Towards the end some disturbing articles about our food supply......really depressing, and sorry!
1/ I have printed this story in full......ponder on it, especially the last paragraph. What a great country we are.....for some.....
1/ I have printed this story in full......ponder on it, especially the last paragraph. What a great country we are.....for some.....
Incomes of bottom 90 percent grew $59 in 40 years
During the same period, average income for the top 10 percent of Americans rose by $116,071
BY NATASHA LENNARD
(Credit: Shutterstock)
Pulitzer Prize-winner David Cay Johnston has highlighted yet more statistics that illuminate the spike in income inequality in the U.S. in recent decades. Flagging Johnston’s analysis, HuffPo noted Monday, “Incomes for the bottom 90 percent of Americans only grew by $59 on average between 1966 and 2011 (when you adjust those incomes for inflation)… During the same period, the average income for the top 10 percent of Americans rose by $116,071.”
Johnston offered a visual analogy for the disparity in a column for Tax Analysts last month:
The vast majority averaged a mere $59 more in 2011 than in 1966. For the top 10 percent, by the same measures, average income rose by $116,071 to $254,864, an increase of 84 percent over 1966.Plot those numbers on a chart, with one inch for $59, and the top 10 percent’s line would extend more than 163 feet.Now compare the vast majority’s $59 with the top 1 percent, and that line extends for 884 feet. The top 1 percent of the top 1 percent, whose 2011 average income of $23.7 million was $18.4 million more per taxpayer than in 1966, would require a line nearly five miles long.
2/ Golfers - watch a bit, then fast forward to the end to see a golf shot you have never, ever seen before......wow.......3 minutes total.....
http://bleacherreport.com/
3/ A thoughtful Matt Taibbi looks at the effects of the "three strikes" laws that were enacted in the 80's in California, and the gross injustices these laws have produced.....
More like an essay, and an excellent piece of reporting.....
Illustration by Victor Juhasz
By Matt Taibbi
March 27, 2013 7:00 AM ET
On July 15th, 1995, in the quiet Southern California city of Whittier, a 33-year-old black man named Curtis Wilkerson got up from a booth at McDonald's, walked into a nearby mall and, within the space of two hours, turned himself into the unluckiest man on Earth. "I was supposed to be waiting there while my girlfriend was at the beauty salon," he says.
So he waited. And waited. After a while, he paged her. "She was like, 'I need another hour,'" he says. "So I was like, 'Baby, I'm going to the mall.'"
Having grown up with no father and a mother hooked on barbiturates, Wilkerson, who says he still boasts a Reggie Miller jumper, began to spend more time on the streets. After his mother died when he was 16, he fell in with a bad crowd, and in 1981 he served as a lookout in a series of robberies. He was quickly caught and sentenced to six years in prison. After he got out, he found work as a forklift operator, and distanced himself from his old life.
But that day in the mall, something came over him. He wandered from store to store, bought a few things, still shaking his head about his girlfriend's hair appointment. After a while, he drifted into a department store called Mervyn's. Your typical chain store, full of mannequins and dress racks; they're out of business today. Suddenly, a pair of socks caught his eye. He grabbed them and slipped them into a shopping bag.
What kind of socks were they, that they were worth taking the risk?
"They were million-dollar socks with gold on 'em," he says now, laughing almost uncontrollably, as he tells the story 18 years later, from a telephone in a correctional facility in Soledad, California.
Really, they were that special?
"No, they were ordinary white socks," he says, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. "Didn't even have any stripes."
4/ Jon Stewart with an amusing two part clip examining the Supreme Court deliberations on gay marriage......four and six minutes,
Stewart in a low key mood......but still funny....
On Thursday night, Jon Stewart took on the topic of same-sex marriage, focusing in on the Supreme Court’s Defense of Marriage Act hearing. Going through the justices’ varying arguments, the host tore into gay marriage opponents’ logic and questioned what, exactly, they fear will occur.
Stewart first noted the logic from the legal team defending DOMA, which asserted that it’s not a moral decision but one that would unify federal standards for marriage licenses. That argument was quickly disputed by Justice Elena Kagan who quoted from the House report on the legislation, which explicitly used the terms “moral disapproval” and “moral judgment.”
