tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-86955982024-03-18T12:57:57.859-07:00BouphoniaA confused stile, and a disturbed method, is fittest to discourse of our miserie.Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.comBlogger1954125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-85474033963891164252012-03-23T15:38:00.008-07:002012-03-23T16:26:05.739-07:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FaKQfGwNOEA/T2zrtParsDI/AAAAAAAAE5s/99UHRO-AZko/s1600/2550625807_79d09c0ab9.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 314px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FaKQfGwNOEA/T2zrtParsDI/AAAAAAAAE5s/99UHRO-AZko/s400/2550625807_79d09c0ab9.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723208388946145330" border="0" /></a><br />Flint, Michigan has an <a href="http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2012/03/emergency_manager_lawsuit.html">elected government</a> once again:<br /><blockquote>A judge has ruled that the state violated the Open Meetings Act in appointing emergency manager Michael Brown.<br /><br />Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina invalidated Brown's appointment and also reinstated the authority of Flint Mayor Dayne Walling and the Flint City Council at a hearing regarding a lawsuit from a city union representative.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The order also invalidated all the orders and actions Brown has taken since he was appointed Dec. 1....</span></blockquote>The Susan G. Komen Foundation continues to struggle with the <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/21/MNK81NOHJ6.DTL">totally unforeseeable consequences</a> of lying shamelessly, playing politics with women's lives and generally being unrepentant assholes:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>The chief executives of the Greater New York and Oregon affiliates, among the most outspoken in their criticism of Komen's unsuccessful attempt to defund Planned Parenthood, are leaving. Three officials at the Dallas headquarters have left or announced their resignations, a spokeswoman said.</p> <p>At the same time, questions are being raised about the breast cancer charity's ability to raise money after the public relations fiasco. The New York affiliate postponed two events, including its annual awards gala, "because we were not certain about our ability to fundraise in the near term," spokesman Vern Calhoun said Wednesday.</p></blockquote><p></p>The severely conservative NH legislature has <a href="http://www.edgeboston.com/news/national/news/131180/nh_lawmakers_reject_marriage_equality_repeal_bill">refused</a> to strip gay citizens of marriage rights:<br /><blockquote>One hundred Republicans were among those who opposed HB 437....<p>State Rep. Keith Murphy (R-Bedford) cited a gay relative who has been in a same-sex relationship for two years when he spoke against HB 437. State Rep. Cameron De Jong (R-Manchester) referenced his faith as he testified against the marriage equality repeal bill that state Rep. David Bates (R-Windham) introduced.</p><p>"God is my judge and today I ask you to support equal rights under the law," he said.</p></blockquote><p></p>NOM's not-at-all-sexually-conflicted president Brian Brown has vowed to hold these lawmakers <a href="http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/03/nom-well-hold-every-n-h-lawmaker-accountable-for-pro-gay-marriage-vote/">accountable</a> for pounding him in the ass with Teh Gay Lifestyle. For some reason, this puts me in mind of Mickey Mouse's response to the threats of his arch-enemy Eli Squinch: "More likely, you'll choke yourself to death hatin' people."<br /><br />Speaking of which, NOM is trying to <a href="http://www.lgbtqnation.com/2012/03/nom-launches-boycott-after-starbucks-rejects-anti-gay-marriage-sentiment/">boycott</a> Starbucks for being rampant and ululant queer-fanciers. Although their coffee is ghastly and their tea is even worse, I'll buy it on principle. I just hope our Gay Overlords won't mind if I don't swallow.<br /><br />Utah's governor has <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/03/19/447430/utah-governor-vetoes-abstinence-only-sex-ed-bill/">vetoed</a> an abstinence-only sex education bill:<br /><blockquote>On Friday, Utah Gov. Gary Herbert (R) vetoed the proposed abstinence-only sex education bill, which would have made all sex ed classes “opt-in” instead of “opt-out” and prohibited any discussions of contraception or homosexuality. Explaining that he found the current sex ed provisions sufficient, he explained he could not sign a bill “that deprives parents of their choice.” </blockquote>Disability advocates achieved several notable <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/19/1075456/-Four-Wisconsin-Disability-Victories-incl-the-Demise-of-ALEC-s-AB110-">victories</a> in Wisconsin:<br /><p><strong></strong></p><blockquote><p><strong>Big Win #1</strong>: Defeat of the ALEC-Sourced school-voucher bill targeting students with special needs, the so-called "Special Needs Scholarship Program Act"<br /></p> <p><strong>Big Win #2</strong>: Lifting the enrollment caps on Family Care and other long-term care programs for elders & people with disabilities</p> <p><strong>Big Win #3</strong>: Limiting the use of seclusion and restraint in Wisconsin's public schools</p> <p><strong>Big Win #4</strong>: Replacing the outdated and pejorative term "mental retardation" with "intellectual disability" in Wisconsin statute</p></blockquote><p></p>In a moderately heartening display of relative non-viciousness, the three frontrunning GOP primary candidates have <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/03/23/450881/gop-candidates-travyon-martin/">acknowledged</a> that hunting black teenagers for sport is not socially acceptable. For instance:<br /><blockquote>Santorum, campaigning in Lousiana, said the failure to “immediately go after and prosecute this case” is a “<a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/niawapo/status/183226127211438080">chilling example</a> of horrible decisions.” He <a href="https://twitter.com/#%21/niawapo/status/183220330091909120">added</a> that he thought shooter Geroge Zimmerman was not abiding by Florida’s “stand your ground law.”</blockquote>Presumably, Dr. Ron Paul has asked an anonymous staffer to write a statement on the Trayvon Martin case. Presumably, he won't bother to acquaint himself with this statement until it turns out to contain racial slurs, at which point he'll accuse the MSM of character assassination.<br /><br />"Joking" aside, I was not entirely ungobsmacked by <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/23/1077102/-Obama-When-I-think-of-this-boy-I-think-about-my-own-kids-">this question</a> from a member of Your Liberal Media:<br /><blockquote>Mr. President, may I ask you about this current case in Florida, very controversial, allegations of lingering racism within our society....</blockquote>Be it known: It's controversial simply to <span style="font-style: italic;">allege</span> that <span style="font-style: italic;">vestiges</span> of racism <span>may</span> linger — somehow! somewhere! — in American society. Probably because of how views differ and all. For example, some folks think the word "nigger" has some sort of offensive racial subtext, while others think it's just a funny thing to call <a href="http://wonkette.com/467458/dont-re-nig-lady-has-magic-dictionary-that-says-n-word-is-not-racist">bad people</a>. Also, some folks will go out of their way to discern racial animus in a photoshopped picture of a black president sprawled in the dirt with a bucket of fried chicken between his legs, while others protest that this interpretation is fundamentally <a href="http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/conservative-blogger-resigns-after-posting-">dishonest</a>.<br /><br />Of course, some irresponsible demagogues [waves modestly] would argue that the mere existence of such "debates" demonstrates that our culture is racist down to its corpuscles. But no one listens to them, thank God, because what would become of <span>Civility</span>?<br /><br />Onward, sort of, and upward, more or less. It seems that the new <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/in-kim-an-activist-to-lead-the-world-bank/2011/08/25/gIQAXmc0VS_blog.html">president</a> of the World Bank is not named Larry Summers:<br /><blockquote>Obama pushed for a nominee with broad development experience and was particularly drawn to Kim’s innovative work fighting the spread of AIDS and tuberculosis....<br /><br />Obama picked Kim over several more well-known candidates, including Susan Rice, current U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.; and Lawrence Summers, Obama’s former director of the National Economic Council.</blockquote>A federal judge has <a href="http://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL1E8EN08G20120323">ruled</a> that the FDA must regulate the use of antibiotics in animal feeds:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>U.S. Magistrate Judge Theodore Katz ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to begin proceedings unless makers of the drugs can produce evidence that their use is safe.</p> <span id="midArticle_2"></span> <p>If they can't, then the FDA must withdraw approval for non-therapeutic use of those drugs, the judge ruled.</p></blockquote><p></p>Speaking of government overreach, OMG <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577298170982484822.html">HITLER TIMES INFINITY</a> TO THE ELEVENTEENTH POWER!<br /><p> </p><blockquote>The U.S. government is about to bar contractors who use computers bought with federal dollars from dumping the devices in landfills, an official said on Wednesday.</blockquote><p></p>Also, Mitt Romney — that brilliant executive with unmatched real-world experience in visioning and leveraging bleeding-edge HR best practices to help build effective teams capable of seamlessly and efficiently achieving world-class mission-critical synergies in support of top-priority core objectives — has made himself even more unelectable by hiring a <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/eric-fehrnstrom-source-of-etch-a-sketch-gaffe-is-a-trusted-and-loyal-romney-adviser/2012/03/22/gIQAnnIRUS_story.html">catastrophically stupid</a> campaign aide. While Fehrnstrom's Etch-a-Sketch comment is rightly getting most of the laughs, we shouldn't overlook the strategeristical cleverosity of using the term "reset button" in reference to a candidate who's widely mocked as a soulless automaton. Given Romney's<span class="entry-title"> shrewd professional eye for talent, judgment and discretion, it's pretty exciting to think about his cabinet picks.<br /><br />Last, Jim Robinson has <a href="http://vikingkitties.blogspot.com/2012/03/its-going-to-get-interesting-at-fr-if.html">advised</a> his Freepers to "fight like banshees." So don't tread on 'em unless you want to hear mournful wailing.</span><br /><span class="entry-title"><br />Furthermore: </span><a href="http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/beetlecam.html">Beetlecam</a>. Amazonian <a href="http://www.googleblog.blogspot.it/2012/03/visit-amazon-on-world-forest-day-with.html#%21http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/03/visit-amazon-on-world-forest-day-with.html">street views</a>. Ads for <a href="http://www.retronaut.co/2012/03/sea-monkeys-ads-1960s/">sea monkeys</a>: a child's portal to the wide world of crushing disappointment. <a href="http://allanpeters.com/blog/?p=2322">Badge hunting</a>. Evolution of the <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120320.html">moon</a>. Photos by <a href="http://www.sabadzic.net.amis.hr/">Stanko Abadzic</a> (via <a href="http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/wood_s_lot.html">wood s lot</a>). <a href="http://www.eleventwentyseven.com/">Eleventwentyseven</a>. And Lisboan <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/biblarte/sets/72157621434133780/">vistas nocturnas</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wr4sap_9T_I/T2zoi10GGWI/AAAAAAAAE5U/KNYg_ZzWSRQ/s1600/5282751826_95cce6481e.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 283px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wr4sap_9T_I/T2zoi10GGWI/AAAAAAAAE5U/KNYg_ZzWSRQ/s400/5282751826_95cce6481e.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723204911739836770" border="0" /></a><br />In addition: Aymara <a href="http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/06/060613185239.htm">time-mapping</a>. Anatomical <a href="http://collections.nlm.nih.gov/vplayer/vplayer.jsp?pid=nlm:nlmuid-8801174A-vid">animation</a>. Anthropogenic <a href="http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2012/03/finding-and-understanding-first-cities/1528/">sediments</a>. Archiving <a href="http://www.dornithdoherty.com/gallery/archiving-eden/">Eden</a>. Ancient Egyptian <a href="http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/headrests/">headrests</a>. Chymical <a href="http://alchemyandchemistry.edwardworthlibrary.ie/Home">works</a>. Terrestrial <a href="http://library.gl.ciw.edu/ocean/index.html">magnetism</a>. Caffeine, empire and <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/uk/london/9153317/London-cafes-the-surprising-history-of-Londons-lost-coffeehouses.html">effeminate babbling layabouts</a> [waves modestly]. Photos by <a href="http://butdoesitfloat.com/As-physics-is-a-mental-reconstruction-of-material-processes-perhaps-a">Olivo Barbieri</a>. And photos by <a href="http://englishrussia.com/2012/03/23/aero-photography-by-sergey-makarenkov/">Sergey Makarenkov</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-clx4sFrUlGg/T2zwiruZ6KI/AAAAAAAAE54/RG01kVRNb-k/s1600/FHB%2Bphotographingfromtheplane-12.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 299px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-clx4sFrUlGg/T2zwiruZ6KI/AAAAAAAAE54/RG01kVRNb-k/s400/FHB%2Bphotographingfromtheplane-12.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723213705124636834" border="0" /></a><br />In summation: <a href="http://maps.stamen.com/watercolor/#15/51.5205/-0.0907">Watercolor cartography</a> (via <a href="http://www.thingsmagazine.net/">things</a>). <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mopa1/sets/72157626867701843/">Camera lucida</a> drawings. Photos of <a href="http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/01/underwater-experiments-astounding-photographs-of-jellyfish-by-alexander-semenov/">jellyfish</a>. Computer <a href="http://www.computerhistory.org/brochures/companies.php">marketing brochures</a>. Big-time <a href="http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/03/23/arlen_specter_ogles_sarah_palin.html">sensuality</a> (warning: this cannot be unread). "Dysfunctional family implied as mother has left children and <a href="http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/movieguide-warns-hunger-games-will-lead-american-hitler-has-homosexual-and-cross-dressing-im">father is not alive</a>" (ditto). The new architecture and the <a href="http://ubuweb.com/film/moholy_zoo.html">London Zoo</a>. And images of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/sets/72157607349797600/">Sydney Harbor Bridge</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QYyL8yEyDHA/T2zojX6SQHI/AAAAAAAAE5g/7C4OxcLTce4/s1600/6998482421_a421d335cd.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 325px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-QYyL8yEyDHA/T2zojX6SQHI/AAAAAAAAE5g/7C4OxcLTce4/s400/6998482421_a421d335cd.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5723204920892604530" border="0" /></a><br />(Photo at top by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/smithsonian/sets/72157604590559182/with/2550625807/">Thomas Smillie</a>, 1890.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-60627274977142277502012-03-16T13:24:00.014-07:002012-03-16T13:57:10.568-07:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V9g6zKTvDNA/T2OSp5uUNII/AAAAAAAAE4A/HQatsKtUY7A/s1600/FHB%2Bhaas_2.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 262px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V9g6zKTvDNA/T2OSp5uUNII/AAAAAAAAE4A/HQatsKtUY7A/s400/FHB%2Bhaas_2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5720577200258036866" border="0" /></a><br />Here's an obligatory dose of gall before I slather you with healing balm: I've had several more helpings of <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/15/us-usa-komen-catholic-idUSBRE82E12Q20120315">the Catholic bishops</a> than I can stand. If this reptilian gaggle of world-hating closet cases would put an eleventillionth as much energy into helping the poor, opposing the death penalty, punishing child abusers and excommunicating war profiteers as they put into officious panty-sniffing misogyny, I might give two strictly procreative fucks about their "conscience." As matters stand, however, I'm in favor of stripping these intolerably smug reprobates of their <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1109/29336.html">tax exemption</a> and using the additional revenue to launch them headlong into the sun.<br /><br />Apropos of which: Given the amount of <a href="http://front.moveon.org/the-gop-overlooked-one-thing-when-they-started-this-war-on-women/">existential dread</a> produced by sex in general and female sexuality in particular, it's obviously time to classify sexually active women as terrorists. That being the case, someone needs to come up with a color-coded threat advisory chart, and it might as well be yours truly:<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9JyLJ9OSegk/T2OBNaChE9I/AAAAAAAAE30/MBH-dmonV5s/s1600/Threat-Advisory.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-9JyLJ9OSegk/T2OBNaChE9I/AAAAAAAAE30/MBH-dmonV5s/s400/Threat-Advisory.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5720558019018822610" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Joke, ha ha, </span>as Eeyore would say.<br /><br />Meanwhile, back in the real world, one of the Republican WI state senators facing a recall will <a href="http://dailykos.com/story/2012/03/16/1074977/-Wisconsin-state-Sen-Pam-Galloway-R-facing-recall-will-resign">resign</a>:<br /><blockquote>State Sen. Pam Galloway, who faces a recall election this summer, plans to resign from the Senate shortly, leaving an even split between Republicans and Democrats. </blockquote>Against all odds, Ken Cuccinelli has somehow managed to say something that's both <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2012/03/16/445911/morning-briefing-march-16-2012/">true</a> and significant:<br /><blockquote>Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) fears a Romney nomination would neutralize the health care reform issue, noting that because RomneyCare was so similar to the Affordable Care Act, “<a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/mar/15/cuccinelli-fears-romney-nomination-would-neutraliz/">you are effectively giving that issue up</a>” by selecting Romney as the nominee.</blockquote>As has <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/03/16/446008/inhofe-maddow-global-warming/">James Inhofe</a>:<br /><blockquote>I was actually on your side of this issue [climate change] when I was chairing that committee and I first heard about this. I thought it must be true until I found out what it cost.</blockquote>And <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0312-hance_mcardle_climate.html">Megan McArdle</a>:<br /><blockquote> I'm not an expert, and I'm not planning to become one. I've basically outsourced my opinion on the science to people like Jonathan Adler, Ron Bailey, and Pat Michaels of Cato—all of whom concede that anthropogenic global warming is real, though they may contest the likely extent, or desired remedies.<br /></blockquote>I suggest that we remove "In God We Trust" from our money, and replace it with "I'm not an expert, and I'm not planning to become one."<br /><br />Speaking of intellectuals, some <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/chris-hughes-facebook-co-founder-takes-over-new-republic-magazine/2012/03/09/gIQAtm5G1R_story.html">callow youth</a> from Facebook is buying <span style="font-style: italic;">The New Republic</span>. It's probably not realistic to hope that he'll make all its writers tour the county-fair circuit in a dunking tank filled with raw sewage, as Infinite Justice demands. But we can at least pray that <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/03/15/lets_have_some_more_wars_tnr_book_critic_says/">Leon Wieseltier</a> -- a chattering husk who recently called Rachel Maddow's new book "an anthropologically useful document of the new American disaffection with American force" -- will eventually be handed his walking papers. (One of the things Wieseltier objects to is Maddow's "perky self-adoring voice," which is pretty rich coming from a guy who makes George Will sound like Beckett. Physician, fuck thyself!)<br /><br />Our Indo-Kenyan Islamo-Muslim Usurper-in-Chief continues to ram <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/03/15/445622/president-obama-has-now-quadrupled-the-number-of-openly-gay-judges-on-the-federal-bench/">Teh Gay Lifestyle</a> vigorously down our throats.<br /><blockquote>Earlier this afternoon, the Senate <a href="http://www.washingtonblade.com/2012/03/15/breaking-senate-confirms-gay-nominee-to-calif-federal-court/">confirmed Judge Michael Fitzgerald</a> to a federal court in California by a 91-6 vote....Fitzgerald joins Nathan, Oetken and a Clinton appointee named <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2011/10/13/342749/with-just-two-openly-gay-appointees-president-obama-triples-the-number-of-out-federal-judges/">Deborah Batts</a> as one of the only four openly gay lifetime tenured federal judges in American history.</blockquote>An attendee of Grover Norquist's Purity Ball has apparently <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/03/15/444998/gop-rep-millionaire-tax/">fallen off</a> the chastity wagon:<br /><p></p><blockquote>Freshman Republican Rep. Rick Crawford will propose a surtax on millionaires Thursday morning, a crack in the steadfast GOP opposition to extracting more money from the nation’s top earners. [...]<br /><br />Crawford will propose the additional tax— expected to be north of 2.5 percent — on individual income over $1 million as part of a broader fiscal responsibility package.</blockquote><p><strong></strong></p>The DOJ has <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/news/2012-03-12/wisconsin-voter-identification-law-is-blocked-by-second-state-court-judge">blocked</a> right-wing attempts at voter suppression in Texas and Wisconsin:<br /><blockquote><p>The U.S. Justice Department yesterday told Texas officials the state failed to show that the statute signed into law by Governor Rick Perry last year won’t have a discriminatory effect on Latino voters while a Wisconsin state court judge held that an ID law enacted by fellow Republican Governor Scott Walker last year, unconstitutionally burdens the rights of eligible citizens....</p><p style="font-weight: bold;">“Voter fraud is no more poisonous to our democracy than voter suppression,” Dane County, Wisconsin Circuit Judge Richard Niess said in his ruling yesterday barring enforcement of that state’s law. “Indeed they are two heads on the same monster.” </p></blockquote>It's just barely possible that <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0314-hance_acmellaoleracea.html">clearcutting rainforests</a> is not in humanity's best interests:<br /><blockquote>The world may soon benefit from a plant long-used by indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon for toothaches, eliminating the need for local injections in some cases. Researchers have created a medicinal gel from a plant known commonly as spilanthes extract (Acmella Oleracea), which could become a fully natural alternative to current anesthetics and may even have a wide-range of applications beyond dental care.</blockquote>African leaders are <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/worlds-largest-wildlife-conservation-area-established-africa.html">establishing</a> the world's largest conservation area:<br /><p></p><blockquote>In a ceremony this week, leaders from Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe have agreed to establish a sprawling 170,000 square mile preserve to span respective borders for the sake of wildlife. Up until now, the five nations had each independently maintained a total of 36 unconnected conservation zones, but that model proved insufficient from protecting migrating animals along their cross-border migrations.</blockquote><p></p>Global poverty has apparently <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/21548963">decreased</a> over the last 20 years:<br /><blockquote>The new estimates show that in 2008, the first year of the finance-and-food crisis, both the number and share of the population living on less than $1.25 a day (at 2005 prices, the most commonly accepted poverty line) was falling in every part of the world. This was the first instance of declines across the board since the bank started collecting the figures in 1981.</blockquote>(h/t: <a href="http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/">Cheryl</a>.)<br /><br />Hooray for eventual, shame-driven <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46740242/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/t/pink-slime-its-schools-usda-says/">consumer semi-choice</a>!<br /><blockquote>The U.S. Department of Agriculture will offer schools choice in ground beef buys amid growing concern over an ammonia-treated filler critics call "pink slime." <p>Under the change to be announced Thursday, schools will be able to choose between beef patties made with the filler or bulk ground beef without it. The policy will affect food at schools this fall because of existing contracts.</p></blockquote><p></p>Pink slime notwithstanding, the kids are <a href="http://blog.enn.com/?p=2092">alright</a>:<br /><p class="MsoNormal"></p><blockquote>I am 8 years old and like most kids I like balloons. But I’m really worried about what they are doing to our environment and wildlife. Why is throwing trash along the side of a road illegal, but releasing balloons in the sky to explode and fall to the ground in pieces legal? To me it seems that releasing balloons into the air is the same thing as littering and laws need to be put in place to protect both our marine and terrestrial wildlife.</blockquote><p></p><a href="http://www.zooborns.com/zooborns/2012/03/taronga-western-plains-meerkat-pups-venture-out.html">Meerkat pups</a> (via <a href="http://feministing.com/2012/03/15/what-we-missed-609/">Feministing</a>). Seeds from <a href="http://youtu.be/_wRfCRG16R8">Hiroshima</a> (via <a href="http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/2012/03/bits-and-pieces-march-10-2012.html">Cheryl</a>). Seeds from the <a href="http://io9.com/5886851/this-ancient-arctic-plant-regenerated-after-being-frozen-for-32000-years">Pleistocene</a> (via Karin). A <a href="http://longnow.org/clock/">subterranean clock</a>, and the looming threat of <a href="http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2012/03/one-time-zone-for-the-world/">socialized time</a>. Photographer <a href="http://butdoesitfloat.com/Increasingly-the-individual-felt-himself-to-be-a-single-flicker">hlaus</a> explores Iceland. Photographer Sarah Elliot explores <a href="http://sarahelliottphotography.com/#/new-orleans-two-years-later/sekatrina1m">New Orleans</a>. Photographer <a href="http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/news/LL/BL/5/868/">Lewis Hine</a> explores one of Newt Gingrich's <a href="http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/11/19/gingrich-laws-preventing-child-labor-are-truly-stupid/">big ideas</a>. And photographer <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/03/16/in_pictures_irish_emigrants_haunting_homes/singleton/">David Creedon</a> explores the abandoned homes of Irish emigrants:<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ufNjuPLMtuk/T2Ogg-c12SI/AAAAAAAAE4w/xs2ulDIBupc/s1600/FHB%2BCreedon%2Btwelve_months_later1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 311px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ufNjuPLMtuk/T2Ogg-c12SI/AAAAAAAAE4w/xs2ulDIBupc/s400/FHB%2BCreedon%2Btwelve_months_later1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5720592440070887714" border="0" /></a><a href="http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/siege/"><br />The Siege and Commune of Paris, 1870-1871</a>. Designing <a href="http://www.idealcity.org.au/">Canberra</a>. We are <a href="http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/554-the-fools-head-map-a-fossil-of-the-financial-bubbles-of-1720">here</a>. What <a href="http://thebioscope.net/2012/03/15/what-the-censor-saw/">the censor</a> saw. What the censor <a href="http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2012/03/love-games.html">didn't see</a>. What a <a href="http://www.polargraph.co.uk/">robot</a> saw (via <a href="http://www.thingsmagazine.net/">things</a>). <a href="http://www.planetaryfolklore.com/">Planetary Folklore</a>. A<a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/03/solar-system-atlas/"> galactic atlas</a>. Fifty-five <a href="http://www.lensculture.com/webloglc/mt_files/archives/2012/03/intl-womens-day.html">female photographers</a>. And a Swiss collection of <a href="http://www.zb.uzh.ch/ausstellungen/ausstellung/003997/index.html">sheet music</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V75NlwYrma0/T2OSqKeTA6I/AAAAAAAAE4M/_vC8zMDB7dw/s1600/FHB%2Bausstellungenfittosize_630_500_66a248a3f1eb130f906fc8204fdbb04a_mus_wb_4598.jpeg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 311px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-V75NlwYrma0/T2OSqKeTA6I/AAAAAAAAE4M/_vC8zMDB7dw/s400/FHB%2Bausstellungenfittosize_630_500_66a248a3f1eb130f906fc8204fdbb04a_mus_wb_4598.jpeg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5720577204754252706" border="0" /></a>(Photo at top: "Western Skies Motel, Colorado" by <a href="http://www.lensculture.com/haas">Ernst Haas</a>, 1978.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-4269657557441418292012-03-02T15:48:00.003-08:002012-03-02T16:11:21.244-08:00Design for the One Percent<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Sga9lfhRfvE/T1FbrNc3BAI/AAAAAAAAE3o/cDECJtMptw0/s1600/460px-Gustave_Dore_Lazarus_and_the_Rich_Man.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 246px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Sga9lfhRfvE/T1FbrNc3BAI/AAAAAAAAE3o/cDECJtMptw0/s320/460px-Gustave_Dore_Lazarus_and_the_Rich_Man.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715450200013079554" border="0" /></a><br />A Daily Caller columnist recently <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201202280009">argued</a> that the government should force food stamp recipients to buy low-grade food in drab packaging, in order to teach these <span style="font-style: italic;">soi-disant</span> "poor people" a tough lesson about freedom and responsibility and taxation and so forth.<br /><br />I seem to be suffering from outrage fatigue, because instead of fantasizing about the guillotine, I found myself pondering the logistics of setting official specifications for poor-quality, revenge-oriented food, and of creating a style guide for socially stigmatizing package design.<br /><br />With these interesting issues in mind, I've taken a stab at designing some product labels for a new taxpayer-funded line of shameful, marginally nutritious foodstuffs. While I can't pretend that they'll deliver the stern dose of humiliation hungry poor people and their hapless children deserve — only the withering patrician scorn of a God-appointed billionaire can do <span style="font-style: italic;">that</span> — I do hope they'll inspire crueler people to produce uglier work.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q3ANOXIHbBM/T1E-3Bj4pTI/AAAAAAAAE2s/wRRuqH4CvmA/s1600/LoQual.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 165px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q3ANOXIHbBM/T1E-3Bj4pTI/AAAAAAAAE2s/wRRuqH4CvmA/s400/LoQual.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715418517142545714" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-viTEbSyixVc/T1FNY9Of9PI/AAAAAAAAE3Q/ZEDytYd7UpE/s1600/Shame.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 176px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-viTEbSyixVc/T1FNY9Of9PI/AAAAAAAAE3Q/ZEDytYd7UpE/s400/Shame.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715434493257446642" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kuVmt1z4_gE/T1FAgQKKeQI/AAAAAAAAE3E/t_joUlwto9E/s1600/Ants.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 176px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kuVmt1z4_gE/T1FAgQKKeQI/AAAAAAAAE3E/t_joUlwto9E/s400/Ants.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715420324947458306" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5iutkjtzMio/T1E_3tCgF5I/AAAAAAAAE24/e4QGK3nj1UE/s1600/Meth.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 194px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5iutkjtzMio/T1E_3tCgF5I/AAAAAAAAE24/e4QGK3nj1UE/s400/Meth.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715419628325312402" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6Ste8yMbf7k/T1FQP-vhq2I/AAAAAAAAE3c/W1MAkYcIAH0/s1600/Useless.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 165px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6Ste8yMbf7k/T1FQP-vhq2I/AAAAAAAAE3c/W1MAkYcIAH0/s400/Useless.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5715437637580467042" border="0" /></a><br />(Image at top: "The Rich Man and Lazarus the Beggar" by Gustave Doré.)<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-q3ANOXIHbBM/T1E-3Bj4pTI/AAAAAAAAE2s/wRRuqH4CvmA/s1600/LoQual.jpg"><br /></a><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DIkJYsE6zAA/T1E9dbW4a8I/AAAAAAAAE2g/oOO1a5hgzzA/s1600/Useless.jpg"><br /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DIkJYsE6zAA/T1E9dbW4a8I/AAAAAAAAE2g/oOO1a5hgzzA/s1600/Useless.jpg"> </a><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /><br /></span>Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-56309980600525541472012-02-17T15:30:00.000-08:002012-02-17T16:05:04.612-08:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wa41_8kRUzI/Tz7mFp6-hTI/AAAAAAAAE2U/7Muv9OxUgOs/s1600/NADAR%2B640.