“Tracy Clark-Flory” - How a sex rebel was born

Susie Bright talks about her sexual awakening, feminist hypocrisy -- and where the sexual revolution went wrong

Tracy Clark-Flory

March 23, 2011

http://www.salon.com/life/sex/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/03/23/susie_bright

When I recently got sex writer Susie Bright on the phone, she wanted to tell me what she was wearing. One might expect a sexual revolutionary like herself to be clad in latex, leather -- or maybe nothing at all. Instead, she was swaddled in a wool jumpsuit and clogs. "Do I sound scary and kinky?" she asked with a laugh. "Are you trembling?" Bright is 52 years old now and the mother of a 20-year-old daughter, whom she teamed up with in recent years to co-write a sex column for Jezebel. She may have traded in her punk rock leathers for one of the least erotic materials on the planet, but her fierce rhetoric about sexual freedom and pleasure has stayed the same.

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“Tom Philpott” - Introducing ... the Vegan/Omnivore Alliance against Animal Factories

Tom Philpott

March 23, 2011

http://www.grist.org/article/2011-03-23-introducing-the-vegan-omnivore-alliance-against-animal-factories

Every day, Americans eat more than a half pound of meat per capita -- one of the highest rates on the planet. The vast majority of it is produced with methods that abuse the environment, animals, workers, and public health as a matter of course. The handful of companies that dominate U.S. meat production suck in more than 40 percent of the corn grown by our farmers -- that's more than 15 percent of the corn grown worldwide. Industrial corn, of course, is our most ecologically destructive crop.

In our society, I can think of two broadly defined groups that abhor our animal-agriculture regime: 1) conscientious omnivores, inspired by the work of figures like Wendell Berry, Vandana Shiva, Michael Pollan, and Eric Schlosser, who think that animals have a place in our farming and our diets, but in a much different way than the prevailing manner; and 2) vegans, who wish to remove animals from our farms and tables altogether.

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“Dr. Mercola” - Is This the World's Most Effortless Way to Slim Your Waistline?

Dr. Mercola

March 23 2011

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/03/23/conjugated-linoleic-acid-from-grass-fed-beef.aspx

If you are steering away from red meat due to the negative press on saturated fats, you may be happy to hear that a very powerful fatty acid primarily found in beef and dairy products has been linked to long-term weight management and health.

This potent nutrient is called conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, and the best possible sources of CLA are grass-fed beef and raw dairy products that come from grass-fed cattle.

Many ranchers are responding to the call from U.S. consumers by shifting from traditional, factory-farmed, grain-fed methods of raising cattle to a free-range, all-grass diet. Even the USDA is waking up to the consumer demand for grass-fed products. Their June 2010 publication of Livestock, Poultry, and Dairy Outlook indicates that grass-fed beef represents 3 percent of the total U.S. beef production and has been growing about 20 percent for several years.

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“Dr. Mercola”- American Cancer Society -- More Interested in Wealth than Health?

Dr. Mercola

March 22 2011

http://blogs.mercola.com/sites/vitalvotes/archive/2011/03/22/american-cancer-society--more-interested-in-wealth-than-health.aspx

The 130-page document linked below explains in detail why the American Cancer Society may be far more interested in accumulating cash than curing any disease.  The ACS has close ties to the mammography industry, the cancer drug industry, and the pesticide industry.  It is riddled with conflict of interest.

And in fact, according to the report, the ACS has a reckless, if not criminal record on cancer prevention. Over and over again, they have promoted drugs and screening while ignoring environmental causes.

The report states, in part:

“The ACS ... [has] long continued to devote virtually exclusive priority to research on diagnosis and treatment of cancer, with indifference to prevention, other than faulty personal lifestyle, commonly known as ‘blame the victim,’ ... Not surprisingly, the incidence of cancer over past decades has escalated”.



“Agence France-Presse” - China could overtake US economy by 2030: World Bank

Agence France-Presse

March 23rd, 2011

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/23/china-could-overtake-us-economy-by-2030-world-bank/

HONG KONG (AFP) – China could overtake the United States as the world's largest economy if it maintains annual growth of eight percent over the next 20 years, the World Bank's chief economist said Wednesday.

China, which last year overtook Japan as the number-two economy, has already set a growth target of eight percent for 2011, and is aiming for seven percent a year from 2011 to 2015.

"China may become the largest economy in the world by 2030," Justin Lin told an economic forum on China development in Hong Kong, saying its economic size may then be twice as large as the US, measured by purchasing power parity.

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"David Edwards" - Exclusive: Transgender people sue NYC over surgery requirement

David Edwards

March 23rd, 2011

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/23/exclusive-transgender-people-sue-nyc-over-surgery-requirement/

Several transgender New Yorkers say the city is making it too difficult to obtain identification that reflects their new genders.

Three transgender people announced Tuesday that they had filed suit against City of New York and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. They object to the city's "arbitrary" requirement that they undergo extensive surgical procedures before agreeing to change the gender designation on their birth certificates.

Sam Berkley, a transgender man, and Joann Prinzivallia and Patricia Harrington, both transgender women, were named as plaintiffs in the suit.

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“Sahil kapur” - Progressive caucus splits on Libya, abandons joint resolution opposing intervention

Sahil Kapur

March 23rd, 2011

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/23/progressive-caucus-splits-on-libya-abandons-joint-resolution-opposing-intervention/

WASHINGTON – Soon after President Barack Obama declared last Friday that the U.S. would wage a military intervention in Libya, members of the 75-strong House Progressive Caucus began quietly discussing how to oppose the effort with maximum impact.

By the weekend, when the first U.S. missiles struck Libya, a full caucus resolution was in the works. Members of the progressive caucus held a conference call Sunday to gather thoughts and flesh it out.

Some wanted to push more vigorously than others. Others wanted to simply state their skepticism. Yet others wanted to block funding for the effort. And there were a few who wanted to hit the president hard over the feasibility of the intervention and the constitutionality of his decision to move forward without Congress’s approval.

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Greg Kaufmann: US Poverty -- Past, Present and Future

If the federal budget is a moral document—a statement of values and priorities—then the current debate on where we will spend our money in tough fiscal times is a defining moment for the character of this nation.

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John LaForge: Spewing from Meltdowns: Dangerous Plumes of Disinformation

Well-reported plumes of radiation have spread to California and beyond from the wrecked six-reactor complex at Fukushima, Japan. What’s worse in terms of citizen awareness, clouds of disinformation are circling even faster.

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No Laws, No Secrets: The Anarchist Creed of Julian Assange

About the only intelligent thing the U.S. government has said to date about Julian Assange is that the man is an “anarchist.” A State Department spokesperson lamented in December that said anarchist is “trying to undermine the collaboration, the cooperation, the system by which we engage with other governments, cooperate with other governments and solve regional challenges.” More precisely, Assange is undermining the system by which we don’t cooperate at all, or pretend to cooperate, or force cooperation by bombing, killing, lying, cheating, smiling and smiling while villainous—all in service of “solving regional challenges,” which is to say in service of the imperial state.

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