Cue 1996 arguments in Congress in favor of DOMA… which, Stewart noted, sounded like they were from a much earlier era.
And some of the court, too, was skeptical about the idea of same-sex marriage — namely JusticesAntonin Scalia and Samuel Alito. The former questioned the consequences of raising children in a single-sex household, while the latter offered up the made-for-cable-news soundbite about the notion being newer than cell phones or the internet. Here, Stewart was incredulous and advised that Scalia “get cable.” If shows like Dance Moms, Super Nanny, and Teen Mom are any indication, he quipped, heterosexual couples are more than capable of being terrible parents.
“What do you think might happen?” Stewart exclaimed, noting that gay marriage would certainly cause less harm than both cell phones and the internet.
5/ Tom Tomorrow looks at the Iraq war and the pundits who "talked it up"......click on the strip to enlarge it.....
6/ A flying car/helicopter? Is such a thing possible? Not quite yet I think, but they are trying to raise money for it.....
7/ Chris Hedges is an angry man....but that's good, as he speaks truth to power.....
Here he takes on our corporate media, and how we never get the news, real news any more. And if you doubt what he is saying, just think "Monsanto".....
I am not sure exactly when the death of television news took place. The descent was gradual—a slide into the tawdry, the trivial and the inane, into the charade on cable news channels such as Fox and MSNBC in which hosts hold up corporate political puppets to laud or ridicule, and treat celebrity foibles as legitimate news. But if I had to pick a date when commercial television decided amassing corporate money and providing entertainment were its central mission, when it consciously chose to become a carnival act, it would probably be Feb. 25, 2003, when MSNBC took Phil Donahue off the air because of his opposition to the calls for war in Iraq.
Donahue and Bill Moyers, the last honest men on national television, were the only two major TV news personalities who presented the viewpoints of those of us who challenged the rush to war in Iraq. General Electric and Microsoft—MSNBC’s founders and defense contractors that went on to make tremendous profits from the war—were not about to tolerate a dissenting voice. Donahue was fired, and at PBS Moyers was subjected to tremendous pressure. An internal MSNBC memo leaked to the press stated that Donahue was hurting the image of the network. He would be a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war,” the memo read. Donahue never returned to the airwaves.
The celebrity trolls who currently reign on commercial television, who bill themselves as liberal or conservative, read from the same corporate script. They spin the same court gossip. They ignore what the corporate state wants ignored. They champion what the corporate state wants championed. They do not challenge or acknowledge the structures of corporate power. Their role is to funnel viewer energy back into our dead political system—to make us believe that Democrats or Republicans are not corporate pawns
8/ You will recognise this song from the opening chord........Collective Soul with "Light Shine Down". What is unusual is that the band is accompanied by a full orchestra, string sections and horns....the Atlanta Youth Symphony......
The lead singer also has great hair.....
9/ Poetry time for women - Katie Makkai with "Pretty"......
Ladies - wait a moment....you saw 'poetry' and readied your index finger to scroll down.
Don't.
Watch this powerful, moving and exciting clip of Ms. Makkai reading her poetry for three minutes.....it's an emotional, angry and powerful riff on plastic surgery, mothers and being pretty......
10/ A most interesting article about climate change in the Daily Beast, with the premise "it's here, let's deal with it" and some thoughts on how the only entity that can force change on the fossil fuel companies are the insurance giants...........
Welcome to a warmer, wilder world! We need to stop debating and start accepting that climate change is happening. Eugene Linden on how adaptation and market forces (hint: insurance companies) might temper the coming catastrophe.
- 188
- 489
To paraphrase Hemingway, climate change first comes gradually and then all at once. Now that the negative impacts of changing climate have become undeniable, there is also a dawning realization that—at this point—climate change is unstoppable. This puts into wistful perspective the developing consensus that we should do something about it. Witness Obama’s bold statement in the State of the Union Address that he is prepared to use executive powers if Congress doesn’t act. A cautious politician, it’s doubtful that he would have been so bold unless he felt that he had the public’s backing. And it’s great—except it’s too late. We’re in for it, and the rash of extreme weather events is giving us a taste of what “it” might be.