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 316px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Wa41_8kRUzI/Tz7mFp6-hTI/AAAAAAAAE2U/7Muv9OxUgOs/s400/NADAR%2B640.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5710254362379322674" border="0" /></a><br />The Obama administration will no longer defend the constitutionality of denying veterans' benefits to <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/obama-administration-wouldnt-defend-blocking-military-benefits-from-same-sex-couples.php">same-sex couples</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>The Obama Justice Department has concluded that legislation banning same-sex couples from receiving military and veterans benefits violates the equal protection component of the Fifth Amendment and will no longer defend the statute in court, Attorney General Eric Holder wrote in a letter to Congressional leaders on Friday.</p> <p>“The legislative record of these provisions contains no rationale for providing veterans’ benefits to opposite-sex couples of veterans but not to legally married same-sex spouses of veterans,” Holder wrote. “Neither the Department of Defense nor the Department of Veterans Affairs identified any justifications for that distinction that would warrant treating these provisions differently from Section 3 of DOMA.”</p></blockquote><p></p>Teen pregnancy rates are <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/USTPtrends08.pdf">down</a>, no thanks to aspirin:<br /><blockquote>In 2008, the U.S. teenage pregnancy rate reached its lowest point in more than 30 years (67.8), down 42% from its peak in 1990 (116.9). Among women younger than 15, the pregnancy rate fell even more in that period (62%), from 17.5 to 6.6 per 1,000.</blockquote>Things We Used to Know, <a href="http://news.msu.edu/story/10366">Chapter MCXLIV</a>:<br /><blockquote> Quality public schools benefit everyone – including those without school-aged children – and therefore everyone should play a role in maintaining them, according to a study by two Michigan State University scholars.</blockquote>Debt collection and credit reporting agencies may eventually face a little more <a href="http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/consumer-bureau-proposes-first-crackdown/">regulation</a>, assuming they don't mind too much:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Debt collectors and credit reporting companies are bracing for intense scrutiny after the government’s consumer finance watchdog unveiled a broad plan to regulate financial firms that have largely evaded federal oversight....</p>“Debt collectors and credit reporting agencies have gone unsupervised by the federal government for too long,” Richard Cordray, the bureau’s director, told reporters on Thursday. “It is time to provide the kind of oversight of these markets that will help ensure that federal laws protecting consumers in these financial markets are being followed.”</blockquote><p></p>Someone has <a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/heartland-institute-exposed-internal-documents-unmask-heart-climate-denial-machine">leaked</a> a number of interesting confidential documents from the Heartland Institute:<br /><p></p><blockquote>Internal <a target="_blank" href="http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Heartland_Institute">Heartland Institute</a> strategy and funding documents obtained by DeSmogBlog expose the heart of the climate denial machine – its current plans, many of its funders, and details that confirm what DeSmogBlog and others have reported for years. The heart of the climate denial machine relies on huge corporate and foundation funding from <span class="caps">U.S.</span> businesses including Microsoft, Koch Industries, Altria (parent company of Philip Morris) <span class="caps">RJR</span> Tobacco and more.</blockquote><p></p>In a well-thought-out plan that exemplifies HI's firm grasp of risk assessment, they're <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0215-heartland_to_sue_journalists.html">threatening to sue</a> journalists who covered this story:<br /><blockquote>The threat was spelled out in an email sent to media outlets (including mongabay.com) by Jim Lakely, Communications Director at the Heartland Institute. The group said it will "pursue charges and collect payment for damages, including damages to our reputation" from "individuals who have commented so far on these documents", prior to the Heartland Institute's official response.<br /></blockquote>Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton is irresponsibly attacking the <a href="http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2012/2012-02-17-01.html">black soot</a> that made our nation great:<br /><blockquote>Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton Thursday announced a new global initiative to reduce short-lived climate pollutants....<br /><br />The initiative targets three pollutants that together account for more than one-third of current global warming - black carbon, or soot; methane; and hydrofluorocarbons, which are gases used in air conditioning, refrigeration, solvents, foam blowing agents and aerosols. </blockquote>Chinese manufacturer FoxxConn is raising workers' wages in response to <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/02/17/428372/progressive-pressure-foxconn-wages/">public outcry</a>:<br /><blockquote>The move comes after nearly 250,000 individuals signed a petition on Change.org demanding Apple hold its suppliers accountable for violations of fair labor practices.<br /><br />FoxxConn is best known in the United States as Apple Inc.’s largest supplier, manufacturing the technology giant’s popular iPad, iPhone and signature Mac computer products, in addition to dozens of other gadgets for other technology companies. But it has also gained a reputation as a chronic violator of human rights and fair labor practices.</blockquote>In tangentially related news, the actress in Pete Hoekstra's repulsive anti-Chinese ad has <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57379649-503544/actress-in-racially-charged-hoekstra-ad-apologizes/">apologized</a> for her involvement:<br /><blockquote>As a recent college grad who has spent time working to improve communities and empower those without a voice, this role is not in any way representative of who I am. It was absolutely a mistake on my part and one that, over time, I hope can be forgiven. I feel horrible about my participation and I am determined to resolve my actions. </blockquote>Apropos of which, designer <a href="http://www.good.is/community/chappellison" rel="author">Chappell Ellison</a> discusses Hoekstra's use of "chop suey fonts" to conjure up the furrin ways of the Heathen Chinee.<br /><p></p>The Obama administration may <a href="http://grist.org/list/#item-obama-administration-raises-oil-drilling-royalties-50-percent">raise</a> oil-drilling royalties:<br /><blockquote>Public lands belong to all of us, so when the federal government decides to lease them out to oil and gas drillers, those companies have to pay for depriving taxpayers of environmental and recreational benefits. And the Obama administration has decided that they're not paying enough. So the Interior Department's budget includes <a href="http://cleantechnica.com/2012/02/17/obama-hikes-royalties-on-oil-industry-by-50/">a proposal</a> to raise royalties for oil and gas projects by 50 percent.</blockquote>Hmm. Is this <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Bible? Wasn't there a guy named <blink>HITLER</blink> who tried to "benefit taxpayers" by impoverishing an unpopular minority? I'm not saying that's what's going on here but you can't deny that it's basically <i>the exact same thing</i>.<br /><br />Speaking of Nazis, the People's Republic of Los Angeles has socialistically turned a communist mass-transit bus yard into a collectivist <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-south-la-park-20120210,0,1839556.story">public park</a> at the taxpayers' expense!<br /><blockquote> It took three years and more than $26 million to turn an old MTA bus yard in South Los Angeles into what it is today: a sprawling park and urban wetland that will store and clean millions of gallons of storm water — while also giving children a place to play.</blockquote>In Washington, a federal judge held a factory farm <a href="http://grist.org/factory-farms/cafo-conviction-court-holds-factory-farm-accountable-for-water-pollution/">responsible</a> for local water pollution:<br /><blockquote>This first-ever ruling holding a CAFO accountable for its pollution was a result of a lawsuit by the nonprofit Community Association for Restoration of the Environment (CARE) against the Nelson Faria Dairy in Royal, Wash. The ruling upholds the terms of a 2006 settlement CARE had with the dairy’s previous owners, which the current owners <a href="http://wa.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.20111230_0000786.EWA.htm/qx">subsequently ignored</a>.</blockquote>Attentive readers will note that the correction of the vassalees-fiction-syntax-grammar-pleadings is with the correction-participation-claim of this babble-indictment-evidence and: bad-probation-syntax=grammar-evidence. They may accordingly wonder why the vassalees did this case with a void-communications. The answer is simple: For the void-drogue-law, void-oath of an office, void-judge’s-oath, void-docking-court-house-vessel in the Washington-state-dry-dock and: void-original-lodial-land-title. (<a href="http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/02/14/sovereign-citizen-sues-government-over-grammar/">Duh</a>.)<br /><br /><a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20120216/republican-governors-press-green-economic-policies-national-governors-association-nga-solar-wind-solyndra?page=show">On top of which</a>:<br /><blockquote>The nation's Republican governors are pressing forward with policies that promote the green economy—and in some cases they have moved further than their Democratic counterparts.<br /><br />A new report by the National Governors Association (NGA) showed that 28 states enacted more than 60 new "clean" economic development policies between June 2010 and Aug. 2011. Among those states, more than half, or 16, have Republican governors. In five of the states, the policies were started under Democratic governors and were continued by Republicans who replaced them.</blockquote>Nine cave-dwelling invertebrate species have won <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2012/bexar-county-invertebrates-02-13-2012.html">habitat protections</a> in Texas:<br /><blockquote>[T]he U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finalized protection of 4,200 acres of critical habitat today for nine rare, cave-dwelling invertebrates in Bexar County, Texas. The designation cut roughly 1,700 acres from a February 2011 proposal, but is still nearly quadruple the size of a 2003 Bush-era designation that left out a number of places where the species live and failed to protect enough land adjacent to the caves.</blockquote>A California court has <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2012/bakersfield-tejon-pass-project-02-13-2012.html">blocked</a> the construction of yet another doomed sprawlscape near the Tejon Pass:<br /><p></p><blockquote>“This is an extremely important habitat area for scores of threatened, endangered, and rare species, including the California condor, so it’s important that any development be carefully thought out,” said Adam Keats, urban wildlands director at the Center. “This is a huge victory for smart planning, especially considering the tremendous pressure from developers this area has been under.”</blockquote><p></p>Bangladesh has designated <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0215-hance_riverdolphins_bangladesh.html">three new sanctuaries</a> for endangered freshwater dolphins:<br /><blockquote> "Declaration of these Wildlife Sanctuaries is an essential first step in protecting Ganges River and Irrawaddy dolphins in Bangladesh," Brian D. Smith, Director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Asian Freshwater and Coastal Cetacean Program, said in a press release. "As biological indicators of ecosystem-level impacts, freshwater dolphins can inform adaptive human-wildlife management to cope with climate change suggesting a broader potential for conservation and sustainable development." </blockquote>And the Republic of the Congo has <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0216-hance_goualougo.html">expanded</a> a national park to protect chimpanzees:<blockquote>The Republic of the Congo has expanded its Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park by 37,295 hectares (144 square miles) to include a dense swamp forest, home to a population of chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) that show no fear of humans. Known as the Goualougo Triangle, the swamp forest is also home to forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) and western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla). The expansion of the park to include the Goualougo Triangle makes good on a government commitment from 2001. </blockquote><blockquote></blockquote>Japanese whalers have <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/16/147012056/japanese-whalers-lose-bid-to-block-u-s-based-sea-shepherd-activists">lost</a> their suit against anti-whaling activists:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>A group of Japanese whalers has failed to win an injunction against U.S. anti-whaling activists, as a federal judge refused their request for protections from boats owned by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.</p> <p>The ruling was made in Seattle, where the whalers' group, the Institute for Cetacean Research, had filed suit. In addition to restraints on Sea Shepherd, the whalers were hoping the judge would impose a freeze on the activists' finances.</p></blockquote><p></p>Florida governor Rick Scott's insane bid to expand the privatization of the Florida prison system has <a href="http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/02/14/2642075/bill-to-privatize-prisons-dies.html#storylink=cpy">failed</a>:<br /><blockquote>A massive expansion of private prisons in Florida collapsed in the Senate Tuesday as nine Republicans joined a dozen Democrats in handing a setback to Senate leaders and a victory to state workers.<p>As a result, the state will not undertake what would have been the single greatest expansion of prison privatization in U.S. history, affecting 27 prisons and work camps in 18 counties and displacing more than 3,500 correctional officers.</p></blockquote><p></p>Last but nowhere near least, Mitt Romney is currently spending millions of dollars and alienating countless independents in hopes of eking out a meager victory over Rick Santorum, an unelectable buffoon and national punchline who <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/rick-santorums-win-run-campaign-shoestring-budget/story?id=15635374#.Tz06JYpWo8g">doesn't even have a campaign office</a>.<br /><br />This, that and the other: The <a href="http://www.newscientist.com/data/av/audio/article/dn21443/tarsier_slowed_audio.mp3">voice of the tarsier</a> is heard in the land. Stardust <span style=";font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><em></em></span><a href="http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/exhibitions/stardust-melodies/">melodies</a>. Nuclear <a href="http://deliciousindustries.blogspot.com/2012/02/nuclear-slide-rules-and-dials.html">slide rules and dials</a>. More of <a href="http://deliciousindustries.blogspot.com/2012/02/from-reference-box-122.html">the same</a> (I still have the proportional scale pictured here, and use it often. Old and in the way!) <a href="http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2012/01/breaking-out-and-breaking-in.html">Breaking Out and Breaking In</a> is a "distributed film fest" on the spatial and architectural aspects of prison and bank-heist films (but where's the infrastructure-as-prison classic <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0050585/">Kanal</a>?) Furthermore, photos by <a href="http://www.galerievu.com/series.php?id_reportage=196&id_photographe=12">Juan Manuel Castro Prieto</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9V7tUEX9utk/Tz7haHlh00I/AAAAAAAAE14/VMnpDzqQzCk/s1600/Prieto.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9V7tUEX9utk/Tz7haHlh00I/AAAAAAAAE14/VMnpDzqQzCk/s400/Prieto.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5710249216381670210" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.featureshoot.com/2012/02/photos-of-abandoned-and-mysterious-yugoslavian-monuments/">Spomeniks</a>. Blimps and <a href="http://www.kval.com/news/local/Blimp-helps-UO-document-medicine-wheels-in-Oregon-139394513.html">medicine wheels</a> in the Stinkingwater Mountains. Culinary <a href="http://www.culinarycuriosity.org/index.php">curiosities</a>. Designing <a href="http://www.culinarycuriosity.org/index.php">Canberra</a>. The aesthetics of the <a href="http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/10/view/19273/behind-the-curtain-the-aesthetics-of-the-photo-booth.html">photo booth</a>. And photographs from the <a href="https://ldpd.lamp.columbia.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/css">Community Service Society Records, 1900-1920</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8k_M02wVk6c/Tz7hZ60uc3I/AAAAAAAAE1w/7VCeAEg5PCg/s1600/CSSR"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 292px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8k_M02wVk6c/Tz7hZ60uc3I/AAAAAAAAE1w/7VCeAEg5PCg/s400/CSSR" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5710249212955751282" border="0" /></a><br />(Photo at top: <span class="st"><em></em></span>"Vue aérienne du quartier de l'Etoile<span class="st"><em></em></span>" by Nadar, 1868.)<br /><a href="https://ldpd.lamp.columbia.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/css"></a>Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-81008995898155293752012-02-10T17:30:00.000-08:002012-02-10T17:48:00.598-08:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CB4As02XPwc/TzXDzZ4-6pI/AAAAAAAAE1I/i79WIUrMU3Y/s1600/FHB%2Bhidak-bridges-1921.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 307px; height: 400px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-CB4As02XPwc/TzXDzZ4-6pI/AAAAAAAAE1I/i79WIUrMU3Y/s400/FHB%2Bhidak-bridges-1921.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707683390652607122" border="0" /></a><br />In recent weeks, "conservatives" have proposed that cops should not be able to arrest people (i.e., men) for <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/26/411865/new-hampshire-republicans-propose-bills-that-prevent-police-from-protecting-domestic-abuse-victims/">domestic violence</a> unless they witness it, that U.S. school textbooks should be <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/01/23/408974/tennessee-tea-party-demands-that-references-to-slavery-be-removed-from-history-textbooks/">purged</a> of references to slavery, and that we must act now to keep <a href="http://feministing.com/2012/01/26/oklahoma-senator-wants-to-make-100-sure-we-dont-eat-aborted-fetuses/">aborted fetuses</a> out of our soft drinks. For some reason, I'm reminded of this <a href="http://www.theonion.com/articles/marilyn-manson-now-going-doortodoor-trying-to-shoc,459/">old <span style="font-style: italic;">Onion</span> article</a>.<br /><br />Much like "trangressive" music acts in any number of genres, social conservatives have been tying to outdo each other in striking shocking, uncompromising poses. And like any other form of witless adolescent attention-seeking, this eventually gets boring...not just for outsiders who wonder why the fuck these socially maladroit oddballs can't lighten up, but also for the target audience, many of whom are less true believers than lazy consumers exploring a fantasy. To extend the musical metaphor, today's social conservatives are a bit like teenagers who've abandoned Scandinavian black metal in favor of white-supremacist power electronics. For people who are committed to plumbing the depths of their own inhumanity, it's a new thrill that'll temporarily excite a jaded palate. But for most other people, it's the point at which extremity starts paying diminishing returns and 1970s singer-songwriters start sounding comparatively good.<br /><br />My point being, this competition for political capital is inherently self-defeating for the simple reason that most people aren't <span style="font-style: italic;">really</span> ruthless sociopathic assholes, even if it sometimes pleases them to pretend otherwise. The more Teabaggers flex what they imagine are their muscles, the less they overawe people. That's "power" for you. And I can only hope that they hold on to what's left of it long enough to pull the GOP's temple down on their own heads.<br /><br />Meanwhile. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has come up with the daring theory that discrimination for the sake of discrimination is <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/07/MN1H1N3T1H.DTL">unconstitutional</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Reinhardt, joined by Judge Michael Hawkins, invoked two past U.S. Supreme Court rulings. One was a 1973 decision overturning a federal law that barred households of unrelated people, such as "hippie communes," from qualifying for food stamps. The other, in 1996, struck down a Colorado initiative prohibiting local governments from enacting civil rights laws protecting gays and lesbians.</p> In both cases, the high court said the government violates equal protection when it withdraws rights in order to harm a politically unpopular group or express disapproval of a vulnerable minority.</blockquote>So it's the hippies' fault? I knew it. Even when I thought it was the gays, I <span style="font-style: italic;">knew</span> it was the hippies.<br /><br />Here's my favorite part of the decision:<br /><blockquote>Schools teach about the world as it is; when the world changes, lessons change. A shift in the State's marriage law may therefore affect the content of classroom instruction just as would the election of a new governor, the discovery of a new chemical element, or the adoption of a new law permitting no-fault divorce: students learn about these as empirical facts of the world around them. But to protest the teaching of these facts is little different from protesting their very existence; it is like opposing the election of a particular governor on the ground that students would learn about his holding office.</blockquote>Washington has <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-gay-marriage-washington-idUSTRE81905120120210">passed</a> a same-sex marriage bill:<br /><blockquote><span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph">Governor Christine Gregoire plans to sign newly passed legislation on Monday to legalize gay marriage in Washington state, making it the seventh with a law on the books to recognize same-sex nuptials, her office said on Thursday.</span></span></blockquote>Here's what Republican state representative <a href="http://feministing.com/2012/02/10/friday-feminist-fuck-yeah-gop-rep-speaks-out-for-gay-marriage-in-washington/">Maureen Walsh</a> had to say on the matter. Read it and weep.<br /><p></p><blockquote>You know, I was married for 23 years to the love of my life and he died 6 years ago. I think of all the wonderful years we had and the wonderful fringe benefits of having 3 beautiful children. I don’t miss the sex, and to me that’s kind of what this boils down to. I don’t miss that… I mean I certainly miss it, but it’s certainly not the aspect of that relationship, that incredible bond I had with that human being, that I really really genuinely wish I still had. And so I just think to myself: how could I deny anyone the right to have that incredible bond with another individual in life. To me it seems almost cruel.</blockquote><p></p>See, that's a person who has an actual, functioning conscience. By contrast, someone who demands taxpayer funding for discriminatory policies is simply a constitutionally illiterate grifter. I'd really like to spend my declining years in a country whose media can tell the difference.<br /><br />Speaking of which, what if bigots threw a tantrum and <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57373794/j.c-penney-ceo-on-ellen-degeneres-controversy/">no one cared</a>?<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>On "CBS This Morning," Thursday, jcpenney chief executive officer Ron Johnson, said the company "shares the same values" as DeGeneres and that the decision to have her as a spokesperson was a "no-brainer."</p> <p>"We don't look at it like a controversy. One of the great things about America is people can speak their mind. And you know, the organization that believes one thing has spoken and it was great to see Ellen share her views yesterday. And we stand squarely behind Ellen as our spokesperson and that's a great thing. Because she shares the same values that we do in our company. Our company was founded 110 years ago on The Golden Rule, which is about treating people fair and square, just like you would like to be treated yourself. And we think Ellen represents the values of our company and the values that we share."</p></blockquote><p></p>As part of its terrifying <a href="http://grist.org/list/santorum-warns-of-reign-of-environmental-terro/">reign of environmental terror</a>, the EPA is <a href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/10/MN2J1N5AAP.DTL">forbidding</a> ships from dumping their waste in California coastal waters, just as France did when they <strong style="font-weight: normal;">removed <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/blue-texan/rick-santorums-bizarre-revisionist-view">the pillar of God-given right</a></strong><a href="http://crooksandliars.com/blue-texan/rick-santorums-bizarre-revisionist-view"><strong style="font-weight: normal;">s and told you who you were and it </strong>became the guillotine</a><strong style="font-weight: normal;"></strong>!<br /><p> </p><blockquote><p>A federal rule banning ships from flushing their sewage into the sea within 3 miles of the California coast was approved Thursday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.</p> <p>The prohibition, which will go into effect next month, means cruise and cargo ships will no longer be able to discharge treated or untreated effluent or gray water anywhere along the coast, a practice that regulators blame for spreading bacteria and disease in marine mammals, fish and people.</p></blockquote>Five years after San Francisco transformed itself into a dystopian hellscape by restricting the use of plastic bags, its Board of Supervisors is preparing to pound a final <a href="http://inhabitat.com/san-francisco-to-expand-ban-on-plastic-bags/">eco-friendly nail</a> into civilization's coffin:<br /><blockquote>Almost five years ago, San Francisco became the first American city to ban plastic shopping bags from supermarkets and chain pharmacies. Now the city is poised to expand that ban to all retail stores and restaurants within the city limits. Only certain products, like newspapers, fish, poultry, fresh flowers, and bulk goods are exempted from the ban. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted unanimously to expand the ban, and it’s expected to be officially approved next week. </blockquote> Soon, plastic bags will be illegal for everything but hi-def BDSM videos. What would the Founding Fathers say (Ben Franklin excepted)?<br /><br />In related news, the Obama administration has just made it <a href="http://www.nps.gov/grca/planyourvisit/refilling_stations.htm">illegal</a> to drink water while hiking in the desert Southwest:<br /><blockquote>As a Climate Friendly Park, Grand Canyon National Park's staff, partners and stakeholders have made a commitment to take a leadership roll in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and educating the public about what they can do to reduce their impacts on the park. In order to reduce plastics in the park's waste stream, litter along trails and walkways and green house gas emissions Grand Canyon National Park will soon be eliminating the sale of water packaged in individual disposable containers and encourages everyone to reduce, reuse, refill.</blockquote>The inevitable next step? Restricting our intake of "unhealthy" foods in order to protect the coyotes who'll gnaw our bones after we die of thirst.<br /><br />Toronto's tough-guy mayor Rob Ford has suffered a well-deserved <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/node/54372">humiliation</a>:<br /><blockquote>In a stunning blow to Mayor Rob Ford -- who, on his first day in office in 2010 scrubbed the "Transit City" plan in favor of an ill-thought out and unfunded subway scheme -- the Toronto City Council has quashed his plans and resurrected the old one....<br /><br />[Ford] ignored the host of transit experts who called his vision nonsense. He refused to take his plans to city council, bypassing the city’s supreme democratic body. He spurned the [Toronto Transit Commission] manager and TTC chair who dared to question him. But on Wednesday, council struck back, handing the mayor his worst defeat and rubbishing his transit blueprint.</blockquote>Scott Walker and his cronies have some <a href="http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/138850044.html">additional woes</a> this week:<br /><blockquote>Nearly all of Wisconsin's Republican state lawmakers took the unusual step of signing a legal agreement in which they promised to not comment publicly about redistricting discussions while new GOP-friendly maps were being drafted, a newspaper reported. <p>The agreement was included in newly released documents in a federal lawsuit challenging the new district lines. Also included in the documents was a GOP memo outlining talking points that stressed anyone who discussed the maps could be called as a witness in the case. The memo also warned Republicans to ignore public comments about the maps and focus instead on what was being said in private strategy meetings.</p></blockquote><p></p>As does <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/?page=2">Rupert Murdoch</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote>The editor of Rupert Murdoch's <em>Times of London</em> conceded today that the newspaper <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?to=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052970204136404577209210228802128.html">misled</a> a British public inquiry in 2009 regarding an incident in which a <em>Times </em>reporter hacked into the email of an anonymous blogger who wrote about police activities....<br /><br />Meanwhile, Reuters <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2F2012%2F02%2F07%2Fus-usa-murdoch-investigation-idUSTRE81616620120207">reports</a> that the FBI if focusing its investigation into allegations that British tabloid employees, working for the U.S.-based News Corp., may have violated American law by <a href="http://mediamatters.org/rd?to=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Fbusiness-14039915">paying police officers</a> in exchange for news stories.<br /></blockquote><p></p>Rice University is <a href="http://www.good.is/post/a-nonprofit-publisher-puts-another-nail-in-the-200-textbook-coffin/">experimenting</a> with nonprofit textbook publishing:<br /><p></p><blockquote> According to <a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/02/07/rice-university-announces-open-source-textbooks">Inside Higher Education</a>, OpenStax plans to compete with <a href="http://www.good.is/post/why-are-college-textbooks-so-expensive/">pricey $200 hardback texts</a> from for-profit publishers by offering digital books for five common introductory classes for free, starting with sociology and physics texts this spring. OpenStax is beginning with introductory texts because the information in them is relatively basic and less likely to change year to year. Publishers are frequently accused of filling their coffers by updating textbook editions at random and then convincing professors to adopt the new version. If the OpenStax plan works, the multi-billion-dollar textbook industry could be in trouble.</blockquote><p></p>Vehicles became 14-percent more <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/cars/four-years-new-vehicles-became-14-more-fuel-efficient-us.html">fuel-efficient</a> over the last four years:<br /><blockquote>After what seemed like an eternity of mostly stagnation, average fuel economy for new vehicles has been going up in the United States. Researchers at the <a href="http://www.umich.edu/">University of Michigan</a> have conducted a study showing that for current model year vehicles, fuel economy is 14% higher than just four years ago, which might not sound like much, but it's much better than what we've got in the recent past.</blockquote>Spain now has a second <a href="http://inhabitat.com/aroas-second-solar-tulip-power-plant-springs-up-in-spain/">solar tower</a>:<br /><blockquote>Clean tech company AROA recently installed their second energy-generating Solar Tulip power tower in Spain, and the soaring flower-shaped power plant just went online this week. The beauty of the system stems beyond the elegant solar energy capturing tower - the system is designed to be modular, unlike any other concentrated solar power (CSP) electrical generator out there. The system also uses much less water than steam solar generators, enabling it to conserve precious resources on its hot desert site.</blockquote><a href="http://www.notechmagazine.com/2012/01/people-are-knowledge-the-oral-citations-project.html">This</a> is a fascinating idea:<br /><blockquote>The Oral Citations Project is a strategic research project funded by a Wikimedia Foundation grant to help overcome a lack of published material in emerging languages on Wikipedia. The idea behind the project is a simple one. Wikipedia privileges printed knowledge (books, journals, magazines, newspapers and more) as authentic sources of citable material. This is understandably so, for a lot of time and care goes into producing this kind of printed material, and restricting citation sources makes the enterprise workable. But books - and printed words generally - are closely correlated to rich economies: Europe, North America, and a small section of Asia.