emotionally immature segment of the progressive movement, a wing populated by people with privilege adequate enough to insulate them from the nasty bits of the Paul agenda. (Tough on you blacks! And you, women! And you, queers! And you, old people without money.)
Transforming the United States into something closer to a democracy requires: 1) knowledge of how we are getting screwed; 2) pragmatic tactics, strategies, and solutions; and 3) the “energy to do battle.”
The majority of Americans oppose the corporatocracy (rule by giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite, and corporate-collaborator government officials); however, many of us have given up hope that this tyranny can be defeated. Among those of us who continue to be politically engaged, many focus on only one of the requirements—knowledge of how we are getting screwed. And this singular focus can result in helplessness. It is the two other requirements that can empower, energize, and activate Team Democracy— a team that is currently at the bottom of the standings in the American Political League.
1. Knowledge of How We are Getting Screwed