A line of mud marks the height of flood waters that ravaged a seaside home after Superstorm Sandy wrought havoc on the Jersey Shore, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2012, in Point Pleasant, N.J. (John Minchillo/AP)
The time to act was at least 25 years ago—back when George H.W. Bush promised to take action (he deep sixed that promise almost immediately after his inauguration). Given the lag in the climate system, the extreme floods, droughts, storms, storm surges, and tornado swarms are partly a response to greenhouse gas levels in the atmosphere of past years that we have since exceeded. The accelerating release of the greenhouse methane—the crystal meth of global warming—from the melting permafrost in the warming Arctic will continue regardless of whatever actions the developed nations agree to take in the coming years. It’s quixotic to think that humanity can take any action to reverse the overtaxing of the oceans’ ability to absorb CO2 (evidenced by the seas’ increasing acidity) on any timeframe meaningful to those living today.
11/ Leave it to the Germans to come up with a truly weird dance......a clever optical illusion.....you get the idea after the first minute.......
12/ I love Gail Collins - always amusing and in this column a little bit of a bite about the climate change deniers too.......
Is spring actually here? We are definitely getting tired of snow stories. It’s time for some sun. And then the drought stories!
At which point we will ask ourselves: What ever happened to worrying about global warming? You may remember what a big deal President Obama made about climate change in his Inaugural Address. It definitely looked as if the ozone layer was making a comeback. Later, in the State of the Union speech, Obama came back to his battle cry again and urged Congress “to get together, pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago.”
Urging the House and Senate to follow the lead of the two most notorious shape shifters in recent political history was perhaps not a favorable omen.
Nor was the fact that earlier this month, a deeply noncontroversial Senate resolution commemorating International Women’s Day had to be taken back and edited because someone objected to a paragraph — which had been in an almost identical version passed in the last Congress — stating that women in developing countries “are disproportionately affected by changes in climate because of their need to secure water, food and fuel for their livelihood.”
You may be wondering who the objecting senator was. Normally, these things are supposed to be kind of confidential, but in this case the lawmaker in question is proud to let you know that he is — yes! — Ted Cruz of Texas.
13/ Damien Walters could be one of the fittest people in the world, judging by this three minute video.....he does some amazing things with his body, incredibly agile.....and those jumps!
14/ You expect the scum in our Senate to be blatantly corrupt, as it was with the rider in the spending bill called the "Monsanto Protection Act" inserted by a Republican Senator from Missouri, but it was a huge letdown to know President Obama signed the bill without hesitation.
The clause in the bill, which Monsanto wrote itself, gives the evil bastards immunity from any lawsuits steming from the damage they are doing to the environment and individuals......
While Monsanto executives may be rejoicing behind the closed doors of their corporate offices, they have also just stabbed themselves in the heart with the blatant and cocky decision to go through with the Monsanto Protection Act. Obama’s social media profiles are being blown up with thousands of enraged activists and concerned citizens who are demanding answers.
Thanks to the alternative news covering every angle of the Protection Act and the absurd fact that Monsanto actually wrote the rider itself, people have now come to fully understand just how deep the corruption goes when it comes to Monsanto’s Big Food monopoly. And it doesn’t exempt the President.
It’s a well known fact that the Obama family actually eats from the White House organic garden which was planted in 2009 and has full time staffers who maintain and harvest organic produce that comes from the garden. Many high level politicians actually refuse to eat anything but organic, as they are fully aware of what’s in ‘conventional’, GMO-loaded items. Yet, despite this knowledge, they are quite eager to push Monsanto’s GMOs and ruthless business model on the citizens of the United States.
And the people are fully aware of the betrayal.
15/ A quote from Albert Einstein.....
“If the bee disappeared off the face of the earth, man would only have four years left to live.”
― Albert Einstein
But as George Carlin said "Nobody Seems to Notice, Nobody Seems to Care"......
This is probably the most disturbing article I have read for a while.......Monsanto again......
Mystery Malady Kills More Bees, Heightening Worry on Farms
A Disastrous Year for Bees: For America’s beekeepers, who have struggled for nearly a decade with a mysterious malady called colony collapse disorder that kills honeybees en masse, the last year was particularly bad.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
By MICHAEL WINES
Published: March 28, 2013 338 Comments
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BAKERSFIELD, Calif. — A mysterious malady that has been killing honeybees en masse for several years appears to have expanded drastically in the last year, commercial beekeepers say, wiping out 40 percent or even 50 percent of the hives needed to pollinate many of the nation’s fruits and vegetables.