</blockquote>Word on the street is, Obamacare is forcing small businesses to set up fascist <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/hey-staples-put-your-lactation-chamber-and-pump-it">lactation chambers</a>, which will almost certainly be presided over by gay communist lactation panels:<br /><blockquote>Tom Stemberg, co-founder of the Staples office supply chain, complained in a recent interview that the Affordable Care Act (known by opponents as “Obamacare”) will cost jobs by mandating that employers set up “lactation chambers.”</blockquote>You can set this clever fellow straight by clicking <a href="https://secure.aclu.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=4077&s_subsrc=120209_staples_bor">here</a>.<br /><br />Oh, and lest I forget...the GOP is <a href="http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/02/pro-choice-gop-warns-party-that-contraception-fight-will-be-a-disaster.php?ref=fpa">attacking contraception</a>. In an election year. And a recession. For the benefit of a small and <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/08/17/297731/poll-tea-party-muslims/">wildly unpopular base</a>. I'm looking forward to their late October campaign against female drivers, which will be based equally on scripture and 1970s "Lockhorns" cartoons.<br /><br />Now, then. The <a href="http://moisttowelettemuseum.com/">Moist Towelette Museum</a>. <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/02/06/the_amazing_portable_signs_of_rural_america/singleton/">Portable signs</a> of rural America. <a href="http://theadventurous500.com/funny-facts/dr-seuss-covers">Dr. Seuss</a>: pedantic literalist. <a href="http://katnip.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/happy-and-gay-ads/">Gay gay gay</a>! Vintage <a href="http://mexicovers1.blogspot.com/">Mexican ads</a>. Photos by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryofnsw/sets/72157626731078059/">Arthur K. Syer</a>. And photos by <a href="http://www.eohoppe.com/galleries.html" class="l"><em></em></a><a href="http://www.eohoppe.com/galleries.html">E.O. Hoppé</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W4qE-k8mkyQ/TzXDzmn_FLI/AAAAAAAAE1c/G4TKJA8XNWM/s1600/FHB%2BHoppe.tiff"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-W4qE-k8mkyQ/TzXDzmn_FLI/AAAAAAAAE1c/G4TKJA8XNWM/s400/FHB%2BHoppe.tiff" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707683394070975666" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2012/02/07/impossible-cameras/">Impossible cameras</a>. The song of a <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0206-hance_jurassickatydid.html">Jurassic katydid</a>. The wooden <a href="http://www.notechmagazine.com/2012/01/wooden-work-boats.html">work boats</a> of Indochina. <a href="http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2012/02/anatomical-cross-sections-made-with-quilled-paper-by-lisa-nilsson/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+colossal+%28Colossal%29">Anatomical cross sections</a> made with quilled paper. And a gorgeous survey of <a href="http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/vexhibit/_THEME_Advertising_01/1/0/0/">advertising and commercial photography</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Azjqg2nLlDk/TzXD0E208oI/AAAAAAAAE1k/_UJpleOZ09g/s1600/FHB%2Btyre"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 369px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Azjqg2nLlDk/TzXD0E208oI/AAAAAAAAE1k/_UJpleOZ09g/s400/FHB%2Btyre" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707683402186289794" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://www.an-architecture.com/2012/02/broken-houses.html">Broken houses</a> (via <a href="http://www.thingsmagazine.net/">things</a>). Jewish <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/center_for_jewish_history/sets/72157622664600155/">children's books</a>. Our <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/3d-moon-map/">three-dimensional moon</a>. Polaroids by <a href="http://mikaelkennedy.com/polaroids/polaroids.html">Mikael Kennedy</a>. A <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/transphormetic/sets/72157628782703691/">scrapbook</a> from Tajikistan. And images of <a href="http://englishrussia.com/2012/02/09/frozen-black-sea/#more-91568">the frozen Black Sea</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OvIdctiGO7o/TzXDzRwF9ZI/AAAAAAAAE1A/lf0iV-SMdJo/s1600/FHB%2BBlack%2BSea.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 250px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-OvIdctiGO7o/TzXDzRwF9ZI/AAAAAAAAE1A/lf0iV-SMdJo/s400/FHB%2BBlack%2BSea.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5707683388467836306" border="0" /></a><br />(Painting at top: "Hidak Bridges" by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, 1921.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-31594091310761023192012-01-27T08:50:00.000-08:002012-01-27T17:18:16.307-08:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oK-M0a81K0s/TyNHtp2RatI/AAAAAAAAE0Q/r0oenfbNbI8/s1600/FHB%2BBB%2BTurner"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 294px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oK-M0a81K0s/TyNHtp2RatI/AAAAAAAAE0Q/r0oenfbNbI8/s400/FHB%2BBB%2BTurner" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702480402834352850" border="0" /></a><br />In an important ruling, the Supreme Court <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/supreme-court-gps-ruling-bringing-4th-amendment-21st-century">upheld</a> 4th Amendment privacy rights:<br /><p></p><blockquote>On Monday the Supreme Court issued a landmark decision protecting privacy in the digital age. In U.S. v. Jones, a unanimous Supreme Court held that the police and FBI violated the Fourth Amendment when they attached a GPS device to Antoine Jones’s car and tracked his movements for 28 days. While the case turned on the fact that the government physically placed a GPS device on Mr. Jones’s car, the implications are far broader. A majority of the justices acknowledged that advancing technology, like cell phone tracking, gives the government unprecedented ability to collect, store, and analyze an enormous amount of information about our private lives.</blockquote><p></p>Congress has <a href="http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/26/putting-fish-over-politics/">reauthorized</a> the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>A coalition came together at the last minute to pass the legislation. With vital support from the White House, the group spanned traditional partisan lines and included leaders from conservation as well as the commercial and recreational fishing communities.</p> <p>Initially, the discussion stalled on technical matters, as many debates in Congress do. In the end, however, the effort led to a well-considered compromise that balanced the many competing needs and pressures on our oceans. The linchpin was a new federal mandate promoting more sustainable practices on the water and embracing the usage of strong, science-based catch limits to restore and maintain fish populations at healthy levels.</p></blockquote><p></p>It's better to <a href="http://www.good.is/post/why-historic-buildings-are-greener-than-new-leed-certified-ones/">preserve</a> old buildings than to build new "green" ones:<br /><blockquote>[A] new report from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s Preservation Green Lab concludes that constructing new, energy-efficient buildings almost never saves as much energy as renovating old ones. Renovated buildings outperformed new buildings on energy savings in every category: single-family homes, multifamily complexes, commercial offices, “urban village” mixed-use structures, and elementary schools. Though the conclusion may seem counterintuitive in an age of ambitious LEED standards in many new buildings, consider that it uses more energy and creates more impact to construct an entirely new building than to fix up one of the same size for the same purpose.</blockquote>In related news, <a href="http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/43910">protecting</a> wetlands is better than restoring them:<br /><p></p><blockquote>Even after 100 years have passed a restored wetland may not reach the state of its former glory. A new study in the open access journal PLoS Biology finds that restored wetlands may take centuries to recover the biodiversity and carbon sequestration of original wetlands, if they ever do. The study questions laws, such as in the U.S., which allow the destruction of an original wetland so long as a similar wetland is restored elsewhere.</blockquote><p></p><a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-01-25/-social-equity-to-be-weighed-in-transit-funding-under-u-s-rule.html">OMG COMMUNISM!</a><br /><blockquote>The U.S. Department of Transportation wants to give more weight to factors including affordable-housing policy in deciding which local mass-transit initiatives will get federal money....<br /><p>Under the proposal, the agency would consider a project’s effects on air pollution, energy use, greenhouse-gas emissions and safety, and “social equity impacts” such as affordable housing and job creation. </p></blockquote><p></p>One of Scott Walker's staff members appears to have <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/two-more-former-walker-staffers-charg">struck a deal</a> with investigators:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Two staffers who worked directly for Gov. Scott Walker while he was county executive were charged Thursday with illegally doing extensive political work while being paid by taxpayers to do county jobs.</p> One of the two, Darlene Wink, cut a deal with prosecutors under which she agreed to provide information in a related investigation about the destruction of digital evidence and to aid in further prosecutions. </blockquote>Georgia will <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2012/freshwater-turtles-01-25-2012.html">restrict</a> harvesting of freshwater turtles:<br /><blockquote>The Georgia Department of Natural Resources Board of Directors today unanimously approved its first-ever state rules regulating the commercial collection of wild freshwater turtles. Georgia had been the only state in the Southeast without limitations on harvest or regulations on the export, farming and sale of native freshwater turtles. The new rules help address population declines of native southern turtle populations caused by unregulated harvest and export for international food markets. </blockquote>Also in Georgia, a local rattlesnake roundup is being <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2012/rattlesnake-roundup-01-24-2012.html">replaced</a> with a wildlife festival:<br /><blockquote>The Evans County Wildlife Club is replacing its annual rattlesnake roundup with the Claxton Rattlesnake and Wildlife Festival, which will feature displays of the imperiled <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/reptiles/eastern_diamondback_rattlesnake/index.html" target="_blank">eastern diamondback rattlesnake</a> and other native wildlife. Educational programs, entertainment and a variety of other activities will be offered at the event, held during the second weekend in March. </blockquote>Make of <a href="http://www.blogger.com/Scientists%20from%20the%20University%20of%20Bristol%20have%20developed%20a%20soap,%20composed%20of%20iron%20rich%20salts%20dissolved%20in%20water,%20that%20responds%20to%20a%20magnetic%20field%20when%20placed%20in%20solution.%20The%20soap%C3%A2%C2%80%C2%99s%20magnetic%20properties%20were%20proved%20with%20neutrons%20at%20the%20Institut%20Laue-Langevin%20to%20result%20from%20tiny%20iron-rich%20clumps%20that%20sit%20within%20the%20watery%20solution.%20The%20generation%20of%20this%20property%20in%20a%20fully%20functional%20soap%20could%20calm%20concerns%20over%20the%20use%20of%20soaps%20in%20oil-spill%20clean%20ups%20and%20revolutionise%20industrial%20cleaning%20products.">this</a> what you will:<br /><blockquote> Scientists from the University of Bristol have developed a soap, composed of iron rich salts dissolved in water, that responds to a magnetic field when placed in solution. The soap’s magnetic properties were proved with neutrons at the Institut Laue-Langevin to result from tiny iron-rich clumps that sit within the watery solution. The generation of this property in a fully functional soap could calm concerns over the use of soaps in oil-spill clean ups and revolutionise industrial cleaning products. </blockquote>In other news, please take a few moments to read about Google's new <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/aclu-lens-googles-new-privacy-policy">"privacy" policy</a>, if you haven't already. My personal opinion: Fuck these goddamn jackals in both eye sockets with 800 megatons of white-hot bituminous death. If you feel the same way, let them know. (But do it politely. Otherwise, you may end up getting targeted with ad content based on phrases like "fuck you goddamn jackals in both eye sockets with 800 megatons of white-hot bituminous death.")<br /><br />You are <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/6760135001/sizes/o/">here</a>. Nearby attractions: The <a href="http://www.listentothedeep.com/">deep</a>. <span style=""><strong></strong></span>The <a href="http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/vexhibit/_THEME_Portrait_19thc_Algerian_Ouled_Nails_01/1/0/0/">Ouleds-Nails</a>. The <a href="http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2012/01/20/australian-journey-no-3-the-corricks/">Corricks</a>. The <a href="http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2012/01/this-weeks-breathtaking-aurora-borealis/">aurora</a>.<a href="http://www.bbtk.ull.es/Private/folder/institucional/bbtk/volcanesdepapel/volcanesdepapel.html"> Volcanes de papel</a>. The <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/node/54036">Kazakhstan subway</a>. And the <a href="http://englishrussia.com/2012/01/27/museum-of-water-in-saint-petersburg-history-of-water-supply/">Museum of Water</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2ymIiPC8LrU/TyNL2mG4n8I/AAAAAAAAE0c/bDyWTNJ-WT4/s1600/watermuseumsaintpetersburg-7.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 266px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2ymIiPC8LrU/TyNL2mG4n8I/AAAAAAAAE0c/bDyWTNJ-WT4/s400/watermuseumsaintpetersburg-7.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702484954495623106" border="0" /></a><br />Also: The voice of <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/record-play-adapted-play-music-tree-rings.html">trees</a>. The poetics of <a href="http://stereo.nypl.org/">space</a>. Josephine the singer, or the <a href="http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/26/weird-wild-male-mice-have-singing-voices/">mouse folk</a>. New hope for the <a href="http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-01/lu-hft012712.php">dead</a>. The riddle of the <a href="http://praguemonitor.com/2012/01/27/czech-archaeologists-discover-long-lost-temple-sudan">sands</a>. And the work of <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/hartlepool_museum/sets/72157626801939360/">fire</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--q6HSD5o0h8/TyNL2yGBC4I/AAAAAAAAE0o/_o2jD6BYpPg/s1600/5758093128_d56823841d_z.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 246px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/--q6HSD5o0h8/TyNL2yGBC4I/AAAAAAAAE0o/_o2jD6BYpPg/s400/5758093128_d56823841d_z.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5702484957713206146" border="0" /></a><br />(Photo at top: "Crystal Palace, Hyde Park" by Benjamin Brecknell Turner, 1852.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-39133207513978287882012-01-20T11:34:00.000-08:002012-01-20T14:21:14.335-08:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZiDzZfjgRLo/TxnoyUx1jKI/AAAAAAAAE0E/yYGRupdYhm0/s1600/Evening_ca_1824.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 271px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZiDzZfjgRLo/TxnoyUx1jKI/AAAAAAAAE0E/yYGRupdYhm0/s400/Evening_ca_1824.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5699842754682916002" border="0" /></a><br />A busy day, but perhaps I can get a few links posted all the same.<br /><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/01/20/407994/obama-administration-approves-rule-that-guarantees-near-universal-contraceptive-coverage/"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></a><blockquote><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/01/20/407994/obama-administration-approves-rule-that-guarantees-near-universal-contraceptive-coverage/">Obama administration approves rule that guarantees near-universal contraceptive coverage</a>.<br /><br /><a id="titleHref" href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/20/1056624/-Over-80-mayors-unite-to-support-marriage-equality"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Over 80 mayors unite to support marriage equality</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://feministing.com/2012/01/19/massachusetts-passes-law-protecting-trans-residents/" title="Permalink to Massachusetts passes law protecting trans residents" rel="bookmark"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Massachusetts passes law protecting trans residents</a>.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><a href="http://floridaindependent.com/65318/newt-gingrich-rick-santorum-catholics-to-stop-perpetuating-ugly-racial-stereotypes">Catholic leaders tell Gingrich, Santorum "to stop perpetuating ugly racial stereotypes."</a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><a href="http://floridaindependent.com/65306/polling-latina-abortion">Majority of Latina/o population supports reproductive rights</a>.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/bikes/new-cycling-superhighway-not-us.html">A new four-lane superhighway to be built only for bikes</a>.<br /><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/cars/electric-car-batteries-being-tested-grid-emergency-storage.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>Old electric car batteries to find second life on the power grid</a>.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/nationnow/2012/01/army-destroys-last-toxins-in-utah-chemical-weapons-cache.html">Army destroying last chemical weapons in Utah cache</a>.<br /><a href="http://www.good.is/post/what-the-keystone-xl-decision-means-for-the-future-of-environmental-activism/"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span>Why Obama rejected Keystone XL</a>.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/over-half-germany-renewable-energy-owned-citizens-not-utility-companies.html">Over half of Germany's renewable energy owned by citizens and farmers, not utility companies</a>. (h/t: Karin, who also sent me this: <span id="DetailedTitle"><a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/12/20111230112731633200.html">Solar power lights up Bangladesh</a>.)</span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2012/leatherback-sea-turtle-01-20-2012.html">More than 40,000 square miles protected for Pacific Leatherback sea turtles</a>.<span style="font-family:sans-serif,arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><b><br /><br /></b></span></span></span><a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0119-indonesia_kalimantan.html">Indonesia to set aside 45 percent of Kalimantan for conservation</a>.<br /><br /><span style="font-family:sans-serif,arial;font-size:85%;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><b><a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0117-app_levi_strauss.html"></a></b></span></span></span><a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0117-app_levi_strauss.html">Levi's new forest policy excludes fiber from suppliers linked to deforestation</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-technology-and-liberty/sopa-and-pipa-votes-delayed-indefinitely" rel="bookmark" title="SOPA and PIPA Votes Delayed Indefinitely"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>SOPA and PIPA votes delayed indefinitely</a>.</blockquote>That's it for now. I hope to do things "properly" next week.<br /><br />(Image at top: "Evening" by Caspar David Friedrich, ca. 1824.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-81923844872371391882012-01-13T14:54:00.000-08:002012-01-13T14:55:48.334-08:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-r_a9LRTyzaU/TxCxINk5XAI/AAAAAAAAEzs/Vyu8Hb4SYss/s1600/gysin.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 313px; height: 400px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-r_a9LRTyzaU/TxCxINk5XAI/AAAAAAAAEzs/Vyu8Hb4SYss/s400/gysin.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697248283265162242" border="0" /></a><br />The United Methodist Church has <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/why-united-methodist-church-divested-private-prisons">divested</a> its stock in the private prison system:<br /><blockquote>Religious collusion with destructive forces is a horrible thing to openly confess and even more difficult to break. <p>So, it was stunning to begin 2012 learning that the United Methodist Board of Pensions, the board that controls the investments of the United Methodist Church, decided not only to divest from CCA and GEO Group entirely, but to permanently <a href="http://prisondivestment.wordpress.com/2012/01/05/social-justice-agency-salutes-pension-fund-for-divesting-from-private-prison-investments/">put into place a screen</a> that will not allow us to invest in the future into any corporation that has gross revenues of 10% or more from private prisons.</p> </blockquote><a href="http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/12/marine-fights-for-gay-brothers-right-to-marry/">Meanwhile</a>:<br /><blockquote>Craig Stowell fought with the U.S. Marines in Iraq in 2004 and now is fighting for the right of gays, like his brother, to marry in New Hampshire.... <p>"When New Hampshire extended marriage to gay and lesbian couples, two years ago, he finally felt accepted. He finally felt like he belonged. Since that day 1,800 loving and committed gay and lesbian couples have married."</p> <p><span id="more-5015"></span></p> <p>As the New Hampshire Legislature prepares to vote on whether to repeal <a href="http://e-lobbyist.com/gaits/text/506714">the law, HB 437</a>, Craig Stowell - who serves as the Republican co-chairman of Standing Up For New Hampshire Families - has launched an online campaign to keep the law as it is.</p> </blockquote><p></p><a href="http://jezebel.com/5875521/">Also</a>:<br /><blockquote>Nine Native Americans have served in the Minnesota state legislature since the state's founding, and all of them have been men. But on Tuesday, The Land of 10,000 Lakes chose via special election its first ever Native American woman to serve on its state legislature, and the first Native American lesbian to ever serve in any state legislature anywhere.</blockquote>Apropos of which, the anti-gay zealot Mike Goeke asks <a href="http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2012/01/21429/">an interesting question</a>:<br /><blockquote>Homosexuality is the only sinful behavior that has a cultural identity and movement surrounding it. What other sin is encouraged to be celebrated? What other sin has a “pride” movement attached to it?</blockquote>I'm gonna go out on a limb and say <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/chamber-president-calls-for-approval-of-oil-pipeline-defends-romney-against-gop-attacks/2012/01/12/gIQA5JcwtP_story.html">greed</a>. And <a href="http://vikingkitties.blogspot.com/">wrath</a>. And <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201201120008">bearing false witness</a>.<br /><br />So far, Girl Scouts of America seems to be <a href="http://feministing.com/2012/01/12/counter-boycott-the-girl-scouts/">shrugging off</a> a boycott of its cookies by sex-obsessed busybodies:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Last October, Girl Scouts USA welcomed a 7-year-old transgender girl among its ranks. The organization released a surprisingly but welcomingly progressive <a href="http://www.glaad.org/node/39044">statement</a>: “Girl Scouts is an inclusive organization and we accept all girls in Kindergarten through 12th grade as members. If a child identifies as a girl and the child’s family presents her as a girl, Girl Scouts of Colorado welcomes her as a Girl Scout.”</p> <p>The action provoked outrage among cissexist parents, who have been– at least, as it appears in pro-boycott videos– teaching their daughters that these transgender girl scouts threaten the safety of others and the integrity of the program. These <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/girl-scout-cookies-protest-minnesota_n_818183.html">parents and scouts</a> have indicated that it’s now easy for young “boys” to rape girls, since they simply have to pretend to be transgender at age six, then rape and assault other girl scouts while sharing a tent with them. Because it’s<em> that</em> easy to be a sexual predator who pretends to be trans, with your parents’ support, when you’re barely old enough to read.</p></blockquote><p></p>This just in: When your ideology obliges you to demonize seven-year-olds, it's a safe bet that there's something seriously wrong with it. If you want to reward GSA's good behavior -- or punish the boycotters' bad behavior -- consider donating to <a href="http://www.girlscoutsofcolorado.org/catalog/donation-catalog">Girl Scouts of Colorado</a>. Failing that, you could always buy some cookies.<br /><br />The Obama administration has <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2012/grand-canyon-uranium-01-09-2012.html">finalized</a> a 20-year-ban on uranium mining near the Grand Canyon:<br /><blockquote>Today’s Interior Department “record of decision” establishes a 20-year ban on new uranium mining and mining of current claims without valid permits across 1 million acres (more than 1,500 square miles). The ban will protect Grand Canyon’s springs and creeks, as well as imperiled species like the humpback chub, from uranium-mining pollution. <p>“This landmark decision closes the door on rampant industrialization of Grand Canyon’s watersheds,” said Roger Clark of the Grand Canyon Trust. “Uranium mining imposes well documented and unacceptable risks to the people and natural resources of our region.” </p></blockquote><p></p>In 2011, no <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2012/0110-hance_rhinos_nepal.html">rhinos</a> were killed by poachers in Nepal:<br /><blockquote> "This is the first time in 29 years that Nepal has gone an entire year without a single poached rhino, and it’s a testament to the efforts of the Government of Nepal, WWF and many partners," said Barney Long, Asian species expert at WWF. "We hope the new year will bring additional good news from other countries like South Africa as they continue to crack down on rhino poaching." </blockquote>And India has gone a full year year without any reported cases of <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-india-polio-20120113,0,5751154.story?track=icymi">polio</a>:<br /><blockquote>"It's an incredible milestone for polio eradication," said Rod Curtis, a New Delhi-based specialist with UNICEF. "But complacency is perhaps the biggest threat to the program today. You could get down to the last three children in the world, but unless you [immunize] those kids, it could explode again."</blockquote><a href="http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2012/01/texmessage-sopa-author-lamar-smith-caught-with-copyright-infringement/"></a>Behold our <a href="http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/2012/01/texmessage-sopa-author-lamar-smith-caught-with-copyright-infringement/">best and brightest</a>:<br /><blockquote>Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio got schooled at his own game while Congress is at recess. Smith, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, may have underestimated the trolling habits of Internet techies scorned by his Stop Online Piracy Act....<br /><br /><a href="http://www.vice.com/read/lamar-smith-sopa-copyright-whoops">Vice</a> found that Smith’s official campaign website featured a background photo of a lush forest scene–without a photo credit. After a quick search, they found the image belonged to<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/oxherder/4189641199/in/pool-89888984@N00"> DJ Schulte</a>, a photographer who captured the scene in Bear Creek, Texas. </blockquote>I blame Teh Gays.<br /><br />Citizens in Wisconsin have gathered enough signatures to <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/13/1054390/-BREAKINGOrganizers-Have-Enough-Sigs-to-Recall-SCOTT-FITZGERALD%21?via=siderec">recall</a> Scott Fitzgerald:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Recall organizers still have the rest of today and all day tomorrow to increase their margin to help fight off any challenges from Fitzgerald.</p> <p>This is the one they said couldn't be done. The Democratic Party and United Wisconsin both passed on this opportunity, so one local citizen, Lori Compas of Fort Atkinson, started the recall against Fitz on her own.</p></blockquote><p></p>The EPA has <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/environment/la-me-gs-epa-web-tool-tracks-major-greenhouse-gas-sources-20120111,0,370183.story">launched</a> a new website that allows you to identify the largest greenhouse-gas emitters in your area:<br /><blockquote>Carbon pollution is pretty abstract for most people, and they don’t where it comes from and who’s responsible,” said David Doniger, policy director for the Climate and Clean Air program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “These kinds of right-to-know tools are very popular and can make a difference. Once people know the level of greenhouse gases in their backyards, they will demand to know what company officials and elected officials will do about it.”</blockquote>German researchers are working on an <a href="http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2012/01/11/fewer_animal_experiments_thanks_to_nanosensors.html">alternative</a> to animal testing:<br /><blockquote>"We're basically using a test tube to study the effects of chemicals and their potential risks. What we do is take living cells, which were isolated from human and animal tissue and grown in cell cultures, and expose them to the substance under investigation," explains Dr. Jennifer Schmidt of the EMFT. If a given concentration of the substance is poisonous to the cell, it will die. This change in "well-being" can be rendered visible by the sensor nanoparticles developed by Dr. Schmidt and her team. </blockquote>In Lowell, MA, veterans <a href="http://www.lowellsun.com/local/ci_19718719">rallied</a> around an Iraqi woman whose restaurant was vandalized:<p></p><blockquote><p>An area veterans group pledged to fill every seat in Babylon, a downtown Iraqi restaurant where owners feared hatred drove a man to throw a 20-pound rock through a window last Wednesday.... </p><p><span id="RDS_site">Ahmed Al-Zubaidi said the </span><span id="RDS_site">incident drove his wife to tears, and prompted her to question whether the family should close the restaurant. </span><span id="RDS_site">The show of support from veterans and the community drove her to tears of joy last night, he said. <p>"This solidarity gives us the courage to stand," said Al-Zubaidi. "There is no more fear in my heart because there are such nice people behind us." </p></span> </p></blockquote><p></p><h4><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/defending-targets-discrimination/remembering-gordon-hirabayashi">Gordon Hirabayashi</a>, a brave Japanese-American who refused to report to an internment camp during WWII, died this week in Canada at the age of 93. His argument against obeying an unjust power bears repeating, at the very least:</span></h4><blockquote>“If I were to register and cooperate… I would be giving helpless consent to the denial of practically all of the things which give me incentive to live,” he said then. “I must maintain the democratic standards for which this nation lives. I am objecting to the principle of this order which denies the right of human beings, including citizens."</blockquote><p></p><a href="http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-love-hotels-soaplands-and-other-japanese-sex-hotel-ruins">Photographs by </a><a href="http://www.lensculture.com/webloglc/mt_files/archives/2012/01/time.html">Adam Magyar</a> (take the time to watch the video; it's gorgeous and oddly moving). <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/natural-sciences/monkeys-found-have-used-tools-escape-zoo-brazil.html">A Man Escaped</a>, or The Wind Bloweth Where It Listeth. <a href="http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-love-hotels-soaplands-and-other-japanese-sex-hotel-ruins">Abandoned love hotels</a>. Photographs by <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,808042,00.html">Hein Gorny</a>. Contemporary <a href="http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/vexhibit/_THEME_Contemporary_Pinhole_01/1/0/0/">pinhole photography</a>. The photographic collection of the <a href="http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/vexhibit/_THEME_Austrian_Geographical_Society_01/1/0/0/">Austrian Geographic Society</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5WUPDlO4MNU/TxCy3RdTsEI/AAAAAAAAEz4/hCzYw4NddzU/s1600/FHB.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 290px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5WUPDlO4MNU/TxCy3RdTsEI/AAAAAAAAEz4/hCzYw4NddzU/s400/FHB.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5697250191272554562" border="0" /></a><br />(Painting at top by Brion Gysin, 1959.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-17211004659619418652012-01-06T08:22:00.000-08:002012-01-06T15:04:09.504-08:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4NfnXxDz6bY/TwdYNTOzc-I/AAAAAAAAEy8/ywCJMYOE56A/s1600/FHB%2BBeetle.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-4NfnXxDz6bY/TwdYNTOzc-I/AAAAAAAAEy8/ywCJMYOE56A/s400/FHB%2BBeetle.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5694617239357191138" border="0" /></a><br />Civil unions are now <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/01/us/civil-unions/index.html">legal</a> in Delaware and Hawaii:<br /><blockquote>Several same-sex couples came together in the first minutes of New Year's Day in Honolulu to become the first in the state's history to enter into civil unions. <p>"We really don't want to wait any longer because we have been together for 33 years waiting for the opportunity and our rights and everything that goes with it," said Donna Gedge, who was with her partner Monica Montgomery, speaking to CNN affiliate KITV. "So why wait?"