Jim Wilson/The New York Times
Beekeepers with Big Sky Honey worked with hives used to pollinate almond groves in Bakersfield, Calif.
Readers’ Comments
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A conclusive explanation so far has escaped scientists studying the ailment, colony collapse disorder, since it first surfaced around 2005. But beekeepers and some researchers say there is growing evidence that a powerful new class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids, incorporated into the plants themselves, could be an important factor.
The pesticide industry disputes that. But its representatives also say they are open to further studies to clarify what, if anything, is happening.
“They looked so healthy last spring,” said Bill Dahle, 50, who owns Big Sky Honey in Fairview, Mont. “We were so proud of them. Then, about the first of September, they started to fall on their face, to die like crazy. We’ve been doing this 30 years, and we’ve never experienced this kind of loss before.”
In a show of concern, the Environmental Protection Agency recently sent its acting assistant administrator for chemical safety and two top chemical experts here, to the San Joaquin Valley of California, for discussions.
In the valley, where 1.6 million hives of bees just finished pollinating an endless expanse of almond groves, commercial beekeepers who only recently were losing a third of their bees to the disorder say the past year has brought far greater losses.
The federal Agriculture Department is to issue its own assessment in May. But in an interview, the research leader at its Beltsville, Md., bee research laboratory, Jeff Pettis, said he was confident that the death rate would be “much higher than it’s ever been.”
Following a now-familiar pattern, bee deaths rose swiftly last autumn and dwindled as operators moved colonies to faraway farms for the pollination season. Beekeepers say the latest string of deaths has dealt them a heavy blow.
Bret Adee, who is an owner, with his father and brother, of Adee Honey Farms of South Dakota, the nation’s largest beekeeper, described mounting losses.
16/ What we are allowing corporations to do to our food just keeps getting worse......don't know about you but I will miss sweetcorn this sumer, as I will never eat GMO corn again.....
I guess we have to go to Europe to eat their food......remember anything imported from the EU isn't GM....
Most Americans remain blissfully unaware (or don’t care) they are eating genetically-modified (GM) organisms every day. Passivity and blind faith in the USDA, FDA and EPA have largely contributed to this attitude. Perhaps that will change now that a new study reveals an insecticide produced in GM corn actually gets absorbed into the human body.
If you haven’t been paying attention to your food lately, biotechnology giants such as Monsanto thank you for that. Because behind your back, they’ve succeeded in replacing 86% of US corn with their patented insecticide-producing “frankencorn”.
The industry name for this is “Bt corn” and the insecticide is actually produced inside the plant, so it is impossible to wash it off. This is accomplished by inserting genes from the bacteria Bacillus Thuringiensis into the corn.
Up until now, scientists and multinational corporations such as Monsanto and DuPont have spent billions in lobbying, campaign donations and “testing” in an attempt to convince world governments that GMOs are safe. In the case of Bt corn, they stated the insecticide produced within the corn posed no danger to human health because it was broken down in the digestive system.
Despite corporate assurances, many have been skeptical. Non-GMO advocates such as Jeffrey Smith from The Institute For Responsible Technology and the Organic Consumers Association have long been concerned about the potential impact this Bt toxin could have on human health.
Scientists from the University of Sherbrooke, Canada, proved the validity of these concerns when they detected the insecticidal protein, Cry1Ab, circulating in the blood of both pregnant and non-pregnant women. They also detected the toxin in fetal blood, suggesting that the toxin can be passed on to the fetus. The research paper has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in the journal Reproductive Toxicology.
Neither the women studied or their spouses worked in agriculture. All reported to be consuming a typical Canadian diet that is virtually identical to the American diet.
“Generated data will help regulatory agencies responsible for the protection of human health to make better decisions”, said researchers Aziz Aris and Samuel Leblanc.
Unfortunately, I don’t feel that our pro-GMO Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack will pay attention to this research. I also doubt that our Deputy Commissioner of Foods Michael Taylor, who also happens to be Monsanto’s former vice-president, will pay this study much attention either. It doesn’t stop there. The revolving door is growing exponentially and the foxes have taken up residence in the hen house.