</p></blockquote><p></p>Virginity tests are now <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/dec/27/virginity-tests-egypt-protesters-illegal">illegal</a> in Egypt:<br /><p></p><blockquote>Forced "virginity tests" on female detainees were ruled illegal in Egypt on Tuesday, after a court ordered an end to the practice.<br /><br />Hundreds of activists were in the Cairo courtroom to hear the judge, Aly Fekry, say the army could not use the test on women held in military prisons in a case filed by Samira Ibrahim, one of seven women subjected to the test after being arrested in Tahrir Square during a protest on 9 March.</blockquote><p></p>Jamaica's new prime minister is <a href="http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/2012/01/newly-elected-jamaican-prime-minister-portia-simpson-miller-a-strong-advocate-for-gay-rights.html">taking a stand</a> against homophobia:<br /><blockquote>Jamaica's newly elected first female prime minister, Portia Simpson Miller, says discrimination against gay people is wrong.<br /><br />"No one should be discriminated against because of their sexual orientation," Simpson Miller said during a recent election debate, adding that unlike her predecessor she would be open to appointing a qualified gay person to her cabinet.</blockquote><p></p><div style="width: 1px; height: 1px; overflow: hidden;"><br />Read more here: http://miamiherald.typepad.com/gaysouthflorida/2012/01/newly-elected-jamaican-prime-minister-portia-simpson-miller-a-strong-advocate-for-gay-rights.html#storylink=cpy</div><a href="http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/01/05/racist-redneck-shop-in-south-carolina-now-owned-by-black-church/#more-8460">Ha ha ha</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>After a four-year legal battle, a black Baptist church in South Carolina now is the legal owner of a building housing the infamous Redneck Shop, which operates a Ku Klux Klan museum and sells KKK and other racist clothing.</p> <p>The Rev. David Kennedy, a long-time civil rights activist and pastor of New Beginnings Baptist Church in Laurens, S.C., told Hatewatch today he can’t wait to turn the racist landmark “into a place of diversity.”</p></blockquote><p></p>Furthermore, <a href="http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2012/01/04/conservative-maine-news-site-fires-white-nationalist-writer/">ha ha ha</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>When the conservative Maine Heritage Policy Center launched its political blog last month, newly hired chief executive Lance Dutson predicted in an editorial that “we’ll no doubt have kinks to work out along the way.”</p> <p>Well, a big kink developed this week when other Maine bloggers pointed out that one of the center’s newly hired writers, Leif Parsell, has a long history of espousing white superiority and may even have ties to neo-Nazi organizations.</p> Those revelations led to Parsell’s firing on Tuesday, Dutson confirmed today to Hatewatch.</blockquote>Isn't it odd how few neo-Nazis seem to understand that Hitler was a lefty? It's certainly not for lack of spending time on Free Republic.<br /><br />Speaking of which, Obama has made four <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/04/1051549/-President-Obama-making-recess-appointments-to-labor-board,-again-braving-GOP-outrage">recess appointments</a>, just like Hitler!<br /><p></p><blockquote>Obama's decision to recess appoint both these NLRB members and Cordray to the CFPB doesn't just put qualified people into the government—it enables the government agencies themselves to function. That functioning, not the specific individuals, was what Republicans hoped to obstruct. It goes without saying that the GOP will be <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/04/1051531/-GOP-leadership-outraged-by-Obamas-appointment-of-Richard-Cordray?detail=hide&via=blog_1">outraged</a> all over again, despite the fact that the last three <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/01/04/397537/breaking-obama-recess-appoints-nlrb/">Republican presidents</a> all made recess appointments to the NLRB. Kudos to Obama for braving the outrage and doing what needs to be done to keep government working.</blockquote><p></p>The EPA is <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2012/01/04/397397/job-killing-epa-regulations-chesapeake-bay-create-many-jobs-keystone-xl-pipeline/">creating jobs</a>, just like Hitler!<br /><p></p><blockquote>A new report released today by the Chesapeake Bay Foundation highlights the job creation numbers — 240,000 full-time jobs — expected to come from achieving new pollution goals set by the EPA’s “Total Maximum Daily Load” restrictions. Finalized in December 2010, these rules require a 25 percent reduction of pollution flowing into the Bay by 2025 and have already spurred state and federal investment in stormwater mitigation projects, upgrades at sewage treatment facilities, addition of power plant smokestack scrubbers, and improvements to management of agricultural runoff and livestock waste management.</blockquote><p></p>And scientists have <a href="http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2012/01/03/lost_world_discovered_around_antarctic_vents.html">discovered</a> various new species on the seafloor near Antarctica, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IBHyUCw-vg">just like Hitler</a>!<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>"Hydrothermal vents are home to animals found nowhere else on the planet that get their energy not from the Sun but from breaking down chemicals, such as hydrogen sulphide," said Professor Alex Rogers of Oxford University's Department of Zoology, who led the research. "The first survey of these particular vents, in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica, has revealed a hot, dark, 'lost world' in which whole communities of previously unknown marine organisms thrive." </p> <p>Highlights from the ROV dives include images showing huge colonies of the new species of yeti crab, thought to dominate the Antarctic vent ecosystem, clustered around vent chimneys. Elsewhere the ROV spotted numbers of an undescribed predatory sea-star with seven arms crawling across fields of stalked barnacles. It also found an unidentified pale octopus, nearly 2,400 metres down, on the seafloor. </p></blockquote><p></p>The last asbestos mine in Canada has gone <a href="http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/industry-news/energy-and-resources/canadas-asbestos-industry-on-its-last-legs/article2291320/">bankrupt</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote> Production at one mine has been halted until it can get refinancing, and another miner – Thetford Mines, Que.-based LAB Chrysotile –filed for bankruptcy Wednesday, leaving no active operations in Canada. </blockquote><p></p>The wood stork population in the Southeast is <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2012/wood-stork-01-04-2012.html">recovering</a> thanks to the ESA:<br /><blockquote>The Center for Biological Diversity said today that the <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/species/birds/wood_stork/status_study.html" target="_blank">wood stork</a> should be downlisted from “endangered” to “threatened” because its population has grown dramatically since it was protected under the federal Endangered Species Act. The change will not reduce the species’ legal protections, but is an important step toward full recovery and removal from the Act’s oversight.<br /><br />“The beautiful wood stork is just one of hundreds of species the Endangered Species Act has successfully put on the road to recovery,” said the Center’s Marty Bergoffen. “From the brink of extinction, the wood stork multiplied to 12,000 nesting pairs in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.”</blockquote>While we were busy <a href="http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/12/03/should-obama-create-infrastructure-jobs-a-debate-overview/">debating</a> whether it's government's place to repair crumbling bridges, China <a href="http://inhabitat.com/china-launches-the-worlds-largest-battery-in-a-renewable-smart-grid/">built</a> the world's largest battery:<br /><blockquote>China just took a massive step forward for renewable energy as it flipped the switch on the world’s largest battery, which will help integrate a solar project and a wind farm into a smart grid. Capable of storing 36 megawatts hours of power and taking up the area of a football field, the giant battery bank was built as a joint venture between solar and electric car company <a class="" href="http://inhabitat.com/chinas-byd-auto-to-debut-2-plugin-evs-at-the-detroit-auto-show/">BYD</a> and the State Grid Corporation of China to improve a large wind and solar electric installation’s efficiency by 5-10%. </blockquote><a href="http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/01/05/online-and-mobile-coupons-save-paper/">Electronic coupons</a> save paper, which saves trees:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Do your coupons often end up scrunched up and tossed into your garbage (or recycling) bin? Think about this: an estimated <a href="http://visual.ly/life-paper-grocery-coupon">1.135 million trees are cut down</a> and processed to print paper grocery coupons every month.</p> <p>That is roughly equivalent to 2,500 acres of woods. A total of 13.62 million trees are used each year to print coupons.</p><p>These days, more consumers are discovering a way to reduce such paper use, while gaining more convenience and reducing clutter. Instead of clipping paper coupons, they are opting for electronic grocery coupons.</p></blockquote><p></p>Last, John McCain has refused to pass the official torch of unelectable douchebaggery to Rick "Everyone Hates Me But Teabaggers" Santorum. Instead, he bestowed it on his old pal Mitt "Everyone Hates Me <span style="font-style: italic;">Including</span> Teabaggers" Romney in this <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/01/05/1051927/-Not-breaking:-Mitt-Romney-is-not%C2%A0wellliked?via=search">touching ceremony</a>:<br /><blockquote>[McCain] grimaced when he was introduced, and as Romney delivered his own stump speech, an increasingly impatient McCain pulled up his sleeve and checked his watch. McCain gave his endorsement address without mentioning Romney’s Iowa win until the end. “By the way, we forgot to congratulate him on his landslide victory last night,” he said, laughing. Romney ignored him. </blockquote>May they walk many miles together.<br /><br />Meanwhile: Chromolithographs by <a href="http://legacy.www.nypl.org/research/sibl/trouvelot/homep.html">E.L. Trouvelot</a>. Prints by <a href="http://legacy.www.nypl.org/research/chss/spe/art/print/exhibits/gillray/">James Gillray</a>. Watercolors by <a href="http://library.sc.edu/spcoll/abbot/default.html">John Abbot</a>. Paintings by <a href="http://store.odi.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/Framer.asp?URL=%2F2007%2F11%2FExhibitions%2Fexhibit1a5c.html">Curzona Allport</a>. Illustrations by <a href="http://library.morrisville.edu/coyecollection.aspx">Lee Brown Coye</a>. Photos by <a href="http://library.duke.edu/exhibits/melrosenthal/">Mel Rosenthal</a>. Photos by <a href="http://www.lensculture.com/shibuya.html?thisPic=100">Seiji Shibuya</a>. And photos by <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/hmp/">Hugh Mangum</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QAgovQDs7Ew/TwdYN7DYpKI/AAAAAAAAEzg/MTaxuYa9tG0/s1600/Mangum.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 265px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QAgovQDs7Ew/TwdYN7DYpKI/AAAAAAAAEzg/MTaxuYa9tG0/s400/Mangum.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5694617250046715042" border="0" /></a><br />In addition to which: London, <a href="http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/online_tours/britain/london_1753/london_1753.aspx">1753</a>. Comic strips, <a href="http://library.duke.edu/exhibits/earlycomicstrips/">1898-1916</a>. Sheet music, <a href="http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/ihas/html/volcano/volcano-home.html">1800-1922</a>. Oregon, <a href="http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/exhibits/across/index.html">1940</a>. Nineteenth-century <a href="http://library.sc.edu/spcoll/kidlit/kidlit/kidlit.html">children's literature</a>. Nineteenth-century performers on the <a href="http://legacy.www.nypl.org/west/">Overland Trail</a>. Night thoughts of a <a href="http://www.thenation.com/article/164466/night-thoughts-baffled-humanist">baffled humanist</a>. An <a href="http://store.odi.statelibrary.tas.gov.au/Framer.asp?URL=%2F2007%2F11%2FExhibitions%2Ffarflungplaces.html">ABC of travel</a>. The <a href="http://pruned.blogspot.com/2012/01/delta.html">Yukon delta</a>. Photos by <a href="http://alkek.library.txstate.edu/swwc/wg/exhibits/Iturbide/intro.html">Graciela Iturbide</a>. And photos by <a href="http://dallaslibrary2.org/texas/Grant/index.htm">Clint Grant</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mhl_B6Wpwdo/TwdYN2sPAcI/AAAAAAAAEzQ/qYt29c0xHEc/s1600/Grant.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 277px; height: 350px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mhl_B6Wpwdo/TwdYN2sPAcI/AAAAAAAAEzQ/qYt29c0xHEc/s400/Grant.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5694617248875872706" border="0" /></a><br />Therefore:<a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/mma/"> Medicine and Madison Avenue</a>. Arte <a href="http://cvc.cervantes.es/artes/muvap/">publicitario</a>. Dogon <a href="http://anthro.unige.ch/galerie/inagina/index.gb.html">blacksmiths</a>. Oregon <a href="http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/tm/home.htm">trademarks</a>. Yiddish <a href="http://library.brown.edu/cds/sheetmusic/yiddish/">sheet music</a>. Texas <a href="http://digital.lib.uh.edu/cdm4/about_collection.php?CISOROOT=/p15195coll16">postcards</a>. North American <a href="http://www.museevirtuel-virtualmuseum.ca/sgc-cms/expositions-exhibitions/panoramas/home-e.html">panoramas</a>. Botanical <a href="http://inhabitat.com/nyc-landmarks-recreated-with-millions-of-plant-parts-at-the-new-york-botanical-garden/">New York</a>. Pictures of <a href="http://alkek.library.txstate.edu/swwc/wg/heroes/index.html">children</a>. Pictures of <a href="http://digital.library.unlv.edu/collections/showgirls">showgirls</a>. The <a href="http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2012/01/rocket-book.html">Rocket Book</a>. And photographs by <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/gedney/">William Gedney</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qs0H_Za5Qv0/TwdYNrC7BxI/AAAAAAAAEzI/fCCzSb9i1is/s1600/Gedney.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 277px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qs0H_Za5Qv0/TwdYNrC7BxI/AAAAAAAAEzI/fCCzSb9i1is/s400/Gedney.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5694617245749806866" border="0" /></a><br />(Photo at top: "Foreleg of a male diving beetle" by <a href="http://www.wellcomeimageawards.org/#">Spike Walker</a>, 2011.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-12025111554934055482012-01-02T16:29:00.000-08:002012-01-03T12:50:13.889-08:00Protect the Queen!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PQsYgYeSGCU/TwKHtxEdPBI/AAAAAAAAEyw/e05eEgtVIu4/s1600/2012.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 226px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PQsYgYeSGCU/TwKHtxEdPBI/AAAAAAAAEyw/e05eEgtVIu4/s320/2012.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5693262099285621778" border="0" /></a><br />Many years ago, someone published some <a href="http://twitter.com/RP_Newsletter">racially insensitive commentary</a> under Dr. Ron Paul's name while he was out defending the Constitution. Ever since then, the Democrats, the RNC, the media, ZOG and the rest of the usual suspects have been using a desperate "guilt by association" strategy to link Dr. Paul with the writings published for years beneath his name and above his signature.<br /><br />Unfortunately for the statists, this slander is doomed to fail because no hard evidence supports it. Where's your 48 kHz ADAT recording of Dr. Paul expressing solidarity with the KKK? Where's your hi-def video of him burning a cross on a black person's lawn in June of 1980? Where are his white-power tattoos? On which Skrewdriver album does he sing backing vocals? Where's his tweet that says "I hate darkies and I don't care who knows it"?<br /><br />Face it: In the absence of <span style="font-style: italic;">compelling</span> evidence, all you Paul-haters have is a bunch of racially charged rants published under his name for his direct financial and political benefit.<br /><br />Which amounts to less than nothing, because Ron Paul is no racist, as evidenced by the fact that he can't be a racist because he isn't one, period. Ron Paul's supporters aren't racists either. When they found themselves receiving newsletters containing these arguably offensive comments, they immediately complained that someone was writing potentially horrible things under Dr. Paul's name. And as we all remember, Dr. Paul promptly reassured his subscribers by apologizing publicly for the articles and severing all ties with the person or people he paid to write them. Most important of all, he conceded that as the captain of his soul and the master of his fate, the whole dreadful episode was <span style="font-style: italic;">nobody's fault but his. </span><br /><br />And I'm sure we all recall how shocked Dr. Paul was when he started getting letters and phone calls from subscribers saying things like "thanks for giving us God's honest truth about the nigras!" Once again, he identified the cause of this misconception, took Full Personal Responsibility™ for it, and announced that he'd prefer to do without the support of people who were praising him for hateful views that he doesn't actually hold.<br /><br />To the limited extent that none of this actually happened, it's possibly because not only did Ron Paul not <span style="font-style: italic;">not</span> not write the newsletters, but he also didn't mail them. Why? Because no one subscribed to them. Why not? Because subscription lists are a form of collectivism and the USPS is an outpost of Soviet Russia, where the mail checks <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span>. To imply that Dr. Paul would use The Socialized Mail despite his steadfast adherence to the consistent principle of principled consistency is utterly beyond the pale, even for his reptile detractors. Furthermore, it's quite possible that when his subscribers received the newsletters they left them sealed on purpose. They probably said, "To open this newsletter and read it would be to subject Dr. Paul to an interrogation of sorts. It runs the risk of vandalizing the private property of his thought, without giving him the opportunity to defend it against my accidental misapprehensions or — God forbid! — my inadequate purity of intent."<br /><br />That's what I'd do, anyway. And I don't flatter myself that I'm unique in that regard. If I'm right, as we have reason to believe, then not only did Dr. Paul not write the newsletters but his supporters didn't read them and the whole thing's a teapot in a tempest.<br /><br />This is not to suggest that Ron Paul's views are necessarily in perfect lockstep with those of the multiculturalist elite, especially as regards homos. But consider this: He's a product of an earlier era and a different culture. Surely you don't expect the poor man to transcend these early formative experiences through the self-interested exercise of Willpower and Rationality? He can't help how he was raised! Cut him some slack, for Christ's sake.<br /><br />And remember, a vote for Paul is a vote for <span style="font-style: italic;">peace in our time</span>. There's no other unelectable third-party candidate you can say that about, anywhere. And even if there were, that person probably has some baggage too. After all, nobody's perfect!<br /><br />And now, let us never speak of this again.<br /><br />UPDATE I: I was perfectly well aware when I put the careful thought and ran the grave personal risk into and of compiling this unexceptionable summary of facts that only moral pygmies could deny, that the aforementioned moral pygmies would not only deny them, but also put their inquisitorial zeal on display by attempting to torture my words into revealing some consequence, some omission or some agenda that I could then be said somehow to have overlooked or attempted to obscure. These self-appointed Witchfinders General believe that by literally plunging their needles into my arguments, they will find some rhetorical devil's mark that will excuse them from the sad duty of facing the uncomfortable facts that shroud them in guilt. Regardless, ipso facto and notwithstanding, I will continue to speak the truth and literally let the chips fall where they may.<br /><br />UPDATE II: Given their Manichean zeal to act as Lord Inquisitors against principled voices of dissent -- no matter how calm, rational or impossible for a good-hearted person to disagree with -- one can easily imagine the sort of <span style="font-style: italic;">Kristallnacht</span> my bland statements of demonstrable fact are even now driving the Enemy to plan and launch. This robotic devotion of literally brainless shills to falsehood and viciousness not merely as political tactics, but as supreme ends in themselves, is the litmus test that distinguishes the Obama era's ever-dwindling authentic humanity from hyperpartisan personality cultists. Suffice it to say that the binary thinking to which these apologists for evil are prone typifies everything that any reasonable person must concede is wrong with people like that.<br /><br />UPDATE III: It pains me to imagine the lengths some people will undoubtedly go to twist my remarks here into something other than what I have already repeatedly stated that I intend them to be; <span style="font-style: italic;">viz.,</span> an honest assessment of a situation that others have not only failed to examine in any depth — for reasons we hardly need to guess at — but also to notice at a time when noticing them was in fact a moral obligation of citizenship, properly so called. Has it really come to this? Q.E.D.<br /><br />UPDATE IV: What can one even begin to say when the putatively highest <span style="font-style: italic;">soi-disant</span> "principles" of one's opponents are manifestly the mere delusions of situational ethicists who literally wallow in the entrails of the foreign babies they murdered by proxy for the greater glory of the assassins who slaughtered these innocents in their name? All one can hope is that if these cultist shills can't bring themselves to agree with me when circumstances ineluctably demand it, they can at least be honest about their motivations. They can say, "I don't care who the President hunts down and kills in this Brave New World of foreign adventurism; it's all worth it because some coal plant got closed down in Kentucky, even if that's probably just a prelude to invading Wales." Is that too much to ask? Apparently so.<br /><br />UPDATE V: I consider this matter closed. Those who wish to beat this dead horse are welcome to chase their tails in perpetuity, or until their batteries run down.Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-38341174695640546382011-12-23T12:06:00.000-08:002011-12-23T12:13:51.597-08:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XjNJX0cFXDY/TvTgsSi7iWI/AAAAAAAAEyk/horCTkW5GUk/s1600/FHB%2BNolan.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 318px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XjNJX0cFXDY/TvTgsSi7iWI/AAAAAAAAEyk/horCTkW5GUk/s320/FHB%2BNolan.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689419280772991330" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6dt3d_E9E7s/TvTZkC8AK-I/AAAAAAAAEyU/ZVtkkHDfYU8/s1600/FHB%2BNolan.jpg"></a>The EU is tightening <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/capital-punishment-human-rights/europe-wont-supply-execution-cocktail-us">export restrictions</a> on materials used for capital punishment and torture:<br /><p></p><blockquote>As Catherine Ashton, High Representative for the Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the Commission stated: <p>“<i>[T]he European Union opposes the death penalty under all circumstances. The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union states that no one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed. In this regard, the decision today contributes to the wider EU efforts to abolish the death penalty worldwide.</i>”</p>Sodium thiopental, a chemical commonly used in the three-drug cocktail used in American lethal injection, can now only be exported from E.U. countries with prior authorization by national authorities. The decision will likely increase the difficulty faced by states of procuring the already scarce drug for use in their executions. In addition, the Commission announced that the import and export of electric shock sleeves and cuffs, instrumental in the use of the electric chair, are now wholly prohibited from import and export.</blockquote><p></p>A federal judge has <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=Federal+Judge+Blocks+Key+Provisions+Of+South+Carolina%E2%80%99s+Anti-Immigrant+Law&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a">blocked</a> several provisions of South Carolina's anti-immigrant law:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>District Judge Richard Mark Gergel blocked three parts of the law, known both as SB20 and Act 69.</p> <p>The first section blocked makes it a felony to transport or conceal a person "with intent to further that person's unlawful entry into the United States" or to help that person avoid apprehension.</p> <p>A second section makes it unlawful for an adult to "fail to carry" an alien registration card or receipt.</p> <p>And the final section blocked would have allowed local law enforcement with "reasonable suspicion" to detain any person the officers believe is in the United States illegally.</p></blockquote><p></p>A U.S. appeals court has <a href="http://www.whistleblowersblog.org/2011/12/articles/corporate-1/major-victory-for-whistleblowers-in-seventh-circuit-says-retaliation-is-a-rico-violation/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WhistleblowerProtectionBlog+%28Whistleblower+Protection+Blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader">ruled</a> that retaliation against whistleblowers is a RICO violation:<br /><blockquote> The <a href="http://www.whistleblowers.org/storage/whistleblowers/documents/blogdocs/deguelleopinion20111215.pdf">court's opinion</a> gives life to a provision in the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) that makes it a felony to retaliate against whistleblowers who provide information about corporate fraud to law enforcement officers.</blockquote>The European Court of Justice has <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/airplane-pollution-12-21-2011.html">upheld</a> the EU Aviation Directive:<br /><blockquote>The EU Aviation Directive, the world's only mandatory program to address emissions from aviation, will take effect in January 2012. Today’s decision is the suit’s final ruling in the Court of Justice, and the case will now return to the UK High Court, where airlines had originally brought the suit challenging UK regulations implementing the law . The UK High Court will implement the recommendations of the Court of Justice ruling. </blockquote>Bank of America has generously agreed to pay out <a href="http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2011/12/21/20111221bank-america-pay-million-settlement-dept-justice-over-discriminatory-loans.html">some money</a> for something or other:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Hundreds of thousands of Black and Hispanic homeowners...were saddled with higher mortgage fees and interest rates during the housing boom than White borrowers, federal officials say.</p> <p>Now, those borrowers may have a chance to get a part of that money back.</p> <p>A $335 million settlement with Bank of America announced Wednesday is the largest fair-lending settlement in history.</p></blockquote><p></p>Now let's never speak of it again.<br /><br />The Kroger grocery chain <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/1222-kroger_app.html">claims</a> that it will no longer carry Asia Pulp & Paper products:<br /><blockquote> "After an independent review, The Kroger Co. and its family of stores have decided to discontinue the sourcing of products from Asia Pulp & Paper," said a statement posted on the retailer's web site. "Kroger has informed APP of our concerns about the impact of their business operations on deforestation." </blockquote>Behold the post-apocalyptic hellscape that is <a href="http://www.good.is/post/a-happy-flourishing-city-with-no-advertising/">São Paulo, Brazil</a>, five years after it defied God and Nature by banning advertising signage:<br /><blockquote>Within months, city authorities had removed tens of thousands of ads both big and small—much to the dismay of business owners, who said the ban would surely ruin them. Five years later, have all the businesses in São Paulo gone under? Hardly. In fact, most citizens and some advertising entities report being quite pleased with the now billboard-less city. A survey this year found that a 70 percent of residents say the Clean City Law has been "beneficial." </blockquote>An Indian inventor has designed a new <a href="http://www.fastcoexist.com/1679008/an-indian-inventor-disrupts-the-period-industry">sanitary napkin</a> for rural women:<br /><p></p><blockquote>When Arunachalam Muruganantham hit a wall in his research on creating a sanitary napkin for poor women, he decided to do what most men typically wouldn’t dream of. He wore one himself--for a whole week. Fashioning his own menstruating uterus by filling a bladder with goat’s blood, Muruganantham went about his life while wearing women’s underwear, occasionally squeezing the contraption to test out his latest iteration. It resulted in endless derision and almost destroyed his family. But no one is laughing at him anymore, as the sanitary napkin-making machine he went on to create is transforming the lives of rural women across India.</blockquote><p></p>It's a fascinating story, so read the whole thing. (h/t: <a href="http://twitter.com/BibliOdyssey">Peacay</a>.)<br /><br />Food aid organizations are increasingly <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-agriculture/increasing-shift-food-aid-source-more-local-ingredients.html">sourcing</a> local ingredients:<br /><blockquote>Andrew Young, co-founder of <a href="http://www.oneacrefund.org/">One Acre Fund</a>, drives home the importance of this shift toward local ingredients, and of ultimately building agricultural capacity in regions facing food insecurity. For those who don't know it, One Acre Fund is working to create agricultural markets in Africa and in doing so, to develop a more sustainable solution to some of the problems that create the need for food aid in the first place. Here's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/dec/20/therapeutic-food-famine-relief-africa">what he tells the Guardian</a>:<p>"Famine is preventable," said Young. "Every famine should be a blaring red siren, reminding us that we could prevent the next one. Africa has the capacity to be a food supplier to the rest of the world, if only we would invest in agriculture more."</p></blockquote><p></p>The Madison, WI School Board has <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/womens-rights/madison-school-board-rejects-sex-segregated-school">rejected</a> a plan to start a sex-segregated charter school:<br /><p></p><blockquote>The proposal was defeated largely on grounds that the school was to use non-union teachers with little school board oversight. Although those issues predominated at the hearing, the ACLU of Wisconsin made sure that the school board could not ignore the gender equality issues. </blockquote>Teh Gays have graciously <a href="http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2011/12/21085/">apologized</a> for ruining former Minnesota Senate majority leader Amy Koch's marriage by forcing her into an adulterous relationship:<br /><p></p><blockquote>We are ashamed of ourselves for causing you to have what the media refers to as an “illicit affair” with your staffer, and we also extend our deepest apologies to him and to his wife. These recent events have made it quite clear that our gay and lesbian tactics have gone too far, affecting even the most respectful of our society.</blockquote>Edward Wegman's plagiarism made it into <a href="http://the-scientist.com/2011/12/19/top-science-scandals-of-2011/">The Scientist's</a> list of 2011's top five science scandals:<br /><blockquote>A controversial climate change paper was <a title="Climate paper retracted" href="http://the-scientist.com/2011/06/06/controversial-climate-study-retracted/" target="_blank">retracted</a> when it was found to contain passages lifted from other sources, including Wikipedia. The paper, published by climate change skeptic Edward Wegman of George Mason University in <em>Computational Statistics and Data Analysis</em> in 2008, showed that climatology is an inbred field where most researchers collaborate with and review each other’s work. But a resourceful blogger uncovered evidence of plagiarism, and the journal retracted the paper, which was cited 8 times, in May.</blockquote>Wegman stands a <a href="http://deepclimate.org/2011/10/04/said-and-wegman-2009-suboptimal-scholarship/">very good chance</a> of improving his showing in 2012:<br /><blockquote>From the 2006 Wegman report to Congress, up to this year’s “Colour Theory and Design”, so much of Wegman and Said’s recent work demonstrates extreme reliance on unattributed antecedents, as well as numerous errors and incompetent analysis. </blockquote><p></p>2012 marks the 200th anniversary of the Luddite revolts. <a href="http://www.luddites200.org.uk/index.html">Luddites at 200</a> is planning appropriate celebrations:<br /><blockquote>[B]eing a luddite today means being a sceptic about the dogma of technology as progress, not about denying the real benefits of some technologies. It means insisting that the crucial decisions about which technologies are developed are made democratically, not just imposed by corporations and technocratic elites. And it means standing up for our own ideas of what progress really is. </blockquote>I hereby endorse this event and/or product. Speaking of which, I <a href="http://bouphonia.blogspot.com/2004/12/almost-unparalleled-distress.html">complained</a> some years ago about the common pejorative use of the term "Luddite" on the left; I included an 1819 quote from William Cobbett that bears repeating here:<br /><blockquote>Society ought not to exist, if not for the benefit of the whole. It is and must be against the law of nature, if it exists for the benefit of the few and for the misery of the many. I say, then, distinctly, that a society, in which the common labourer...cannot secure a sufficiency of food and raiment, is a society which ought not to exist; a society contrary to the law of nature; a society whose compact is dissolved.</blockquote>Roll over Charles Fort, and tell <a href="http://www.science-frontiers.com/sourcebk.htm">William R. Corliss</a> the <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/space-ball-drops-namibia-133326985.html">news</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>A large metallic ball fell out of the sky on a remote grassland in Namibia, prompting baffled <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1324560950_0">authorities</span> to contact NASA and <span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1324560950_2">the European space agency</span>.</p> <p>The hollow ball with a circumference of 1.1 metres (43 inches) was found near a village in the north of the country some 750 kilometres (480 miles) from the capital Windhoek, according to police forensics director Paul Ludik.</p></blockquote><p></p> Metal prices being what they are, it may be time to mine the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-Sargasso_Sea">Super-Sargasso</a>.<br /><br />A public service announcement: Please be aware, this holiday season, that <span style="font-style: italic;">It's a Wonderful Life</span> has some <a href="http://vikingkitties.blogspot.com/2011/12/freepers-discuss-its-wonderful-life.html">plot holes</a>:<br /><blockquote>Well I like the movie except the angel is shown as a namby pamby when in reality they are awesome powerful beings. Also in reality the Building and Loan should have turned the corner with its success and been much more profitable. Oh, the plot holes!</blockquote>I look forward to John Aglialoro's remake, in which Clarence will incinerate that whore Violet Bick with divine laser beams that come shooting out of his eyes.<br /><br />All I want for Christmas: <a href="http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/news/LL/BL/1/842/">Drawing and optical devices</a>. The <a href="http://www.arcticsoundscapeproject.com/">Arctic Soundscape Project</a>. Something I didn't realize I was nostalgic for until now: <a href="http://www.ninfinger.org/rockets/nostalgia/70estcat.html">1970s Estes catalogs</a> (via <a href="http://www.coudal.com/index.php">Coudal</a>). A <a href="http://npp.gsfc.nasa.gov/">ball of confusion</a>. Scenes from the life of the <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/1219-hance_pygmyhippo.html">pygmy hippo</a>. A hummingbird in the <a href="http://finder.good.is/3187-ever-wonder-how-a-hummingbird-copes-with-rain-this-amazing">rain</a>. Archie <a href="http://archieoutofcontext.tumblr.com/">out of context</a>. Racing <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/31211093@N08/sets/72157622314488265/">numbers</a>. The <a href="http://eastgermancinema.wordpress.com/category/defa/">East German Cinema Blog</a>. And images from the <a href="http://www.beazley.ox.ac.uk/antiquaria/photographs/">Beazley Archive</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yY7Ssz50C0Y/TvTZkKmhkkI/AAAAAAAAEyM/HKV3LcPTWkQ/s1600/Beazley.jpe"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 341px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yY7Ssz50C0Y/TvTZkKmhkkI/AAAAAAAAEyM/HKV3LcPTWkQ/s400/Beazley.jpe" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5689411444620235330" border="0" /></a><br />(Painting at top: "Miner and Dog" by Sidney Nolan, 1973.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-12386465617050149872011-12-21T10:40:00.000-08:002011-12-21T11:04:20.876-08:00The Next President of the United States<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hv_cqcdig5A/TvIlM4sh5nI/AAAAAAAAEyA/P6alKBd8jjU/s1600/pet2001.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 312px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Hv_cqcdig5A/TvIlM4sh5nI/AAAAAAAAEyA/P6alKBd8jjU/s400/pet2001.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5688650182630172274" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://alicublog.blogspot.com/2011_12_01_archive.html#1872809263126792749">Roy Edroso</a> recently made an offhand remark to the effect that if you want consistently conservative governance, a robot is your only man.<br /><br />He's got a point. The problem is, robots come from <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R.">Old Europe</a>; they come from the pit of Hell. And while they may be a bit more <span class="st"><em>gemütlich</em> </span> than Mitt Romney or Michele Bachmann, they require expensive maintenance and they're <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tidZ8mVk11A">not as adept with stairs</a>. It's bad enough that Obama bows to foreign dignitaries; the last thing we need is a president whose clockwork runs down in the middle of singing <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9oK24SFzHw">"Les Oiseaux dans la Charmille"</a> to Hu Jintao.<br /><br />The Commodore PET is a safer choice. It's adorably retro, hearkening us back to that simpler, more innocent time before all of us hated everything. It was made down home in Pennsylvania by square-eyed, steely-jawed men, so you know Peggy Noonan's gonna get on board. You can have a beer with it, or at least near it. It can repeat the numerals "9-9-9" with all the hebephrenic fixity of Herman Cain and twice the conviction. It blows Rick Perry out of the water with a whopping 8K of RAM. You can easily store replacement units at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Weather_Emergency_Operations_Center">Mount Weather</a>. And its dependency on the extraction industries is no mere metaphor; if you want the President to boot up in time for World War III, <span style="font-style: italic;">drill baby drill!</span><br /><br />And of course, it's ideologically consistent. Bedrock principles in, bedrock principles out:<br /><blockquote>10 PRINT "FUCK YOU, HIPPIES! TAX BREAKS FOR THE RICH!"<br />20 GOTO 10<br />RUN</blockquote>The only downside is, when it inevitably turns on humanity, no one will notice.Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-7683743887353230052011-12-18T13:54:00.000-08:002011-12-18T20:59:19.847-08:00The Righteous and the Wicked<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qNzdqQstRPY/Tu53DWcLUkI/AAAAAAAAEx0/ZcT2_y4E28U/s1600/MARTIN_John_Great_Day_of_His_Wrath.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 256px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qNzdqQstRPY/Tu53DWcLUkI/AAAAAAAAEx0/ZcT2_y4E28U/s400/MARTIN_John_Great_Day_of_His_Wrath.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5687614278862590530" border="0" /></a><br />I've seen a number of obituaries for Christopher Hitchens today. They seem to alternate between two basic stances:<br /><blockquote>Yeah, he was an unrepentant warmonger and misogynist...but he sure did stick it to those goddamn Bible-thumpers and their invisible sky buddies!<br /><br />Yeah, he was a hellbound atheist...but he sure did stick it to those goddamn peacenik hippies and their cult of diversity!</blockquote>As you can see, things even out nicely. Granted, Hitchens' political miscalculations have a body count. But how about all those dragons he killed? (Or not actual dragons...but, y'know, the whole <span style="font-style: italic;">idea</span> of dragons <span style="font-style: italic;">qua</span> dragons, <span style="font-style: italic;">per se, in nuce, und so weiter</span>. And not actually killed...but, y'know, personally disputed in some adamantine, ontically oppositional sense of <span style="font-style: italic;">not agreeing with 'em nohow, so there.</span>)<br /><br />How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? Who knows? Maybe angels don't even exist!<br /><br />How many Iraqis died in the last nine years? Who knows? Let's look forward, not back!<br /><br />When Hitchens called down brimstone and fire on Baghdad, that modern City of the Plain, at least it was based on tribalist hatred, gadfly posturing and preening first-world privilege rather than mere superstition. I mean, give the guy <span style="font-style: italic;">some</span> credit. He may have been wrong — politically, historically, logically, scientifically and morally — but at least he wasn't <span style="font-style: italic;">stupid. </span>And if you don't believe me, just look into this barrel full of invisible dead fish.<br /><br />Anyway. Forgive me if I don't feel like eulogizing Hitchens, who shrugged off countless deaths with one laborious literary phrase after another. I would much prefer to praise good people like myself, who attempted to <span style="font-style: italic;">prevent</span> countless deaths with one laborious literary phrase after another.<br /><br />On second thought, let's change the subject. If we're talking about dancing angels, should thumbtacks count as pins?<br /><br />(Image at top: "The Great Day of His Wrath" by John Martin, 1853.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-42456738849689819432011-12-16T09:58:00.000-08:002011-12-16T13:51:27.967-08:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dIQL3rB7taY/Tuu71ZxYILI/AAAAAAAAExc/Kq-f8veuSq8/s1600/FHB%2Blezmi-2_1.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 360px; height: 300px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-dIQL3rB7taY/Tuu71ZxYILI/AAAAAAAAExc/Kq-f8veuSq8/s400/FHB%2Blezmi-2_1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5686845480610832562" border="0" /></a><br />The FBI will <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/15/mueller-confirms-fbi-will-update-rape-definition/">broaden</a> its definition of rape:<br /><blockquote><p>FBI Director Robert Mueller confirmed Wednesday that the agency would expand its definition of “rape,” which has not been updated since 1929.</p> <p>The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2010/crime-in-the-u.s.-2010/violent-crime/rapemain">currently defines rape</a> as “the carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will.” Rape without force is not included.</p></blockquote>Home care workers will receive federal <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/16/business/wage-protection-planned-for-home-care-workers.html">wage protections</a>:<br /><blockquote>The Obama administration proposed regulations on Thursday to give the nation’s nearly two million home care workers minimum wage and overtime protections. Those workers have long been exempted from coverage. <br /><br />Labor unions and advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for the changes, contending that the 37-year-old exemption improperly swept these workers, who care for many elderly and disabled Americans, into the same “companion” category as baby sitters. The administration’s move calls for home care aides to be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law. </blockquote>The weed of crime bears <a href="http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2011/12/15/homeland-security-kicks-sheriff-joe-arpaio-out-secure-communities-program/">bitter fruit</a>:<br /> <div class="article-text KonaBody"> <p></p><blockquote><p>Hours after the release of a Justice Department report that said that Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio fueled a culture of anti-Latino bias in his office, the Department of Homeland Security said it was kicking him out of an immigration enforcement program.</p> <p>Secretary Janet Napolitano said Thursday the department is ending an agreement with the Maricopa County sheriff's office that allowed trained deputies to enforce immigration laws. </p></blockquote></div>A district court has <a href="http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=13377">ruled</a> that the Center for Reproductive Rights can sue Kathleen Sebelius for her antiscientific, tragically stupid and fundamentally immoral decision on over-the-counter sales of Plan B:<br /><blockquote> Nancy Northup, president and CEO of CRR, stated, "We intend to take every legal step necessary to hold the FDA and this administration accountable for its extraordinary actions to block women from safe, effective emergency contraception. It has been ten years of battling to bring emergency contraception out from behind the pharmacy counter. The FDA cannot simply continue moving the goal posts down the field for women's reproductive healthcare."</blockquote><a href="http://www.splcenter.org/blog/2011/12/14/anti-gay-bigot-tackled-by-lesbian-charged-with-hate-crime/">LOLOL</a>, as we say on the Internets:<br /><p></p><blockquote>A 22-year-old man who shouted slurs at a lesbian couple before breaking the windshield of their car soon found himself in a vulnerable position – pinned to the ground by one of the targets of his vitriol.</blockquote><p></p>The Institute of Medicine has <a href="http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-chimps-medical-research-20111216,0,3113642.story">called for an end</a> to most medical experimentation on chimpanzees:<br /><blockquote>After nine months of deliberation, a panel of independent experts judged that most current experiments involving man's closest primate relative can safely be discontinued.<br /><br /> The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, said he accepted the panel's recommendations and promised to name a working group to figure out how to implement them.</blockquote>As part of its plot to impoverish and enslave us, the EPA has <a href="http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2011/2011-12-14-092.html">legalized</a> the use of alternative refrigerants:<br /><blockquote>The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today issued a rule making greener refrigeration gases legal in household refrigerators and some commercial freezers. <p> The agency added three hydrocarbons as acceptable alternatives in household and small commercial refrigerators and freezers through EPA's Significant New Alternatives Policy program, SNAP, which evaluates substitute chemicals and technologies for ozone-depleting substances under the Clean Air Act. </p></blockquote><p></p>Adding insult to injury, it also plans <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/green/2011/12/16/390939/after-20-years-of-poisoned-babies-epa-will-finally-close-coal-industrys-toxic-mercury-loophole/">limit</a> our access to the mercury our bodies need:<br /><blockquote>The Environmental Protection Agency is expected to approve a tough new rule on Friday to limit emissions of mercury, arsenic and other toxins from the country’s power plants, according to people with knowledge of the new standard. Though mercury is a known neurotoxin profoundly harmful to children and pregnant women, the air toxins rule has been more than 20 years in the making, repeatedly stymied because of objections from coal-burning utilities about the cost of installing pollution control equipment.</blockquote>New technologies may <a href="http://aeinews.org/archives/1702">reduce</a> noise pollution in the world's oceans:<br /><p></p><blockquote>Several new R&D projects are underway by providers of ocean technology, each of which either aims to reduce the harmful behavioral impacts on marine creatures, or may limit harmful impacts as a byproduct of their innovations.</blockquote><p></p>Solar-powered drip irrigation is <a href="http://www.good.is/post/in-benin-solar-powered-irrigation-pollutes-less-and-produces-more/">working well</a> in Benin:<br /><p></p><blockquote> This technological innovation means the women’s collectives can keep producing crops during the region’s six-month dry season, provide greater food security to their families, and start thinking about sending their kids to school. It also could help communities survive and adapt to climate change. The project is now expanding: At least eight more villages in Benin will start using the solar irrigation systems.</blockquote><p></p>In India, solar power is apparently <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/renewable-energy/solar-power-becomes-cheaper-diesel-generators-india.html">cheaper</a> than diesel generators:<br /><blockquote>Renewable Energy News reports that solar is becoming cheaper than diesel generators in India as French-company Solardirect has bid to supply the energy grid with solar power at a rate cheaper than the average for diesel generators:</blockquote>Scientists have <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/1215-new_frogs_png.html">found</a> the world's smallest frog in Papua New Guinea:<br /><blockquote> <span style="font-style: italic;">Paedophryne dekot </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Paedophryne verrucosa</span> attain a length of only 8 to 9 mm (0.31 inches), slightly longer than a tic-tac mint. The frogs are about 2 mm smaller than the previous record, which belonged to other members of the same genus. </blockquote>The Los Angeles City Council has <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/los-angeles-city-council-votes-against-corporate-personhood.html">voted unanimously</a> in favor of a constitutional amendment against corporate personhood:<br /><blockquote>Every struggle to amend the Constitution began as just a group of regular Americans who wanted to end slavery, who thought women should vote, who believed that if you're old enough the be drafted, you should be old enough to vote. ... We're very proud to come together and send a message but more than that, this becomes the official position of the City of Los Angeles, we will officially lobby for this.</blockquote><a href="http://beineckeroom26.library.yale.edu/2011/11/23/grimaces-changeable/">Folies elastiques</a>. Antarctica starts <a href="http://antarcticsun.usap.gov/science/contenthandler.cfm?id=2550">here</a>. Audubon's <a href="http://www.nyhistory.org/node/564">aviary</a>. The <a href="http://web.wm.edu/muscarelle/exhibitions/traveling/beyond/index.html">deep ocean wilderness</a>. <a href="http://wayback.kb.dk:8080/wayback-1.4.2/wayback/20100107153228/http://www2.kb.dk/udstillinger/fabeldyr/">Fabelvæsener</a>. Photographs of <a href="http://wayback.kb.dk:8080/wayback-1.4.2/wayback/20100107153228/http://www2.kb.dk/fotomuseum/fot-mus/golden/forside.htm">Copenhagen</a>. Czech <a href="http://www.terry-posters.com/posters">film posters</a>, 1930-1989 (via <a href="http://www.coudal.com/index.php">Coudal</a>). <a href="http://oohweefaces.tumblr.com/">Ooh. Wee. Faces</a>. Marbled <a href="http://butdoesitfloat.com/2459380/Energy-and-motion-made-visible-memories-arrested-in-space">paper</a>. And scenes from <a href="http://englishrussia.com/2011/12/16/zhuravlyonok-an-abandoned-summer-camp/#more-83351">Zhuravlyonok</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LTY2an1me4g/Tuu71kMjjmI/AAAAAAAAExo/fNRoI1aNRv4/s1600/FHB%2Bsummercampdevastated-16.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-LTY2an1me4g/Tuu71kMjjmI/AAAAAAAAExo/fNRoI1aNRv4/s400/FHB%2Bsummercampdevastated-16.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5686845483409182306" border="0" /></a><br />(Photo at top by <a href="http://www.lensculture.com/webloglc/mt_files/archives/2011/12/iphone-lezmi.html">Frederic Lezmi</a>, from his series "Poor Politicians," 2011.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-61201969217051014902011-11-18T07:50:00.000-08:002011-11-18T12:07:37.633-08:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4gNwz0zDi84/Tsa6kadj5OI/AAAAAAAAExM/mfbJrnorof4/s1600/773854201_75f5a8dd1f.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 277px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-4gNwz0zDi84/Tsa6kadj5OI/AAAAAAAAExM/mfbJrnorof4/s320/773854201_75f5a8dd1f.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676429515088454882" border="0" /></a><br />A Kansas judge has <a href="http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/09/3256411/kansas-judge-dismisses-felony.html">dismissed</a> all 23 of the felony charges brought by Phill Kline against Planned Parenthood:<br /><p></p><blockquote>“While additional charges in this case remain, we are pleased the most serious charges have rightfully been dismissed. We are grateful Johnson County taxpayers and Planned Parenthood will no longer waste enormous time and money on these politically motivated allegations brought by now discredited prosecutor Phill Kline,” the organization said in a statement released Wednesday morning.</blockquote><p></p>The Massachusetts legislature has <a href="http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=13337">passed</a> a transgender rights bill:<br /><blockquote>On Wednesday, the Massachusetts state Legislature passed a bill designed to prohibit discrimination against the state's transgender population. The protects against employment, education, and housing discrimination and revises the state's hate crimes law to protect against crimes targeting people based on their gender identity and gender expression. The state House approved the bill late Tuesday and the Senate voted, with little opposition, to pass the legislation on Wednesday. </blockquote>A federal judge in Texas has <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/judge-feds-track-cell-phones-get-warrant">ruled</a> that law enforcement agencies need a warrant to track cell phone users by location:<br /><p></p><blockquote>In a victory for the privacy rights of everyone with a cell phone, <a href="https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/cell-phone-tracking-court-decision">a court has held</a> that law enforcement agents must get a warrant to access cell phone location records. The ACLU, ACLU of Texas and Electronic Frontier Foundation submitted <a href="https://www.aclu.org/technology-and-liberty/cell-phone-tracking-amicus-curiae-brief">a brief</a> urging the court to adopt exactly this position. The Constitution requires nothing less.</blockquote><p></p>The Arizona Supreme Court has <a href="http://www.yumasun.com/news/brewer-74577-mathis-order.html">ruled</a> that Gov. Jan Brewer broke the law by firing redistricting commissioner Colleen Mathis:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>In a brief order, the justices brushed aside arguments by Lisa Hauser, the governor’s attorney, that Brewer’s decision was not subject to court review.</p> <p>More to the point, they said that Brewer’s power to oust a commissioner is limited to situations of substantial neglect of duty or gross misconduct. The justices said that nothing the governor alleged in her letter firing Mathis rises to that level.</p></blockquote><p></p>Nevada's attorney general has <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/17/1037433/-Nevada-attorney-general-announces-robo-signing-indictments?via=blog_1">indicted</a> two title officers at Lender Processing Services for mortgage fraud:<br /><blockquote>The Office of the Nevada Attorney General announced today that the Clark County grand jury has returned a 606 count indictment against two title officers, Gary Trafford and Gerri Sheppard, who directed and supervised a robo-signing scheme which resulted in the filing of tens of thousands of fraudulent documents with the Clark County Recorder’s Office between 2005 and 2008.</blockquote>A Pentagon whistleblower who lost his job has <a href="http://www.iwatchnews.org/2011/11/16/7417/pentagon-whistleblower-franz-gayl-reinstated/?utm_source=iwatchnews&utm_medium=site-features&utm_campaign=most-active">gotten it back</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>A Navy review board has overturned a Marine Corps decision to strip one of its senior science advisors of his security clearances, intervening directly in a case that attracted attention among lawmakers on Capitol Hill and among advocates of enhanced legal protection for military whistleblowers.</p>Franz Gayl, who complained publicly in 2007 that the Corps had squashed an urgent request from U.S. soldiers in Iraq for heavily armored vehicles, was stripped of his clearances last year and suspended indefinitely with pay.<br /></blockquote>The Oregon Court of Appeals has <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/wolves-11-15-2011.html">extended</a> the state's ban on wolf-killing:<br /><blockquote>The court reaffirmed an earlier court order prohibiting the killing of two members of the Imnaha pack by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, pending the final outcome of the court’s review of the state’s wildlife laws. Three conservation groups, Cascadia Wildlands, the Center for Biological Diversity and Oregon Wild, had petitioned for review of the wolf-killing rule. </blockquote><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/geothermal-power-plants-could-be-massive-source-lithium-batteries.html">This</a> is interesting:<br /><blockquote>A Californian startup named Simbol Materials believe that it can extract lithium, as well as zinc and manganese, from the brine that is pumped by geothermal power plants. They expect to be able to compete with the lowest-cost Chilean lithium producers, as well as produce the world's purest lithium carbonate.</blockquote>More redundantly wealthy capitalist exploiters like <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/11/18/371954/dow-ceo-raise-millionaires-taxes/">this</a>, please:<br /><blockquote>Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength has been meeting with congressional leaders this week, continuing their push to raise taxes on the very richest Americans. “We want to pay more taxes,” said California millionaire Doug Edwards, a former marketing director for Google. “If you’re fortunate, and you make more than a million dollars a year, you ought to pay more taxes.” <span style="font-weight: bold;">The group even told anti-tax zealot Grover Norquist that he should take his extreme positions and “move to Somalia.”</span></blockquote>Apropos of which, it won't come as a surprise to you that the real horror of "job-killing regulations," to industry, is that they <a href="http://www.grist.org/green-jobs/2011-11-18-by-the-numbers-the-myth-of-job-killing-regulations">create good-paying jobs</a>.<br /><br />Last, it continues to be just barely <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/goose-monogamy/">conceivable</a> that there may not be some unitary "natural" sexual relationship we can use as a standard for human behavior:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>With monogamy so uncommon in the animal world, the idea of lifetime fidelity can seem a little strange, at least to evolutionary biologists.</p> <p>But in <a href="http://www.arkive.org/greylag-goose/anser-anser/">greylag geese</a>, which can live for 20 years and share those years with just one mate, biologists have found a benefit: stress reduction. During fights, males with mates have lower heart rates than their single brethren. If their partners are nearby, they’re even more relaxed.</p></blockquote><p></p>Now that that's out of the way: <a href="http://www.metrocake.com/">Metrocake</a>. Photos by <a href="http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/infra.html">Richard Mosse</a>. Some remarks on <a href="http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/x_indexmag.html">Euplectella aspergillum</a>, or the Venus flower basket. <a href="http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2011/11/landscape-infrastructure/486/">Landscape architecture</a> vs. <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/node/52510">zoning for apartheid</a> vs. the history of <a href="http://cs-exhibitions.uni-klu.ac.at/index.php?id=185">conceptual modeling</a> (your Venn diagram is due in the morning). The digital <a href="http://dss.collections.imj.org.il/">Dead Sea Scrolls</a>. Daily life in <a href="http://www.lib.umich.edu/diversity-desert/">Greek and Roman Egypt</a>. Daily life in <span style=";font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><em></em></span><a href="http://www.asia.si.edu/explore/china/xiangtangshan/">Xiangtangshan</a>. Daily life in <span style=";font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><em></em></span><span style=";font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><em></em></span><a href="http://www.papyrology.ox.ac.uk/POxy/VExhibition/daily_life/daily_life_contents.html">Oxyrhynchus</a>. The Royal Society and <a href="http://dig.lib.lehigh.edu/projects/exhibits.asp?id=18">the origins of scientific communication</a>. Magic in <a href="http://www.lib.umich.edu/traditions-magic-late-antiquity/">late antiquity</a>. Vidéothèque du <a href="http://videotheque.cnrs.fr/">CNRS</a>. Women with <a href="http://www.nwhm.org/online-exhibits/womenwithdeadlines/wwd1.htm">deadlines</a>. Le Petit Journal des <a href="http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/11/modern-rejection.html">Refusées</a>. Example of midcentury design from <a href="http://www.javiergd.com/blog/">No Barcode</a>. A <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-74922.html">new island</a> (via <a href="http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/">Cheryl</a>). <a href="http://bigthink.com/ideas/40910">Socket mapping</a>. And <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/11/geological-maps-of-volcanoes/?pid=2407&pageid=86086">volcano mapping</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TMSLlGBtlFI/Tsa3Vi9UT3I/AAAAAAAAExE/e4s8_xJjX78/s1600/miyake-jima-volcano.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 324px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TMSLlGBtlFI/Tsa3Vi9UT3I/AAAAAAAAExE/e4s8_xJjX78/s400/miyake-jima-volcano.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5676425961136213874" border="0" /></a>(Image at top: "The Mysterious Bird" by Charles Burchfield, 1917.)<br /><br /><span style=";font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><em></em></span>Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-5228327912209105592011-11-11T09:34:00.000-08:002011-11-11T13:26:24.457-08:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XXmOAZPcg8c/Tr2NM-SQ4BI/AAAAAAAAEwo/dpNML0MeN7U/s1600/sloan_election_night.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XXmOAZPcg8c/Tr2NM-SQ4BI/AAAAAAAAEwo/dpNML0MeN7U/s400/sloan_election_night.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673846359574241298" border="0" /></a><br />“If you think you’re going to stop us, you’re crazy. You will not stop us. We will beat you.” --<a href="http://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/election/kasich-to-lobbyists-get-on-the-bus-995339.html">John Kasich</a>.<br /><br />Or <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/11/09/1034637/-Ohio-Gov-Kasich-admits-that,-on-Issue-2,-the-people-have-spoken-clearly">not</a>:<br /><blockquote> The fight to defeat Ohio's Issue 2 was one more look at what a determined mobilization of the 99 percent can look like. And holy crap, what a victory it led to: with 99 percent of votes reporting, the <a href="http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2011/by_state/OH_Page_1108.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS">margin</a> is 61-39. </blockquote>"I will not back off until we solve the problem of this illegal invasion. Invaders, that's what they are. Invaders on the American sovereignty and it can't be tolerated." --<a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88125098">Russell Pearce</a><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span><br />Sez you, <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Elections/2011/1109/Tired-of-venom-over-illegal-immigration-voters-in-Arizona-oust-Russell-Pearce">tough guy</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote>In an apparent rebuke to his hard-line politics, Arizona state Senate President Russell Pearce was recalled by voters Tuesday. Senator Pearce was the author of the state's tough anti-illegal immigration law that has spawned copycat laws in several states from Utah to Alabama.</blockquote><p></p>"I think the election is going to be about Michigan's past versus Michigan's future." -- <a href="http://www.tctimes.com/news/paul-scott-recall-back-on-nov-ballot/article_9a2a680a-fc5d-11e0-a8fe-001cc4c002e0.html">Paul Scott</a><br /><br /><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Give that man a cigar</span>!<br /><blockquote>State Rep. Paul Scott, R-Grand Blanc, became the first state legislator to be recalled in a generation after he conceded defeat in a recall election today....<br /><br />The recall of Scott is, "unfortunate," said state GOP chairman Robert Schostak. "But the voters have spoken and we have to live with it.</blockquote>"People here in Iowa...were very offended that three judges substituted their opinions for the will of the people.” --<a href="http://minnesotaindependent.com/86191/bachmann-dodges-questions-on-anti-gay-record">Michele Bachmann</a><br /><br />Apparently, they've <a href="http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2011/11/19990/">gotten over it</a>:<br /><blockquote>Pro-family groups in Iowa say hopes for a marriage amendment in that state have all but faded now that Tuesday’s election has left Democrats in control off the State Senate.</blockquote>Speaking of <a href="http://www.gaypolitics.com/2011/11/09/gay-lesbian-candidates-win-big-across-u-s/">the will of the people</a>:<br /><a href="http://troyrecord.com/articles/2011/11/09/news/doc4eba25689741a851211879.txt?viewmode=fullstory"></a><blockquote>Openly gay and lesbian candidates endorsed by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund won election to municipal, judicial and state legislative offices from coast to coast Tuesday night.... <p>Candidates in Indianapolis, Cincinnati and Charlotte, N.C., made history, becoming the first openly gay or lesbian candidates elected to those city councils. In Virginia, Adam Ebbin became the first openly gay person elected to the State Senate, and in New Jersey, Tim Eustace became the first non-incumbent openly gay candidate to win a seat in the State Assembly.</p></blockquote>Furthermore, 70 large companies have <a href="http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/11/04/Google_Microsoft_Starbucks_Say_DOMA_Hurts_Their_Businesses/">come out</a> against DOMA:<br /><blockquote>Top U.S. companies including Google, Microsoft, and Starbucks took the unusual step on Thursday of legally documenting their opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act.<br /><br />A <a href="http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/11/04/Google_Microsoft_Starbucks_Say_DOMA_Hurts_Their_Businesses/www.hrc.org/files/images/pages/HRCBusinessCoalition_DOMAAmicusBrief_2011.PDF" title="brief" target="_blank">brief</a> filed in court comes from 70 businesses and organizations that want their voice heard on the constitutionality of DOMA, which bans same-sex marriage from being recognized federally and stops couples married in states such as Massachusetts from having their weddings recognized in less accepting places such as Alabama.<br /><br />The companies paint the law as an overburdening government regulation that should be repealed.</blockquote>Sorry, Michele, but that's capitalism for ya. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned!<br /><br />Of course, Big Homo's outest and proudest victory was in Maine, where a mincing coterie of queer-friendly voters flagrantly gay-married themselves to <a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/11/gays_successful_in_their_campaign_to_impose_same-day_voter_registration.php">the fruitiest faggotry of all</a>:<br /><blockquote>Despite a warning from Maine’s Republican party that a gay rights group supported same day registration, state voters restored the option by a three-to-two margin Tuesday night.</blockquote>The Will of the People also <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/09/mississippis-failed-perso_n_1083960.html">thwarted</a> the GOP's attempt to raise zygotes to the God-exalted status of corporations:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>An extreme measure that would have given legal "personhood" status to undeveloped zygotes failed among ultra-conservative Mississippi voters Tuesday night, after a history of being rejected twice in Colorado and <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/08/personhood-abortion-bans-_n_1082344.html" target="_hplink">a struggle to even get on ballots</a> in nine other states. But Personhood USA fully blames the Mississippi loss on Planned Parenthood. </p> <p>"It's not because the people are not pro-life," Keith Mason, a co-founder of Personhood USA, said on Tuesday. "It's because Planned Parenthood put a lot of misconceptions and lies in front of folks and created a lot of confusion."</p></blockquote><p></p>Fair enough. Teh People are staunchly pro-life; they just happened to find the satanic sophistries of the baby-killers momentarily plausible. This figurative shotgun marriage will never last, unlike the real kind.<br /><br />A new front has opened in the War on Christmas: Coastal academic elites are using <a href="http://www.good.is/post/our-valley-forge-moment-engineers-seek-to-keep-occupy-protesters-warm/">junk science</a> -- possibly involving stem cells from pre-born children -- to keep those filthy OWS hippies from freezing to death over the winter.<br /><blockquote>Because of time and funding constraints—not to mention the ban on flammable materials—they are focused on low-tech solutions. Engineers are testing various materials to wrap heated bricks that would give off heat without burning skin. They are also exploring different methods of keeping water hot over long periods of time beyond a simple thermos, which maintains, but doesn’t radiate, heat. And they’re experimenting with different canopy materials to keep snow off of the roofs of tents and create dead air space, which boosts temperature.</blockquote>Their ultimate aim, undoubtedly, is to create a human/hippie hybrid that will be able to masturbate publicly even at subzero temperatures.<br /><br />The Internet: <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/technology-and-liberty/it-was-close-we-won-viva-net-neutrality">Open for business</a>:<br /><blockquote>Today in the Senate there was a major win for freedom of speech and the Internet. In a largely partisan vote Senate Democrats defeated a resolution introduced by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) which would have overturned the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) open Internet rules that are set to go into effect this month.</blockquote>Australia will impose a <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/senate-passes-carbon-tax-20111108-1n4p1.html">carbon tax</a>, which is being hailed as a death knell for civilization in <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2011/11/australia_passes_carbon_tax.php">the usual quarters</a>. In a terrifying sign of things to come, scientists at MIT are working on some sort of <a href="http://www.enn.com/energy/article/43548">parabolic trough</a> for cooking fronds and bracken, which the pagan one-worlders will eventually force us to install in our gender-neutral caves:<br /><blockquote>MIT researchers say a hybrid solar-thermoelectric system they’re working on would provide a big advantage over conventional solar cells or solar thermal systems, particularly for household use: the ability to produce heat and electricity simultaneously. They propose accomplishing this mean feat through a clever reconfiguration of the standard parabolic trough.</blockquote>The Keystone XL pipeline has been <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/1110-hance_keystone_xl.html">postponed</a>:<blockquote>"A done deal has come spectacularly undone. The American people spoke loudly and today the President responded, at least in part," said Bill McKibben, one of the major organizers of the fight against the pipeline. "Six months ago, almost no one outside the pipeline route even knew about Keystone XL. One month ago, a secret poll of 'energy insiders' by the National Journal found that 'virtually all' expected easy approval of the pipeline by year’s end. As late as last week the CBC reported that TransCanada was moving huge quantities of pipe across the border and seizing land by eminent domain, certain that its permit would be granted." </blockquote>Meanwhile, California has installed <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_19292783">1 gigawatt</a> of solar power:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>California has hit a major renewable energy milestone: 1 gigawatt — or 1,000 megawatts — of solar power has been installed on rooftops throughout the state, according to a report to be released Wednesday by Environment California, a statewide advocacy group.</p> <p>One gigawatt is … enough energy to power 750,000 homes. Five countries have hit the 1 gigawatt installation mark to date: Germany, Spain, Japan, Italy and the Czech Republic. California has installed more solar power than France, China and Belgium.</p></blockquote><p></p>Bank Transfer Day <a href="http://www.cutimes.com/2011/11/08/bank-transfer-day-cuna-estimates-40000-plus-new-ac">went well</a>, especially for <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Latest-News-Wires/2011/1107/Why-Bank-Transfer-Day-actually-helped-banks">the banks</a>. Thanks to this largely symbolic display of public outrage, they will no longer have to sully their coffers with some parking-lot attendant's heirloom jar of Indian head pennies:<br /><blockquote>[T]he banks are going to be better off because they are getting rid of their least-profitable or not profitable clients. It helps them stem this tsunami of cash that’s been flowing in that they don’t know what to do with.</blockquote>As Thoreau said, "Simplify, simplify." What bank wouldn't be grateful to purge <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_19258590">this parasite</a> from its money-clogged bowels?<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Mike Fox Sr., a beer magnate and well-known philanthropist, is set to announce Friday that he is divesting his long-held personal Bank of America account, which contains several hundred thousand dollars, in an effort to promote social and economic justice.</p><p>Fox said Thursday that he has also asked his executive team to move a $4 million-plus line of credit held by M.E. Fox & Co. from Bank of America to another institution.</p></blockquote><p></p>And what bank wouldn't welcome <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/economics/crowdfunded-alternative-mainstream-banks-raises-100000-9-days.html">friendly competition like this</a>?<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Last week I posted on <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/economics/civilisedmoney-crowd-funded-ethical-alternative-mainstream-banks.html">an appeal by UK-based Civilisedmoney</a>, which was seeking investors for creating a peer-funded, transparent alternative to mainstream banks.</p>Now that appeal is over, and the company raised its target of £100,000 (about US$150,000) in 9 Days.</blockquote><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/gadgets/obama-create-hightech-tool-library-nasa.html">OMG SOCIALISM!!!1eleventillion</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>As one might imagine, NASA employees utilize some serious high tech gadgetry. And as it stands right now, every time an engineer needs a microprocessor-controlled power tool or space-proof <a href="http://toolmonger.com/2008/04/10/tool-pr0n-tools-in-space/">half-ratcheting torque wrenches</a> for a specific project, they put in an order for a new one. That ends up creating a decent amount of redundancy, with different subagencies ordering the same high-tech parts, or failing to find suitable used ones.</p><p>So, one NASA employee has a bright idea -- start the most futuristic tool-lending library the world has ever seen. Matthew Ritsko, a NASA employee from Maryland has put the scheme forward as a cost-saving measure, as part of the Obama administration's <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/11/09/we-cant-wait-president-obama-sign-executive-order-cut-waste-and-promote-">SAVE initiative</a>, which asks government employees to submit ideas for paring down federal expenditures.</p></blockquote><p></p><a href="http://beineckeroom26.library.yale.edu/2011/10/31/the-laughable-game-of-what-dye-buy/">The Laughable Game of What D'Ye Buy</a>. Das Hofopernensemble der <a href="http://www.mediathek.at//virtuelles-museum/mahler">Ära Mahler Schellackaufnahmen</a>, 1902 – 1912. <a href="http://www.peoplescollectionwales.com/Theme/2-different-voices">Different voices</a> from Wales, <a href="http://themoderns.ie/">different modernists</a> from Ireland, <a href="http://www.nlr.ru/eng/exib/Ural/index.html">different prints</a> from the Urals. <a href="http://www.architecture.com/LibraryDrawingsAndPhotographs/Palladio/PalladioAndBritain.aspx"><span style=";font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><em></em></span><span style=";font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><em></em></span>Palladio</a> and Britain. <a href="http://deliciousindustries.blogspot.com/2011/11/80s-firework-packaging.html">Firework packaging</a> of the 1980s. <a href="http://www.odetteengland.com/category/image-galleries/projects/attentional-landscapes">Attentional landscapes</a>. And ephemeral <a href="http://parenthetically.blogspot.com/2011/10/halloween-scenes.html">folk figures</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Nm7xBkn9RPA/Tr2NMs5L81I/AAAAAAAAEwc/l53QBesWCSY/s1600/FHB%2BWhat%2BIs%2BThis.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 396px; height: 400px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Nm7xBkn9RPA/Tr2NMs5L81I/AAAAAAAAEwc/l53QBesWCSY/s400/FHB%2BWhat%2BIs%2BThis.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5673846354905658194" border="0" /></a><br />And so to bed.<br /><br />(Image at top: "Election Night" by John Sloan, 1907.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-26003129689600990872011-10-28T13:54:00.000-07:002011-10-28T13:54:39.190-07:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L_Ohc08qFu4/TqsG5tn_4TI/AAAAAAAAEwA/FbOvyyX3oZk/s1600/FHB%2Bstevens.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 320px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-L_Ohc08qFu4/TqsG5tn_4TI/AAAAAAAAEwA/FbOvyyX3oZk/s320/FHB%2Bstevens.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5668632144545571122" border="0" /></a><br />Word on this street is, Eric Cantor is attempting to <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/27/1030296/-Eric-Cantor-launches-drive-to-make-you-realize-how-nice-he-is?via=blog_1">humanize</a> himself. It's the usual patter for the usual rubes: he dotes on his children, is happiest among his flowers &c. For some reason, this reminds me of the memoir I once read by a German camp guard, in which he said something like "no prisoner can truly say he was ever ill-treated in my home." Surely, this good man's reward will be great in Heaven.<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Paul Ryan is also a tragically misunderstood champion of the downtrodden. <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/yglesias/2011/10/28/355653/paul-ryan-defender-of-the-safety-net/">Here</a>, he informs us that "the safety net for the poor is coming apart at the seams and no one in Washington seems to care." (See that guy over there? He wants to steal your money! I'll hold your wallet while you kick his ass.)<br /><br />Not exactly a cheery opening, I know. But sometimes, it's good to remember that it's better to lose than to be like the "winners."<br /><br />In Yemen, women are <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/10/26/world/meast/yemen-protests/?hpt=wo_bn11">burning their veils</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Thousands of women gathered in the capital, Sanaa, said witnesses. They carried banners that read: "Saleh the butcher is killing women and is proud of it" and "Women have no value in the eyes in Ali Saleh."</p> <p>They collected their veils and scarves in a huge pile and set it ablaze -- an act that is highly symbolic in the conservative Islamic nation, where women use their veils to cover their faces and bodies. It's the first time in the nine months of Yemen's uprising that such an event has occurred.</p></blockquote><p></p>One of Gov. Rick Scott's <a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x753038">revenue streams</a> seems to have <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/victory-florida-no-illegal-drug-testing-welfare">dried up</a>:<br /><p><a href="http://www.aclufl.org/news_events/?action=viewRelease&emailAlertID=3951"></a></p><blockquote>The court reaffirmed that testing urine for drugs is a search, that application for a public benefit cannot depend on an unconstitutional condition, and that the state of Florida had fallen woefully short of establishing any need to conduct suspicionless testing.<br /><br />The judge's order also chastised the Florida legislature for failing to heed lessons it should have learned in a state-commissioned pilot study of TANF recipients in Florida: they are no more likely to use illegal drugs than the population at large.</blockquote><p></p>In related news, a Missouri judge has <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/check-your-constitutional-rights-classroom-door-not-our-watch">ruled</a> that "Linn State Technical College’s mandatory drug-testing policy is patently unconstitutional":<br /><blockquote>[T]he school had implemented mandatory, suspicionless drug-testing of all incoming students, as well as students who were returning to school after an extended absence. The policy came with little warning and a $50 price tag per test – paid by the students. In implementing the policy, Linn State sought foolishly to go where no public college had gone before – and where we hope none will go in the future, thanks to the judge’s ruling. </blockquote>A federal judge has <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/apnewsbreak-judge-dismisses-ariz-governors-lawsuit-against-feds-over-border-enforcement/2011/10/21/gIQA5hVQ4L_story.html">dismissed</a> Jan Brewer's frivolous lawsuit against the gummint:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>The Republican governor was seeking a court order that would require the federal government to take extra steps, such as more border fencing, to protect Arizona until the border is controlled.</p><p>Bolton said Brewer’s claim that Washington has failed to protect Arizona from an “invasion” of illegal immigrants was a political question that isn’t appropriate for the court to decide.</p></blockquote><p></p>Scientists have apparently found a <a href="http://www.biologynews.net/archives/2011/10/19/new_therapy_protects_monkeys_from_hendra_virus.html">therapy</a> for the Hendra virus:<br /><p></p><blockquote>A new treatment for the deadly Hendra virus has proven successful in primate tests — a major step forward in combating the virus, which kills about 60 percent of those it infects and has been implicated in sporadic outbreaks in Australia ever since it was first identified in 1994.</blockquote><p></p>The BLE has <a href="http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/10/26/128392/obama-to-block-new-uranium-mine.html">blocked</a> new uranium mining near the Grand Canyon for 20 years:<br /><p></p><blockquote> The announcement confirmed that the Obama administration was proceeding with a plan that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced in July and is expected to make final in 30 days. The decision withdraws a right to Western public lands that mining companies otherwise would have under the 1872 Mining Law</blockquote><p></p>Here's yet another reason that Arctic drilling is <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/1026-hance_oil_nestingbirds.html">a bad idea</a>:<br /><blockquote>A study in the Alaskan Arctic, employing camera traps, has shown that oil drilling impacts migrating birds in an unexpected way. The study found that populations of opportunistic predators, which prey on bird eggs or fledglings, may increase in oil drilling areas, putting extra pressure on nesting birds. </blockquote> Leaded gasoline has been almost completely <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/10/major-victory-dangerous-leaded-gasoline-now-banned-worldwide.php">phased out</a> worldwide:<br /><blockquote>The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), working with NRDC in the Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles, today announced toxic lead has been removed from gasoline in more than 175 countries worldwide, representing near-global eradication. A new, independent scientific analysis shows the result of this achievement is a 90 percent drop in blood lead levels worldwide, as well as 1.2 million lives saved each year and $2.4 trillion generated in health, social and economic benefits annually. </blockquote>The UN <a href="http://news.yahoo.com/un-leaded-fuel-gone-2013-223737108.html">predicts</a> that the fuel will be totally eliminated by 2013.<br /><br />A number of banks have <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204505304577002041853240850.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories">decided</a> not to impose monthly fees for debit card use. However, they would like it known that this decision comes from a purely inward communion with the Absolute, and should not be taken to imply that consumer pressure works:<br /><p></p><blockquote>J.P. Morgan joins <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=USB" class="companyRollover link11unvisited">U.S. Bancorp</a>, <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=C" class="companyRollover link11unvisited">Citigroup</a> Inc., <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=PNC" class="companyRollover link11unvisited">PNC Financial Services Group</a> Inc., <a href="http://online.wsj.com/public/quotes/main.html?type=djn&symbol=KEY" class="companyRollover link11unvisited">KeyCorp</a> and other large banks that have said in recent days that they won't impose monthly fees on debit cards. None of those banks said they made their decisions because of the outcry over Bank of America's fees.</blockquote><p></p>This world is adorned in diverse ways, decorated with <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/1023-hance_xenophyophores.html">rare ornaments</a>:<br /><blockquote> Imagine a one-celled organism the size of a mango. It's not science fiction, but fact: scientists have cataloged dozens of giant one-celled creatures, around 4 inches (10 centimeters), in the deep abysses of the world's oceans. But recent exploration of the Mariana Trench has uncovered the deepest record yet of the one-celled behemoths, known as xenophyophores. </blockquote><a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/ondeadline/post/2011/10/jack-the-cat-found-after-escape-at-jfk/1">Jack the Cat</a> has turned up alive and well:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>"Jack the Cat" is back from his two-month foray into the netherworld of JFK Airport in the New York City suburbs, the <em><a href="http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/jack_the_cat_found_search_jfk_airport_6ssV81LFQFs78lMbIkALMJ" target="_blank">New York Post</a></em> and other news organizations report.</p><p>The feisty feline, who gained international attention, escaped after owner Karen Pascoe checked him in at American Airlines to relocate to California....</p><p>Aviation staffers at JFK captured Jack on Tuesday as he tumbled through the ceiling tiles inside a Customs and Border Patrol room, the <em>Post</em> reports.</p></blockquote><p></p>(h/t: <a href="http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/">Cheryl</a>.)<br /><br />There'd be more, but Blogger ate about a quarter of this post and I don't have the time or patience to rebuild it. Honest!<br /><br /><a href="http://www.hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/houghton/exhibits/books_in_books/">Books in books</a>. Family planning <a href="http://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/chinesefamilyplanning/">posters</a> from China. <a href="http://www.brown.edu/Facilities/John_Carter_Brown_Library/drugs/index.html">Drugs</a> from the colonies. <a href="http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/vexhibit/_THEME_Nature_Leaves_01/1/0/0/">Leaves</a>. The iconography of the <a href="http://www.hcl.harvard.edu/libraries/maps/exhibits/baroque/">ornamental map</a>. The <a href="http://www.sca-roadside.org/">Society for Commercial Archaeology</a>. The plural of <a href="http://bigthink.com/ideas/40808">Texas</a>. An 18th-c. <a href="http://beineckeroom26.library.yale.edu/2011/10/25/the-grandpere-of-the-mad-fold-in/">fold-in</a>. An <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/10/rare-footage-now-extinct-bird-discovered.php">admonitory revenant</a>. Native American <a href="http://www.amphilsoc.org/exhibit/natamaudio">audio collections</a>. And <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111026.html">Saturn's moons and rings</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uKvRP3A6S4U/TqsS4VEdExI/AAAAAAAAEwM/FfbeV8W5vGU/s1600/fourmoons_cassini_900.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 333px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uKvRP3A6S4U/TqsS4VEdExI/AAAAAAAAEwM/FfbeV8W5vGU/s400/fourmoons_cassini_900.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5668645314913702674" border="0" /></a><br />(Photo at top by <a href="http://www.lensculture.com/stevens-1.html">S. Gayle Stevens</a>.)<br /></div>Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-41383069515693779092011-10-21T08:44:00.000-07:002011-10-21T11:53:14.686-07:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tPjAcLlvetE/TqG7jkONy7I/AAAAAAAAEvc/3Ig0ScVZomc/s1600/Wendelstein.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 308px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tPjAcLlvetE/TqG7jkONy7I/AAAAAAAAEvc/3Ig0ScVZomc/s400/Wendelstein.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5666016025901910962" border="0" /></a><br />The FBI is finally <a href="http://feministing.com/2011/10/20/update-fbi-changes-official-definition-of-rape/">updating</a> its definition of rape:<br /><blockquote>The Uniform Crime Report Subcommittee <a href="http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/advisory-policy-board">voted unanimously</a> to change the definition of rape, which had not been changed for 80 years (!) and rape will now be defined as, “penetration, no matter how slight, of the vagina or anus with any body part or object, or oral penetration by a sex organ of another person, without the consent of the victim.”</blockquote> San Francisco will <a href="http://www.msmagazine.com/news/uswirestory.asp?ID=13291">require</a> CPCs to stop lying:<br /><blockquote>On Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 10-1 to approve a city ordinance that would prevent crisis pregnancy centers from spreading false or misleading advertisements about their facilities. The ordinance requires that crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) display signs indicating whether they offer comprehensive reproductive health services, including abortions and contraception, and whether a licensed medical professional is on staff.</blockquote>Speaking of which, Rick Santorum has vowed to put an end to contraception if elected, on the grounds that "it’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.” There was a time when this might have been an attention-grabbing stance, but as the Right thrusts itself ever deeper into the nether regions of sexual delirium, Santorum's in danger of being Left Behind. Who needs him when we've got <a href="http://www.truthwinsout.org/blog/2011/10/19429/">Mark Driscoll</a>?<br /><em></em><blockquote>[M]asturbation can be a form of homosexuality because it is a sexual act that does not involve a woman.</blockquote>It's clearly time to bring back <a href="http://ericspitznagel.com/content/published-stories/dangerous-christmas-toys-specifically-victorian-era-anti-masturbation-devices/">Dr. Moodie's apparatus for boys</a>! If leather-and-chrome genital bondage devices can't stop this nation's epidemic of perversion, what on earth can? It'll create jobs, too: We've got a country full of unemployed <a href="http://steampunkworkshop.com/">steampunk designers</a> who've been dying for an opportunity like this.<br /><br />Anyway. An Oklahoma judge has <a href="http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2011-10-19/oklahoma-judge-issues-temporary-injunction-against-abortion-law-set-nov-1">blocked</a> a particularly stupid and brutal anti-abortion law:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>The temporary injunction prevents the bill from going into effect on Nov. 1. Passed earlier this year by the GOP-controlled Legislature and signed by Gov. Mary Fallin, the measure requires doctors to follow the strict guidelines and protocols authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and prohibits off-label uses of the drugs. It also requires doctors to examine the women, document certain medical conditions and schedule follow-up appointments.</p> <p>Opponents of the measure say the off-label use of drugs — such as changing a recommended dosage or prescribing it for different symptoms than the drug was initially approved for — is common, and that the measure would prevent doctors from using their best medical judgment.</p></blockquote><p></p>And a federal judge has <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/uranium-mining-10-19-2011.html">blocked</a> a DoE uranium-leasing plan on Colorado public lands:<br /><blockquote> In a major victory for clean air, clean water and endangered species on public lands, a federal judge on Tuesday halted the Department of Energy’s 42-square-mile uranium-leasing program that threatened the Dolores and San Miguel rivers in southwestern Colorado. Five conservation groups had sued to halt the leasing program, charging that the Department of Energy was failing to adequately protect the environment or analyze the full impacts of renewed uranium mining on public lands.<br /></blockquote>Apple apparently has some interesting <a href="http://inhabitat.com/apple-patents-next-generation-solar-technology/">solar technology patents</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote>The US Patent and Trademark Office just revealed that Apple has been granted 20 new patents which focus on next generation solar technology. According to PatentlyApple, the patents not only cover solar technology being used to extend the battery lives of personal devices, but will also see the development of a cool new product – a specialized back panel reflector that uses sunlight to illuminate laptop screens.</blockquote><p></p><div style="overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; border: medium none;">California has <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/21/us-carbon-california-idUSTRE79K00U20111021">approved</a> cap-and-trade regulations:<br /></div><span id="articleText"><p></p><blockquote><p>The most populous U.S. state is moving ahead with the plan years after federal regulators rejected a similar idea for the nation, partly on concerns of the effect on businesses.</p><span id="midArticle_3"></span><p>The California Air Resources Board voted 8-0 to adopt the market regulations, which officials said are critical to the state's goal of cutting carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 -- about a 22 percent reduction from forecasted business-as-usual output.</p></blockquote><p></p></span>A Koch-funded climate study group has <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/10/20/349544/berkeley-temperature-study-results-confirm-global-warming/">driven yet another stake</a> into Anthony Watts' shriveled heart:<br /><blockquote><p>Watts had famously promised “<strong>I’m prepared to accept whatever result they produce, even if it proves my premise wrong"....</strong> </p> But BEST just released a <a href="http://www.berkeleyearth.org/Resources/Berkeley_Earth_Station_Quality">whole paper</a> devoted to debunking Watts’ life work – his effort to smear climate scientists by accusing them of knowingly using bad temperature stations to rig their results.<br /><p></p></blockquote>Shockingly, Watts is <a href="http://www.scholarsandrogues.com/2011/10/20/watts-wrong-with-this-picture/">not actually prepared</a> to accept their results.<br /><br />Nearly 300 large investors are <a href="http://www.sej.org/headlines/investors-worth-20-trillion-urge-legally-binding-climate-treaty">clamoring</a> for a climate treaty:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>The group of 285 investors issued a joint statement emphasizing the urgent need for policy action which stimulates private sector investment in climate change solutions, creates jobs, and ensures the long-term sustainability and stability of the world economic system.</p> The statement represents the largest group, by both number of signatories and assets under management, ever to call for policy action on climate change. Signatories to the statement include financial institutions, state treasurers, controllers, pension fund leaders, asset managers, insurance groups, faith groups and foundations worldwide.</blockquote>A federal judge in Brazil has <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/1018-belo_monte_illegal.html">ruled against</a> the Belo Monte dam:<br /><span style=";font-family:verdana,sans-serif,arial;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-size:85%;"> </span></span><blockquote>The environmental license for the controversial Belo Monte dam violates the constitutional rights of indigenous communities and is therefore illegal, ruled a federal judge in Brazil on Monday.<br /><br />Judge Selene Maria de Almeida concluded that the 2005 decree that authorized the dam is illegal because Congress failed to carry out a consultation process with communities that will be affected by the dam. The consultation process is a right guaranteed to indigenous communities under Brazil's constitution. </blockquote>Michelle Bachmann's NH staff has <a href="http://dailykos.com/story/2011/10/21/1028681/-Bachmanns-New-Hampshire-staff-quits?via=blog_1">quit en masse</a>:<br /><blockquote>Pindell scoops that Michele Bachmann's entire paid campaign team - roughly a half-dozen staffers - in New Hampshire has quit out of frustration with the campaign. <p>They were going to do it even earlier, he reports, but didn't because it would have harmed the candidate.<br /></p> </blockquote>More schadenfreude, courtesy of <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/21/1028707/-Herman-Cains-pro-choice-stance-roils%C2%A0conservatives?via=blog_1">Herman Cain</a> and <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/20/1028512/-Marco-Rubio:-Finished-as-VP-Candidate?via=sidebyuserrec">Marco Rubio</a>.<br /><br />Last, rumor has it that <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/21/1028697/-Reports:-All-US-troops-to-leave-Iraq-by-end-of-year;-Obama-to-deliver-statement?via=blog_1">we may actually leave Iraq</a>. I know intellectually that this is a good thing, but it doesn't make me feel much of anything beyond dull rage.<br /><p></p><blockquote>President Obama <a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/10/obama-to-speak-on-iraq-at-1245-pm/1">will address</a> reports that all U.S. troops will be withdrawn from Iraq by the end of year in a statement scheduled for 12:45PM ET. President Obama's statement comes following a discussion he had with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. Last week, reports <a href="http://www.freep.com/article/20111016/NEWS07/110160466/U-S-will-stick-to-Dec-31-deadline-on-troop-withdrawal-from-Iraq?odyssey=tab%7Cmostpopular%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE">indicated</a> that the U.S. had abandoned plans to keep forces in Iraq past the December 31 withdrawal deadline and various cable reports now are indicating the decision has been finalized. 40,000 troops are currently in Iraq.</blockquote><p></p><a href="http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/film-grenade.html">The </a><a href="http://www.cinetecadelfriuli.org/progettoturconi/#Eng">Turconi Project</a> (via <a href="http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2011/10/17/the-turconi-project/">The Bioscope</a>). <a href="http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/film-grenade.html">A throwable panoramic camera</a>. Photos by <a href="http://www.davidbsmithgallery.com/exhibit/show/kim-keever">Kim Keever</a> (via <a href="http://www.coudal.com/index.php">Coudal</a>). <a href="http://beineckeroom26.library.yale.edu/2011/10/17/the-game-of-medicinal-herbs/">Jeu d’Herbes Medicinales</a>. Photos of former battlefields by <a href="http://peterhebeisen.com/">Peter Hebeisen</a>. Images from Niels Klim's <a href="http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/10/journey-underground.html">journey underground</a>. The <a href="http://www.nailyaalexandergallery.com/exhibition/light-of-modernity-in-buenos-aires-1929-1954">Light of Modernity in Buenos Aires</a> (via <a href="http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/wood_s_lot.html">wood s lot</a>). <a href="http://www.oldandinteresting.com/default.aspx">Old and Interesting</a>, "a history of domestic paraphernalia." <a href="http://deliciousindustries.blogspot.com/2011/09/retro-tesco-at-goodwood-revival-2011.html">Retro Tesco</a>. Nigerian <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmqUfFlVWAM#t=0m25s">traffic control</a>. Optical effects of <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111018.html">special relativity</a>. Ice cream and <a href="http://parenthetically.blogspot.com/2011/10/ice-cream-and-architectural-loss.html">architectural loss</a>. Russian <a href="http://www.nlr.ru/eng/line/spbpcards/">postcards</a> of St. Petersburg. <a href="http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/fires/main/modis-10-overview.html">Fire and smoke</a>. And photographs by <a href="http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/dbtw-wpd/virt-exhib/hochstetter/photography.html">Ferdinand von Hochstetter</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JlZ-q97oAkE/TqG_c-xq_yI/AAAAAAAAEvo/D1soscWLvhg/s1600/monument.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 389px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JlZ-q97oAkE/TqG_c-xq_yI/AAAAAAAAEvo/D1soscWLvhg/s400/monument.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5666020310817373986" border="0" /></a><br />(Photo at top: "Wendelstein" by <a title=" Peter Keetman ">Peter Keetman</a>, 1950. Via <a href="http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/vexhibit/_THEME_Abstraction_shadows_01/2/0/0/">Luminous Lint</a>.)<i><br /></i>Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-22331614090110030162011-10-14T11:50:00.000-07:002011-10-14T12:02:20.803-07:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fS6btEC2m_Q/Tph7m-FZKLI/AAAAAAAAEvE/-MVzCzkwP0k/s1600/occupy-wall-street-general-assembly.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 304px;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fS6btEC2m_Q/Tph7m-FZKLI/AAAAAAAAEvE/-MVzCzkwP0k/s400/occupy-wall-street-general-assembly.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663412440849262770" border="0" /></a><br />This morning's planned eviction of Occupy Wall Street has been <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-14/occupy-wall-street-park-cleaning-is-postponed-as-14-protesters-in-custody.html">called off</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>A confrontation between Occupy Wall Street demonstrators and New York City police was avoided after Brookfield Office Properties Inc. postponed cleaning its Zuccotti Park in Lower Manhattan, where the protesters have been camping out for almost a month. </p></blockquote><p></p><a href="http://nycga.cc/donate/">Donate</a>. Send <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/tina-dupuy/its-cls-two-week-solidarity-pizza-anniv">food</a>. Get <a href="http://www.meetup.com/occupytogether/">involved</a>.<br /><br />A church in San Jose, CA has <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/13/1025828/-San-Jose:-Millions-Withdrawn-from-Bank-of-America-and-Wells-Fargo%21?via=siderec">withdrawn</a> all its money from Bank of America:<br /><blockquote>Father Eduardo Samaniego announced that the parish is moving its $3 million account with Bank of America, where the church has done business for at least 20 years, to a community credit union.</blockquote><a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/14/1026328/-CRACK%21:-Bank-of-America-Downgraded?via=siderec">In related news</a>:<br /><div id="intro"> <p></p><blockquote><p>Remember back in August after the phoney "debt ceiling crisis" that the GOP ginned up? Standard and Poor's (S&P) downgraded the credit ranking of the United States. Two other rating agencies, Moody's and Fitch's, did NOT follow suit.</p> <p>This morning comes news however that Fitch's has downgraded the Viability Rating to NEGATIVE of.....Bank of America!</p></blockquote><p></p> </div>November 5 is <a href="http://www.cutimes.com/2011/10/10/bank-transfer-day-causes-cu-buzz">Bank Transfer Day</a>. About time, too. Now, if we can just get people to cancel their cable service and send the monthly fees to Planned Parenthood....<br /><br />Apropos of which, Phill Kline may <a href="http://feministing.com/2011/10/14/law-license-of-former-kansas-anti-choice-attorney-general-suspended/">lose</a> his law license:<br /><p></p><blockquote>A professional ethics panel recommended Thursday that former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline have his state law license suspended indefinitely over his conduct during criminal investigations of abortion providers, saying he was “motivated by dishonesty and selfishness.”</blockquote><p></p>Yahoo has <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/10/13/342971/yahoo-leaves-chamber/">pulled out</a> of the US Chamber of Commerce:<br /><blockquote>Politico’s Morning Tech reported that tech-giant Yahoo “has quietly left the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.” The company wouldn’t give a reason for its departure, but has been clashing with the Chamber over the PROTECT IP Act, a bill that would limit activities on websites accused of using copyrighted material. According to U.S. Chamber Watch, more than 50 local Chambers of Commerce and a dozen major corporations “have abandoned or disavowed the U.S. Chamber for their radical positions and pay-to-play model.”</blockquote>A number of media outlets seem to have <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/13/1025999/-Republican-group-pulls-deceptive-ad-on-Ohios-Issue-2,-but-continues-to-defendit?via=blog_1">developed</a> some form of rudimentary spine:<br /><blockquote>As of this morning, <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/13/1025792/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Morning-Digest:-Thirty-Ohio-TV-stations-pull-misleading-ad-from-anti-union-group?via=blog_1">30 Ohio television stations</a> had pulled the <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/10/12/1025656/-Dozens-of-television-stations-pull-deceptive-ad-supporting-Ohios-Issue-2?via=blog_616729">deceptive ad</a> supporting the state's Issue 2, which would limit collective bargaining for public workers. The ad takes footage from an ad <i>opposing</i> Issue 2 and makes it appear as if the woman in the original ad supports the measure. Building a Better Ohio, the Republican group that released the deceptive ad, has insisted that it was totally kosher to appropriate the woman's image and words and reverse their meaning.</blockquote>In California, Jerry Brown has finally <a href="http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2011/10/10/ca-governor-signs-the-fair-treatment-for-farm-workers-act/">signed</a> the Fair Treatment for Farm Workers Act:<br /><p></p><blockquote>United Farm Workers President Arturo S. Rodriguez praised the governor’s decision to sign the bill stating, “Today, Governor Brown helped farm workers take their biggest step forward yet in the cause of fair treatment for farm workers by approving his proposal put into legislation by Sen. Steinberg. Under SB 126, if growers cheat during an election campaign, break the law and deny farm workers their right to have a union, then the Agricultural Labor Relations Board can certify the union.”</blockquote><p></p>Brown also <a href="http://sanfrancisco.ibtimes.com/articles/228208/20111010/bill-banning-shark-fins-signed-governor-jerry-brown.htm">banned</a> the shark fin trade:<br /><blockquote>California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill on Friday, that bans any sale, trade and possession of shark fins. The bill, which will come into effect on Jan. 1, 2012, was promulgated to protect the dwindling shark population.</blockquote>Australia's proposed carbon tax has <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/1012-hance_australia_carbontax.html">survived</a> a crucial vote:<br /><blockquote> By a margin of just two votes (74-72), Australia's plan to put a price on carbon passed its toughest hurdle today. It is now expected that the Australian legislator will moved forward to put the carbon tax into law. The carbon tax, pushed aggressively by Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard, was just as ferociously opposed by business leaders and opposition party leader, Tony Abbott. </blockquote><a href="http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/10/tennessee_guns-in-bars_law_sponsor_arrested_for_du.php">Trouble in paradise</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote>A Tennessee lawmaker who is a major proponent of legislation allowing gun owners to carry firearms in bars was arrested on Tuesday and charged with driving under the influence and possession of a handgun while under the influence, Davidson County Sheriff's Office confirmed to TPM.</blockquote><p></p><a href="http://thinkprogress.org/media/2011/10/12/342259/wall-street-journal-executive-resigns-over-yet-another-news-corp-scandal/">Ditto</a>:<br /><blockquote>One of the top executives at the European branch of the Wall Street Journal, the flagship newspaper at Rupert Murdoch-owned News Corporation, has resigned amid a growing scandal that has called into question the paper’s journalistic ethics and jeopardized its reputation. Adding to the scandals News Corp. is already facing in Europe — alleged phone hacking, bribing of public officials — and a potential criminal investigation by the U.S. Justice Department, the Guardian reported today that Andrew Langhoff, the European director of Dow Jones and Co. (the subsidiary of News Corp. that owns the Journal), oversaw a massive scam that artificially inflated the circulation numbers in Europe in order to avoid losing investors, readers, and advertisers.</blockquote>Also: <a href="http://www.library.otago.ac.nz/exhibitions/experimental_philosophy/index.php">Experimental Philosophy: Old and New</a>. The <a href="http://www.tortoise.org/tortcall.html">voice of the turtle</a> is heard in the land. Made in <a href="http://madeinczechoslovakia.org/">Czechoslovakia</a>. The <a href="http://treasures.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/Suwar-al-Kawakib-al-Thabitah">Book of Fixed Stars</a> and other <a href="http://treasures.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/discover-treasures">Treasures of the Bodleian</a>. And some <a href="http://beinecke.library.yale.edu/dl_crosscollex/SetsSearchExecXC.asp?srchtype=ITEM">transparent playing cards</a>, just in case we need to be reminded that "wolves never devour each other":<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LKNyP4wq8lg/TpiEAbwOPuI/AAAAAAAAEvQ/fOHo1FRDvSw/s1600/1141443.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LKNyP4wq8lg/TpiEAbwOPuI/AAAAAAAAEvQ/fOHo1FRDvSw/s400/1141443.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5663421674403282658" border="0" /></a><br /><a href="http://nycga.cc/donate/">Donate</a>. Send <a href="http://crooksandliars.com/tina-dupuy/its-cls-two-week-solidarity-pizza-anniv">food</a>. Get <a href="http://www.meetup.com/occupytogether/">involved</a>.Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-31909468638391077172011-09-30T01:21:00.000-07:002011-09-30T13:15:06.950-07:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6-ttoxMP5PA/ToYij-7gBkI/AAAAAAAAEu8/T0cvibehktk/s1600/Feininger_Photo.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 301px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6-ttoxMP5PA/ToYij-7gBkI/AAAAAAAAEu8/T0cvibehktk/s400/Feininger_Photo.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5658247983420933698" border="0" /></a><br />Briefly, 'cause it's late and I'm tired:<br /><a href="http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=33972"></a><blockquote><a href="http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=33972">Walmart adds transgender protections</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://nclrights.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/federal-bureau-of-prisons-makes-major-change-in-transgender-medical-policy/" rel="bookmark" title="Permanent Link: Federal Bureau of Prisons Makes Major Change in Transgender Medical Policy">Federal Bureau of Prisons makes major change in transgender medical policy</a>.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/obama-administration-widens-challenges-to-state-immigration-laws/2011/09/28/gIQA8HgR7K_story.html?hpid=z3">Obama administration widens challenges to state immigration laws</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://feminist.org/blog/index.php/2011/09/26/womens-rights-groups-praise-new-afghan-shelter-regulations/">Women's rights groups praise new Afghan shelter regulations</a>.<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/world/saudi-king-gives-women-right-to-vote-20110926-1ks2i.html">Saudi king gives women right to vote</a>. (A better headline would be "Saudi king stops denying women's right to vote.")<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/2011/09/23/Ileana_Ros_Lehtinen_Becomes_First_Republican_to_Sponsor_DOMA_Repeal/">DOMA repeal gets its first Republican cosponsor</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/lgbt-rights-religion-belief/pentagon-allow-chaplains-officiate-weddings-gay-and-lesbian-service" rel="bookmark" title="Pentagon to Allow Chaplains to Officiate Weddings for Gay and Lesbian Service Members"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span>Pentagon to allow chaplains to officiate weddings for gay and lesbian service members</a>.<br /><a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/corals-09-27-2011.html"><br />Settlement requires Feds to act on protecting 82 coral species from extinction</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.planetizen.com/node/51571">The golden age of motoring is over</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0929-hance_belomonte_workhalt.html">Work must halt on Belo Monte</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/09/massive-chinese-backed-dam-irrawaddy-river-halted-burma-government.php">Massive Chinese-backed dam on Irrawaddy River halted by Burma's government</a>.<br /><a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0927-hance_bolivia_road.html"><br />Bolivia puts Amazon road project on ice</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://digital.lib.umd.edu/worldsfairs/?pid=umd:2">Treasury of World's Fair Art & Architecture: A Digital Archive, 1851-1986</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/usexex/">The United States Exploring Expedition, 1838-1842</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://castsugartongs.co.uk/default.aspx">Sugar tongs of the 18th century</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.russianscape.ru/">Russian landscape</a> (via <a href="http://web.ncf.ca/ek867/wood_s_lot.html">wood s lot</a>).</blockquote>Have a good weekend!<br /><br />(Photo: <em></em>"Night View of Trees and Streetlamp, Burgkühnauer Allee, Dessau," by Lyonel Feininger, 1928.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-64758372849316743322011-09-23T08:51:00.000-07:002011-09-23T08:51:52.626-07:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QXz-juG8_us/TnynrxeHhRI/AAAAAAAAEu0/YXiLNB_CHDA/s1600/FHB%2BPHena.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 314px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QXz-juG8_us/TnynrxeHhRI/AAAAAAAAEu0/YXiLNB_CHDA/s320/FHB%2BPHena.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655579602526373138" border="0" /></a><br />OK, fine. You talked me into it. I'll sleep when I'm dead.<br /><br />Let's see...DADT is <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/09/20/national/main20108690.shtml">no more</a>. And here's what it means to <a href="http://vikingkitties.blogspot.com/2011/09/no-queers-in-my-beloved-corps.html">you and me and the man in the next street</a>:<br /><blockquote>Now homo’s can have homo parties in base. Men can wear dresses after work on base.<br /><br />same sex can kiss and hold hands on base. Homo officers will give promotion to their homo.<br /><br />women can buy strap on and both sexes can buy homo mags.<br /><br />men forced to ahve showers with homos acting up.<br /></blockquote>The essential justice of these observations is borne out by Israel, where the incidence of homo's of both sexes using fag money to buy homo strap-on mags from gaylords in pervert stores has gone up 3 trillion percent since <a href="http://www.palmcenter.org/node/554">Homogeddon</a>.<br /><br />Let's just hope God doesn't stop smiling on our military ventures. Everything's been going so nicely up 'til now.<br /><br />In other homo news, Alaska is forcing men to ahve showers with <a href="http://www.365gay.com/news/judge-backs-exemption-for-alaska-same-sex-couples/">homos acting up</a>:<br /><blockquote>Alaska’s same-sex couples are entitled to the same senior citizen and disabled veteran property tax exemptions as married couples, a state judge has ruled. Superior Court Judge Frank Pfiffner said in his decision that the state’s marital classification violates the Alaska Constitution’s equal protection clause.</blockquote>Women acting up in the Peace Corps may get access to <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom-womens-rights/americas-angels-one-step-closer-health-care-they-deserve">reproductive health care</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Since 1979, Congress has prohibited the Peace Corps from providing coverage for abortion services with no exception. The allowances for abortion coverage in cases of rape, incest, and life endangerment that are found in other federal health insurance plans are denied to women serving in the Peace Corps — despite the fact that these women often serve in countries where good and safe medical care is hard to come by, and the Peace Corps has acknowledged that it is in the midst of grappling with a serious sexual assault problem....</p><p>That's why today, for the first time in recent memory, the Senate bill that funds the Peace Corps program was voted out of committee with exceptions for life, rape, and incest in its abortion coverage ban. This is a first and crucial step toward ensuring that the health and well-being of Peace Corps volunteers is fully protected.</p></blockquote><p></p>ObamaCare continues to exact its <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/young-adults-gain-health-insurance-under-new-law/2011/09/21/gIQABYvQmK_print.html">deadly toll</a>:<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>Nearly 1 million more young adults have obtained health insurance since the 2010 health-care law began requiring insurers to let adult children stay on their parents’ plans until age 26, according to government data released Wednesday.</p> <p>The jump in enrollment caused the share of young adults who are uninsured to drop from 34 percent at the start of 2010 to 30 percent — or 9.1 million people — by March of this year, according to a national interview survey by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. </p></blockquote><p></p>Loggerhead sea turtles will finally get <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/loggerhead-sea-turtle-09-16-2011.html">ESA protections</a>:<br /><blockquote>The Obama administration designated the North Pacific loggerhead sea turtle as endangered under the Endangered Species Act today. Populations of this rare and ancient turtle, which spends much of its time off the coasts of Mexico and Southern California, have declined by at least 80 percent over the past decade. Although loggerhead sea turtles have been listed as threatened since 1978, today’s rule recognizes that some populations are nearing extinction from fisheries bycatch, climate change and marine pollution, including oil spills. </blockquote>Twenty-four endangered birds will get their own <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/09/24-endangered-birds-gifted-their-own-hawaiian-island.php">Hawaiian island</a>:<br /><blockquote>The tiny species of Millerbird, native to Hawaii's Nihoa island, has been teetering on the brink of extinction there for decades. But now, in an attempt to hedge the chances of the bird's survival, conservationists have gifted two dozen of them a new place to call their very own own -- a remote, 1,023 acres Hawaiian island that, naturalists hope, will become a Millerbird love nest.</blockquote>And the Elwha Dam is finally being <a href="http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/43270">torn down</a>:<br /><blockquote>[T]he first concrete was scooped away from the Elwha Dam over the weekend as part of the largest dam removal in U.S. history.<p>The dam removal includes the Elwha's two dams -- the 108-foot-tall Elwha Dam and the 210-foot-tall Glines Canyon Dam. It will cost roughly $27 million and take three years, said Don Laford, the project's <a id="KonaLink3" class="kLink" style="text-decoration: underline ! important; position: static; font-family: inherit ! important; font-weight: inherit ! important; font-size: inherit ! important;" href="http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/43270#"><span style="font-weight: inherit ! important; position: static; color: rgb(176, 0, 0);font-family:inherit ! important;font-size:inherit ! important;" ><span class="kLink" style="font-weight: inherit ! important; position: relative; border-bottom: 1px solid blue;font-family:inherit ! important;font-size:inherit ! important;color:#b00000;" >construction </span><span class="kLink" style="font-weight: inherit ! important; position: relative; border-bottom: 1px solid blue;font-family:inherit ! important;font-size:inherit ! important;color:#b00000;" >manager</span></span></a>.</p></blockquote><p></p><a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog">Blog of Rights</a> reports that a federal judge has <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/voting-rights/federal-court-upholds-constitutionality-section-5-voting-rights-act">upheld</a> Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, "which requires states with a history of voter suppression to seek approval before implementing changes to their voting laws."<p></p><blockquote>The court rightfully noted that the past 25 years have provided ample evidence of discrimination against minority voters. The judge cited a 1991 incident in which Mississippi state legislators opposed a plan that would strengthen minority voting rights, referring to the plan as the “black plan” and privately as “the n-plan.” The court also cited an incident where the chairman of the Georgia House Reapportionment Committee told his colleagues, “The Justice Department is trying to make us draw nigger districts and I don't want to draw nigger districts.” The court ultimately concluded that the reauthorization of Section 5 was a “congruent and proportional remedy” to the discriminatory behavior that filled the more than 15,000 pages of legislative history.</blockquote><p></p>Karin passes this <a href="http://news.change.org/stories/major-milestone-in-grassroots-campaign-to-clean-up-ringwood-state-park">welcome news</a> along:<br /><blockquote>Last week, activists working on the campaign to permanently clean up New Jersey's <span style="border-bottom: 2px dotted rgb(54, 99, 136); cursor: pointer;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1316764446_1">Ringwood State Park</span> got major news. At a packed community hearing, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.northjersey.com/news/128859533_DEP_backs_off_Ford_s_request_to_acquire_Peters_Mine_site.html"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1316764446_2">state officials backed away</span></a> from plans to transfer the ownership of contaminated areas of the park back to Ford Motor Company, responding to the <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.change.org/petitions/save-ringwood-state-park-dont-let-ford-motor-company-use-it-as-a-toxic-landfill"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1316764446_3">campaign on Change.org</span></a> to keep the park in public hands.</blockquote><a href="http://www.chron.com/news/article/Farmers-say-Ala-immigration-law-could-cost-crops-2178408.php">Bwa ha ha</a>, as the saying is:<br /><blockquote>Farmers in one of Alabama's leading agricultural areas asked legislators Monday to make emergency changes to the state's tough new law against illegal immigration, saying millions of dollars of crops are at risk in coming weeks because of a sudden lack of hands for harvest....<p>About 50 growers packed a truck-stop dining room 45 miles north of Birmingham. They pleaded with three north Alabama lawmakers to amend the law and save what they called the lifeblood of the state's agriculture operations: The Hispanic workers who pick vegetables, gather chickens from poultry houses, pull sweet potatoes out of the ground and make the cardboard boxes that hold produce.</p></blockquote><p></p>The World Bank has come up with an <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/sep/21/world-bank-fossil-fuel-subsidies">odd notion</a>:<br /><blockquote>Leaked World Bank documents propose that rich countries should eliminate the $50bn a year they give in fossil fuel subsidies, in order to financially help poor countries address climate change.</blockquote>And so has <a href="http://bioscopic.wordpress.com/2011/09/11/jstor-opens-up/">JSTOR</a>:<br /><blockquote>JSTOR has announced that it is going to make all of its journal content published prior to 1923 in the United States (the date before which all works published in the USA are held to be in the public domain) and prior to 1870 elsewhere in the world (a reasonable assumption based on the calculation of 70 years after the death of the author for a creative work in European law) freely available to anyone, anywhere. This represents 500,000 articles from 220 journals, or around 6% of the entire JSTOR collection. </blockquote><p></p>This is...<a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/09/22/breakthrough-could-enable-others-to-watch-your-dreams-and-memories-video/">interesting</a>:<br /><blockquote>Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have reconstructed the internal “movie” that plays in a person’s head. To re-create dynamic visual experiences, they used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the brain activity of volunteers (the other members of the research team) as they watched short movie clips.</blockquote>Click through to watch the clips, which look a bit like an animated collaboration between J.M.W. Turner and Francis Bacon.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/vexhibit/_THEME_Soviet_USSR_in_Construction_01/1/0/0/">USSR in Construction</a>. New York <a href="http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2011/09/birds-eye-new-york.html">in construction</a>. Photos by <a href="http://www.jessicahines.com/">Jessica Hines</a>. Drunken <a href="http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/09/the-alcoholics-of-the-animal-world/">moose</a> in a tree. <a href="http://www.ucm.es/BUCM/foa/exposiciones/magica/">La Biblioteca Magica</a> (you'll want to turn the sound off). <a href="http://www.americanantiquarian.org/Exhibitions/Beauty/index.htm">Beauty, Virtue and Vice</a>. And photos by <a href="http://www.mcu.es/archivos/CE/ExpoVisitVirtual/kati/index.html">Kati Horna</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WP-AaFUBTvM/TnyjTBcuTDI/AAAAAAAAEuc/6EAhyLw6lms/s1600/FHB%2BHOrna.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 268px; height: 340px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WP-AaFUBTvM/TnyjTBcuTDI/AAAAAAAAEuc/6EAhyLw6lms/s400/FHB%2BHOrna.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655574779272252466" border="0" /></a><br />Canadian <a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/cmc/index-e.html">mail-order catalogues</a>. Canadian <a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/comics/index-e.html">newspaper comics</a>. Canadian <a href="http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/206/301/lac-bac/beyond_letters-ef/abc/index-e.html">alphabet books</a>. Canadian <a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/cuisine/index-e.html">cook books</a>. Canadian <a href="http://epe.lac-bac.gc.ca/100/200/301/nlc-bnc/cultivating_cdn_gardens-ef/2008/www.lac-bac.gc.ca/2/11/index-e.html">gardens</a>. Canadian <a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/posters-broadsides/index-e.html">posters and broadsides</a>.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-whdBNqCNdXU/TnykIxcY2VI/AAAAAAAAEuk/r2OtlqFawmo/s1600/FHB%2BCanada.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 261px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-whdBNqCNdXU/TnykIxcY2VI/AAAAAAAAEuk/r2OtlqFawmo/s400/FHB%2BCanada.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655575702688815442" border="0" /></a><br />Aboriginal <a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/aboriginal-music-song/index-e.html">sound recordings</a>. Communicating <a href="http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/exhibitions/Babies/index.html">reproduction</a>. Russian <a href="http://www.nlr.ru/eng/exib/moda_hist/index.html">fashion magazines</a>. <a href="http://www.lloydlibrary.org/exhibits/woodcuts.html">Woodcuts</a> and <a href="http://beineckeroom26.library.yale.edu/2011/09/19/why-is-it-called-ovaltine/">Ovaltine</a>. The <a href="http://cdm15017.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/p15017coll10">DuPont Company Magazine</a> and <a href="http://digital.hagley.org/cdm4/index_p15017coll7.php?CISOROOT=/p15017coll7">The Keller Collection</a> (both via <a href="http://www.thingsmagazine.net/">things</a>). <a href="http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/expo/053302_e.html">Expo 67</a> and <a href="http://mondorama2000.blogspot.com/">Mondorama 2000</a>:<br /><br /><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uu0ed-Tn4Ss/TnyjSmIoYXI/AAAAAAAAEuE/xaenXuZxxf4/s1600/FHB%2B112-12%2Bglacier%2Bde%2Bvall%25C3%25A9e.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 233px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uu0ed-Tn4Ss/TnyjSmIoYXI/AAAAAAAAEuE/xaenXuZxxf4/s400/FHB%2B112-12%2Bglacier%2Bde%2Bvall%25C3%25A9e.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5655574771940221298" border="0" /></a><br />(Image at top: Phenakistastcope disc published by Forrester & Nichol, Lithographers, Edinburgh 1832-1833. Via <a href="http://beineckeroom26.library.yale.edu/2011/09/15/phenakistiscope/">Room 26</a>.)Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-66084672732625293012011-09-15T07:40:00.001-07:002011-09-15T08:56:53.627-07:00And Your Wife<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-opjPOSflGfY/TnIeBxEYUxI/AAAAAAAAEt8/p-9ZHja7rKQ/s1600/nm_michelle_obama-copy.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-opjPOSflGfY/TnIeBxEYUxI/AAAAAAAAEt8/p-9ZHja7rKQ/s320/nm_michelle_obama-copy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5652613498003804946" border="0" /></a><br />As you all know by now, Michelle Obama was <a href="http://mediamatters.org/blog/201109140022">caught red-handed</a> appearing to express something along the lines of the hate-filled rhetoric we would've heard on the infamous "whitey tape" if its owner hadn't joined Vince Foster in the Valhalla of political martyrdom.<br /><br />While there's some doubt as to what she said, there's no doubt at all about who said it; if she wasn't insulting the flag (or "dissin' it," as Teh Blacks say), <span style="font-style: italic;">why were her lips moving?</span> If she didn't intend to sully this most hallowed of days with her malign presence, <span style="font-style: italic;">why did she show up?</span><br /><br /><a href="http://vikingkitties.blogspot.com/2011/09/ichelle-obama-rolls-eyes-at-flag.html">Intruders</a>. There's no other word for Hussein and Moochelle, except for the one I'm thinking constantly, but can't quite bring myself to say. Yet.<br /><br />In other news, here's the latest track from the Heatless.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/DQZj5jT0qfU" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" width="420"></iframe>Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-32193449779616792932011-08-27T09:45:00.000-07:002011-08-27T09:57:54.999-07:00One People<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oEBIbJiXg1g/Tlka7a8Uz3I/AAAAAAAAEt0/O7MHGr9phJk/s1600/caliphate.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 320px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-oEBIbJiXg1g/Tlka7a8Uz3I/AAAAAAAAEt0/O7MHGr9phJk/s320/caliphate.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645573216032575346" border="0" /></a>
<br />Our President asks us to <a href="http://dailykos.com/story/2011/08/27/1010936/-Obama-calls-for-common-purpose-as-9-11-anniversary-approaches?via=blog_1">remember</a> those dear dead days after 9/11:
<br /><blockquote>We were united, and the outpouring of generosity and compassion reminded us that in times of challenge, we Americans move forward together, as one people.</blockquote>This is dangerous nonsense. I lived in NYC before, during and after 9/11, and I can definitively state that "we" were not united. I rode the 9 train downtown a week after the attacks; there was palpable fear and suspicion of any remotely "Islamic"-looking person who boarded, from Sikhs to Peruvians. I ate in normally crowded Middle Eastern restaurants on Atlantic Avenue, which were empty despite the windows full of American flags. I heard elaborate conspiracies about the Jews (they all called in sick that day! they were dancing and cheering as the towers fell!), and I heard racial epithets hurled at Pakistani families in Jersey City.
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<br />Soon after the attacks, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson <a href="http://www.snopes.com/rumors/falwell.asp">blamed</a> feminists, fags and the ACLU. Orrin Hatch and Dana Rohrabacher <a href="http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/10/18/column.billpress/index.html">blamed</a> Clinton. So did <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A17702-2001Oct6&notFound=true">Rush Limbaugh</a> and Newt Gingrich. <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/johnleo/2002/01/21/the_truth_shouldnt_be_doctored/page/2">John Leo</a> called the NYC firefighters' response to 9/11 "a display of heroism by multiculturalism's villain class, white males," without pausing to wonder why most of the firefighters in a hugely diverse city were white.
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<br />When Bill Maher pointed out that "lobbing cruise missiles from two thousand miles away" was not necessarily brave, Ari Fleischer famously <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/27/spin/print.html">responded</a> that "Americans...need to watch what they say, watch what they do." In some towns, people who didn't look like "us" paid for their effrontery with <a href="http://pluralism.org/reports/view/104">beatings</a>, or with their <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Balbir_Singh_Sodhi">lives</a>.
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<br />Things were typical, in other words: A bunch of scared, angry people spouting ignorant opinions, stifling dissent, bellowing threats and beating up on darkies. America: Open for Business!
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<br />The small grain of truth in Obama's claim is that many people who had intelligent things to say about the reasons for the attack, or legitimate concerns about our response, felt compelled to keep their mouths shut. This was a matter of decorum and patriotism, to an extent, but some people also felt <a href="http://www.seattlepi.com/local/opinion/article/The-country-rallies-to-Bush-s-side-1066012.php">intimidated</a> by an officially recognized outburst of "national unity," the main purpose of which was to steel people for the hard work of stamping out difference and dissent.
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<br />As usual, "we" were united only inasmuch as we hated "them." And an awful lot of Americans were "them" after 9/11. To the extent that we're less united now than we were then, it's largely because the post-9/11 media and blogosphere worked overtime to mainstream racism, xenophobia and violent political rhetoric, and did so precisely in the name of "unity."
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<br />The President himself is the natural heir to a lot of this abuse, so it's not exactly edifying to see him paying pious lip service to the abstractions and lies that inform the current attacks on him. The fact is, much of the national unity after 9/11 was national unity against <span style="font-style: italic;">people like Obama:</span> people who look different, and have funny names, dubious worldviews and questionable allegiances. That's why the right views it as a Golden Age.
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<br />I'm not sure what's worse: the idea that he doesn't realize this, or the idea that he does.
<br />Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-88359793798661595502011-08-26T15:14:00.000-07:002011-08-27T10:02:29.847-07:00Friday Hope Alinsky Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GRhNQaPd-u0/TlgCdJ_dPRI/AAAAAAAAEtc/r6iYQxMZnBA/s1600/FHB%2BAlinsky.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-GRhNQaPd-u0/TlgCdJ_dPRI/AAAAAAAAEtc/r6iYQxMZnBA/s400/FHB%2BAlinsky.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645264832830455058" border="0" /></a>
<br />This week, the Alinskyites redoubled their efforts to force America under the yoke of Alinskyism. The most frightening approach taken by these fanatics is a seeming indifference to Alinsky's thought, or worse yet, a <span style="font-style: italic;">total ignorance of it</span>. Needless to say, the Alinskyistas who favor these Alinskyist tactics are the most dangerous Alinskyites of all. That's why we must educate ourselves, here and now. Forewarned is four-armed!
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<br />Alinsky once said that "the enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength." It's probably just a "coincidence" that the DHS is working hand-in-jackboot with the <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech-national-security/win-free-speech-aclu-recommendations-adopted-dhs">ACLU</a>:<blockquote>The ACLU just scored a big win for freedom of speech from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). More than 2 years ago we filed a complaint with the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties (OCRCL) concerning an effort to collect and distribute information about lawful demonstrations. Earlier this month, we received a <a href="https://www.aclu.org/national-security/letter-aclu-dhs-office-civil-rights-and-civil-liberties-regarding-surveillance">letter from OCRCL</a> letting us know that they have resolved our complaint, and are adopting our recommendations! </blockquote>It's the Chicago Way!
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<br /><a href="http://www.bc.edu/offices/pubaf/news/2011_jun-aug/petergray_freeplay08252011.html">Undermining parental authority</a> is central to the Alinsky program:
<br /><blockquote>Hovering helicopter parents who restrict their kids' unstructured play may actually harm, rather than help, children according to the latest issue of the <span style="font-style: italic;">American Journal of Play</span>, a scholarly journal which has gathered a distinguished group of experts to probe the near-extinction of free play and its effects on children and society.</blockquote>As is the worship of <a href="http://bit.ly/pxGZh6">Gaia</a>:
<br /><blockquote>Zoologists have discovered that a freshwater species of zooplankton will eat a fungal pathogen which is devastating amphibian populations around the world. It could provide a desperately needed tool for biological control of this deadly fungus.</blockquote>And rewarding <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0824-hance_peru_fpic.html">underachievers</a> for failure:
<br /><blockquote>A new administration in Peru is moving toward granting indigenous people long-sought legal rights, reports Survival International. Yesterday, the Peruvian congress approved new legislation that gives indigenous people free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) for any project on their land. If signed into law and enforced, the legislation would provide indigenous groups considerable clout in keeping industry off their lands if they choose. </blockquote>"Community organizers" in Peru have <a href="http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0821-peru_san_marcos.html">created</a> a new bird sanctuary:
<br /><blockquote> San Marcos Private Conservation Area consists of 970 hectares (2,400 acres) of Polylepis forest, a high-elevation habitat that supports a wealth of bird species, including the Royal Cinclodes, White-browed Tit-Spinetail, and Ash-breasted Tit-Tyrant. Five new plant species and two new frog species have already been discovered within the borders of the San Marcos Private Conservation Area. </blockquote>While these Alinsky-fanciers distract us with the gaudy spectacle of "Tit-Tyrants," we remain blind to the deadly plague of <a href="http://vikingkitties.blogspot.com/2011/08/liberal-superplague.html">grand-abortion</a>...just as Alinsky would've intended if he'd lived to hear about it:
<br /><p></p><blockquote>Grand-abortions...are the babies who were never conceived in the first place because the humans who would have been their parents were killed before they were allowed to be born.</blockquote><p></p>The human toll of great-grand-abortion is almost too terrible to contemplate.
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<br />While wallowing metaphorically in the figurative blood of theoretically slaughtered innocents, Alinsky noted that "any revolutionary change must be preceded by a passive, affirmative, non-challenging attitude toward change among the mass of our people." Could it happen here? <a href="http://www.adn.com/2011/08/25/2031770/tongass-national-forest-river.html">My sources say yes</a>:
<br /><p class="first story_readable"></p><blockquote><p class="first story_readable">A celebration was held Thursday to mark the restoration of a river in the Tongass National Forest that was once renowned for producing salmon and trout but was damaged decades ago by the effects of clear-cut logging.
<br /></p><p class="story_readable"> The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Forest Service were partners in the multi-year project to repair damage done to the Harris River and its tributaries on Prince of Wales Island. Salmon are now swimming in pools engineered by restoration experts. </p></blockquote><p class="story_readable"></p><div style="overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none; border: medium none;">Thanks to some ruthless Alinskyesque jujitsu on the part of an overentitled underclass, a stretch of the LA River is now <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/US/08/20/california.la.river/index.html?eref=rss_travel">open</a> to kayakers, Marxists, illegal immigrants and other terrorists:
<br /></div><blockquote>For the first time in decades the Los Angeles River, once polluted and ridiculed, is open to kayakers and canoeists this summer under a federally authorized two-month program.</blockquote>If <a href="http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/44212283/ns/world_news-europe/#.TlCJUoJSWnE">this</a> weren't a horrifying real-life example of Alinskyite practice, it would be a terrifying metaphor for Alinskyite theory:
<br /><blockquote>A train could someday make a journey from New York City to London if a plan to build a 65-mile tunnel between North America and Asia comes to pass. </blockquote>"Asia," of course, is a euphemism for Stalinist Russia, which Alinsky has often praised by means of condemnation, in a textbook example of Alinskyan <span class="st">Правда</span><span id="result_box" class="short_text" lang="ru"><span class="hps">, or "opposite-speak."</span></span>
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<br />In related news, <a href="http://www.theledger.com/article/20110825/APA/1108251028">Alinsky!</a>
<br /><blockquote>California pesticide regulators discriminated against Latino schoolchildren when they annually approved methyl bromide, a powerful pesticide used near their schools, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday. <span>
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<br />Officials said the settlement is historic, because it's the first time the agency has issued a finding of adverse and disparate impact on a community in a civil rights case. </span></blockquote><a href="http://wwwp.dailyclimate.org/tdc-newsroom/2011/08/feds-clear-climategate-scientist">Alinsky!</a>
<br /><p></p><blockquote><p>The National Science Foundation has closed its investigation into Pennsylvania State University climatologist Michael Mann after finding no evidence of scientific misconduct related to his research.</p> <div class="pullquote">It is the latest in a string of investigations to exonerate scientists involved in the so-called "Climategate" email scandal.</div></blockquote><div class="pullquote"><a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/08/solar-panels-act-as-sails-for-shipping-vessels.php">Alinksy!</a>
<br /></div><blockquote>An innovative concept of using solar panels as both sails and photovoltaic energy producers on ships is moving forward to the "detailed design" phase, according to developer Eco Marine Power. The Fukuoka, Japan-based company is promoting its concept as a way for shipping lines to green up their operations.</blockquote><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/08/26/deportation.policy/">Aliskny!</a>
<br /><blockquote>Judy Flanagan's phone rang Tuesday with a call the Arizona immigration attorney wasn't expecting. A federal prosecutor suggested one of her clients -- a 22-year-old university student with no criminal record -- should ask to have her deportation case dismissed. <p>"That's never happened before," Flanagan said.</p> <p>Immigration lawyers around the country hope those types of calls from federal officials will become more common under new deportation guidelines the Obama administration detailed a week ago.</p></blockquote><p></p>To the man of action, the first criterion in determining which means to employ is to assess what means are available: A river <a href="http://www.enn.com/ecosystems/article/43156">beneath</a> the Amazon River. Belgian <a href="http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/news-crypt">crypts</a>. Vertical <a href="http://bigthink.com/ideas/39872">panoramas</a>. USSR <a href="http://www.luminous-lint.com/app/vexhibit/_THEME_Soviet_USSR_in_Construction_01/1/0/0/">in construction</a>. The <a href="http://www.isla.hawaii.edu/sounds/sounds.shtml">Infrasound Zoo</a>. Expositions where <a href="http://www.ndl.go.jp/exposition/e/index.html">the modern technology of the times</a> was exhibited. <a href="http://www.notechmagazine.com/2011/08/camel-trains-and-tractors-in-asia-and-russia.html">Camel trains</a> galore. <a href="http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/08/national-parks-from-space/">National parks from space</a>. And <a href="https://ldpd.lamp.columbia.edu/omeka/exhibits/show/realia"> Dramatic Museum Realia</a>:
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<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b62YtyqT0v0/TlgZbofPZ6I/AAAAAAAAEtk/GX5L9CR3E70/s1600/FHB%2BRealia.educgi-binculdevdlo2obj%253Drbml_realia_b15.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 243px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b62YtyqT0v0/TlgZbofPZ6I/AAAAAAAAEtk/GX5L9CR3E70/s400/FHB%2BRealia.educgi-binculdevdlo2obj%253Drbml_realia_b15.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645290095424530338" border="0" /></a>
<br />"The age of guessing is <a href="http://www.library.utoronto.ca/fisher/exhibitions/thompson/index.html">passed away</a>." Stereo scenes from <a href="http://www.nt.gov.au/nreta/ntl/gallery/goyder_expedition/index.htm">the Goyder Expedition</a>. Pictures of <a href="http://www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/picturesofmusic/">music</a>. Old <a href="http://sphere.lindahall.org/">astronomy texts</a>. The <a href="http://periodictableprints.com/table/">Periodic Table Printmaking Project</a> (h/t: <a href="http://phronesisaical.blogspot.com/">Cheryl</a>). Books and prints by <a href="http://www.smu.edu/Bridwell/Collections/SpecialCollectionsandArchives/Exhibitions/Durer2011.aspx">Albrecht Dürer</a>. And photographs from <a href="http://www.ndl.go.jp/scenery_top/e/index.html">the Meiji and Taisho eras</a>.
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<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjKTQ4DDveo/TlgZbrMrlNI/AAAAAAAAEts/4OBSUM5xJlU/s1600/FHB%2BMeiji.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 284px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fjKTQ4DDveo/TlgZbrMrlNI/AAAAAAAAEts/4OBSUM5xJlU/s400/FHB%2BMeiji.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645290096151991506" border="0" /></a>
<br />That's it for this week. Best wishes to readers on the East Coast. Stay safe!
<br />Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8695598.post-69324721779441203732011-08-19T15:10:00.000-07:002011-08-19T15:19:40.853-07:00Friday Hope Blogging<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FGfOYJUpdGs/Tk7PvBvgnXI/AAAAAAAAEtE/lkrEhoIvnsM/s1600/Petersen.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 295px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FGfOYJUpdGs/Tk7PvBvgnXI/AAAAAAAAEtE/lkrEhoIvnsM/s400/Petersen.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5642675789970316658" border="0" /></a>
<br />The best news I've heard this week is that <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/19/1008526/-INCREDIBLE-Jon-Stewart-piece-on-right-wing-class-warfare%21?via=siderec">most poor Americans have refrigerators</a>. This means that if they can afford to buy food, they can keep it from spoiling, provided they're able to pay their electric bill. Compare this to the situation in Socialist Europe, where even the "wealthy" are obliged to drink warm beer, and you'll see that American exceptionalism is no joke.
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<br />Given that America's <strike>poor people</strike> underachievers enjoy advantages that would be well-nigh unimaginable to most 18th-century Baltic peasants, it's only fair to ask them to pull their ever-increasing weight. This site has also pointed out, more than once, that the tears of the poor could be a valuable source of microhydropower, to say nothing of water for processing tar sands. Not only does this make good economic sense, but it's also Biblically sound. For as Matthew 25:29 says, "unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not, even that which he hath shall be taken away."
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<br />Besides, it's not like we have a choice. The only alternative would be to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html?_r=1">tax the wealthy a little more</a>. Or failing that, to haul these insufferably arrogant economic vampires before a People's Tribunal, seize all their assets and maroon them on <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howland_Island">Howland Island</a>.
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<br />In other news, Democrats did <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/17/us-wisconsin-recalls-idUSTRE77F2W820110817">pretty well</a> in the Wisconsin recall elections:
<br /><span id="articleText"><span class="focusParagraph"><p></p></span><blockquote><span class="focusParagraph"><p>Two Wisconsin Democratic state senators beat back Republican challengers on Tuesday in the last of a series of recall elections triggered by a fight over collective bargaining rights for public sector workers.</p> </span><span id="midArticle_1"></span><p>Both Democrats and Republicans were claiming victory on Tuesday in a series of nine summer recall votes in which Democrats unseated two incumbent Republicans but fell short of winning control of the state legislature.</p></blockquote><p></p></span><span id="articleText">A professor quoted in the article </span>refers to these results as "a draw," because what the hell else would you call booting two corrupt GOP bullies out of office, without losing any seats yourself?
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<br />The Florida Supreme Court has dared to <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/florida-supreme-court-rules-against-gov-rick-scott-in-rulemaking-case/1186234">suggest</a> that there are legal limits on Rick Scott's power:
<br /><blockquote>The Florida Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that Gov. Rick Scott "overstepped his constitutional authority and violated the separation of powers" with an executive order freezing all pending rules until he could approve them. <p>In a 5-2 opinion, the court concluded that rulemaking authority belongs to the Legislature, not the governor.</p></blockquote><p></p>The Virginia Department of Corrections will no longer <a href="http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2011/08/19/victory-virginia-prisons-will-limit-shackling-pregnant-women">shackle</a> pregnant inmates during labor and recovery:
<br /><blockquote>The new DOC regulations are sound public health policy. Restraining a pregnant woman can pose undue health risks to the woman and her pregnancy. Unrestrained movement is especially critical during labor, delivery, and the postpartum recovery. Women often need to move around during labor and recovery, including moving their legs as part of the birthing process, and restraining a pregnant woman can interfere with the medical staff’s ability to appropriately assist in childbirth.</blockquote>The UK is taking steps to <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/europe/08/17/canals.carbon.transport/index.html">revitalize</a> its canal system:
<br /><blockquote>Britain's canal systems were once viewed as a throwback to a bygone age of freight transport, sidelined or abandoned in favor of faster road and rail links. <p>But as one major waterway undergoes a renaissance, shipping huge quantities of wine and other goods through two of the country's major trading hubs, the network could be poised to reclaim its original role and at the same time help cut pollution levels.</p></blockquote><p></p>Urban crime rates have <a href="http://www.governing.com/columns/urban-notebook/urban-areas-defy-crime-trends.html">fallen</a> in U.S. cities almost as sharply as they've <a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/07/ooga_booga_righ.php">increased</a> in the imagination of hard-right "racial realists":
<br /><blockquote> The Federal Bureau of Investigation released its 2010 crime statistics, known as the Uniform Crime Report, which showed that despite the tough recession, the number of violent and property crimes committed dropped for the fourth year in a row. Those cities with 1 million or more residents saw violent crime drop 5.1 percent; cities with populations between 500,000 and 1 million experienced a 5.6 percent drop; and those between 250,000 and 499,999 saw the biggest drop in violent crime, 6.9 percent.</blockquote>In related news, U.S. states are increasingly <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/13/us/13penal.html?_r=1">reducing</a> prison sentences:
<br /><p></p><blockquote> “In Texas for the last few years we’ve been driving down both the crime rate and the incarceration rate,” said <a title="Biography of Levin on Texas Public Policy Foundation Web site" href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/staff_member.php?staff_id=32">Marc Levin</a>, the director of the Center for Effective Justice at the <a title="Texas Public Policy Foundation Web site" href="http://www.texaspolicy.com/">Texas Public Policy Foundation</a>, which helped draft the state’s corrections overhaul. “And it’s not just Texas. South Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas and Ohio in the past year or so have done major reforms. These are certainly not liberal states. That is significant.” </blockquote><p></p>See also <a href="http://www.aclu.org/blog/criminal-law-reform/safety-numbers">here</a>.
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<br />The ESA appears to have <a href="http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2011/lake-erie-water-snake-08-15-2011.html">saved</a> the Lake Erie water snake:
<br /><p></p><blockquote>“Recovery of the Lake Erie water snake is cause for celebration both for this species and for the Endangered Species Act’s long record of success,” said Collette Adkins Giese, the Center for Biological Diversity’s herpetofauna attorney. “Before its listing under the Act, the snake faced intense human persecution and habitat destruction. Through the reasonable efforts of state and federal agencies and the public, the survival of this once-imperiled species is now assured.” </blockquote><p></p>Things are also <a href="http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/homeandleisure/wildlife/110740.aspx">looking up</a> for England's river otters:
<br /><p></p><blockquote>During 2009-10 more than 3,300 sites were surveyed. Sites showing evidence of otters have increased from<strong> </strong>5.8 per cent in the first survey of 1977-79, to an outstanding 58.8 per cent in this survey.</blockquote><p></p>The Obama administration will <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/19/us/19immig.html?_r=2">adjust</a> U.S. deportation policies:
<br /><p></p><blockquote> The new policy is expected to help thousands of illegal immigrants who came to the United States as young children, graduated from high school and want to go on to college or serve in the armed forces. </blockquote><p></p>And Chicago's O'Hare airport is <a href="http://www.good.is/post/bees-enter-the-air-traffic-mix-at-chicago-s-aiport/">home</a> to a large apiary:
<br /><blockquote>In May, the Chicago Department of Aviation partnered with a community group to start a 2,400 square foot apiary on-site. Now 23 beehives are up and running and are scheduled to yield 575 pounds of honey this year.
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<br />The project offers a creative, sustainable, and productive way to use otherwise wasted open space at mega-airports like O'Hare. The bees' new home on the east side of the airport campus had long stood vacant, so it was a natural spot for the bee program to begin. And if that's not enough benefit, the beehives provide employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated adults (similar to other projects that teach prisoners beekeeping).<p></p></blockquote><p></p><span style=";font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><em></em></span><span style=";font-family:Verdana,Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:85%;" ><em></em></span>Et cetera:<a href="http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/webexhibits/sovietchildrensbooks/index.html"> Adventures in the Soviet Imaginary</a>. Tokens of <a href="http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/dept/coins/exhibitions/spence/">revolution</a>. Town and country in <a href="http://www.augustana.edu/SpecialCollections/colorplate/index.html">miniature</a>. (Related: <a href="http://lebbeuswoods.wordpress.com/2011/08/17/real-paper-architecture/">Paper models of Prague</a>, via <a href="http://www.thingsmagazine.net/">things</a>.) <a href="http://100objectsbradford.wordpress.com/">100 objects</a>. Fear of a <a href="http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/08/faraway-planet-is-blackest-yet-found/">black planet</a>. Sounds of <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/88180/meteors-sound-like-aliens/">meteors</a>. Tornado vs. <a href="http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110814.html">rainbow</a>. And photos by <a href="http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/gamble/">Sidney D. Gamble</a>:
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<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VcA_2e3eNmk/Tk7exZjrPiI/AAAAAAAAEtU/z_pPZFBnyp8/s1600/FHB%2Bgamble_164A_919.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 329px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VcA_2e3eNmk/Tk7exZjrPiI/AAAAAAAAEtU/z_pPZFBnyp8/s400/FHB%2Bgamble_164A_919.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5642692323397287458" border="0" /></a>
<br /><a href="http://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/gallery/cambridgeilluminations/">The Cambridge Illuminations</a>. European maps of <a href="http://www.lib.cam.ac.uk/Exhibitions/Fantasy_to_Federation/">Australia</a>. A <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2011/08/billboard-houses-bats-and-translates-their-speech-tells-us-whats-up.php">bat billboard</a>. Gay marriage among <a href="http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2011/08/same-sex-finch-couples-form-strong-bonds/">finches</a>: a shocking exposé. <a href="http://www.arkivatropika.com/cgi-bin/">Arkiva Tropica</a>. Scenes from a <a href="http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/08/18/weird-wild-qa-unlikely-animal-friendships/">peaceable kingdom</a>. And photos by <a href="http://nailyaalexandergallery.com/artist/pentti-sammallahti">Pentti Sammallahti</a>:
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<br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yE07RKde8Bw/Tk7ZiCUjKTI/AAAAAAAAEtM/UDKoJuVvx88/s1600/Solovki%2B%2528dog%2Bon%2Bvehicle%2529_0.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 187px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-yE07RKde8Bw/Tk7ZiCUjKTI/AAAAAAAAEtM/UDKoJuVvx88/s400/Solovki%2B%2528dog%2Bon%2Bvehicle%2529_0.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5642686561903651122" border="0" /></a>
<br />Still having YouTube problems, so that'll have to do it for this week.
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<br />(Image at top: "Laternenumzug" by Anna Sofie Petersen,ca. 1890.)
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<br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Philahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15849261651028725772noreply@blogger.com2