Are you pissed? You should be. We’ve let corporate interests turn us into poison-fed lab rats. It doesn’t end at corn either. 93% of both soy and canola are also genetically-modified. On top of that, Monsanto has acres of laboratories containing new mutant species awaiting to slip into your pantry. You’re probably wearing some of their Bt cotton right now. It comprises 93% of US cotton and 68% of Chinese cotton.
Perhaps you’ve heard of the uproar around Bt brinjal, a GM variety of eggplant, in India. When it was approved in 2009, a country-wide protest began and the Indian government applied a moratorium on its release.
Meanwhile, here in the US, GMO crops are getting approved left and right and most Americans still don’t even know what “GMO” even means.
Want to do something about it? We can’t rely on our regulatory agencies to do it for us and we possess more power than we think. It won’t take much to reach the tipping point of consumer rejection and get these “frankenfoods” out of our lives. Information spreads like wildfire these days with Facebook, Twitter and email. Tell your family and friends and vote with your dollar, the world’s food supply depends on it! Now that you know, it’s your responsibility to pass it on.
http://foodintegritynow.org/
Todays video - BBC did a short clip of animal voiceovers......quite funny.....
Todays Middle Eastern joke
A Jew and an Arab go into a bakery. The Arab steals 3 pastries and puts them
in his pocket. He says to the Jew, "See how good I am? The owner didn't see
anything!"
The Jew says to the Arab, "I am going to show you there is nobody better
than a Jew."
He goes to the owner and says, "Give me a pastry and I will
show you a magic trick.''
Intrigued, the owner accepts and give him a pastry. The Jew swallows it and
asks for another one. The owner gives him another one. Then the Jew asks for
another one and swallows it just the same.
The owner is starting to wonder where the magic trick is and says, "What did
you do with the pastry? Are you trying to fool me?"
The Jew answers, "Look in the Arab's pocket."
Todays old lady joke
Two little old ladies, Connie & Evelyn were sitting on
a park bench outside the local town hall where a
flower show was in progress.
a park bench outside the local town hall where a
flower show was in progress.
The short one, Connie,
leaned over and said, 'Life is so boring. We never
have any fun anymore. For $10.00 I'd take my clothes
off and streak through that stupid, boring flower show!'
'You're on!' said Evelyn, holding up a $10.00 bill.
So Connie slowly
fumbled her way out of her clothes and, completely
naked, streaked (as fast as an old lady can) through
the front door of the flower show.![]()
Waiting outside, her
friend soon heard a huge commotion inside the hall,
followed by loud applause and shrill whistling.
leaned over and said, 'Life is so boring. We never
have any fun anymore. For $10.00 I'd take my clothes
off and streak through that stupid, boring flower show!'
'You're on!' said Evelyn, holding up a $10.00 bill.
So Connie slowly
fumbled her way out of her clothes and, completely
naked, streaked (as fast as an old lady can) through
the front door of the flower show.
Waiting outside, her
friend soon heard a huge commotion inside the hall,
followed by loud applause and shrill whistling.
Finally, the smiling Connie
came through the exit door surrounded by a cheering,
clapping crowd.
'What happened?' asked Evelyn.
'I won $1,000 as 1st prize for 'Best Dried Arrangement..
came through the exit door surrounded by a cheering,
clapping crowd.
'What happened?' asked Evelyn.
'I won $1,000 as 1st prize for 'Best Dried Arrangement..
Todays parenting jokes
Q. Am I more likely to get pregnant if my husband wears boxers
rather than briefs?
A. Yes, but you'll have an even better chance if he doesn't wear
anything at all.
Q. What is the easiest way to figure out exactly when I got pregnant?
A. Have sex once a year.
Q. What is the most common pregnancy craving?
A. For men to be the ones who get pregnant.
Q. My blood type is O-positive and my husband's is A-negative.
What if my baby is born, say, type AB-positive?
A. Then the jig is up.
Q. My husband and I are very attractive. I'm sure our baby will
be beautiful enough for commercials. Whom should I contact
about this?
A. Your therapist.
Q. I'm two months pregnant now. When will my baby move?
A. With any luck, right after he finishes college.
Q. How will I know if my vomiting is morning sickness or the flu?
A. If it's the flu, you'll get better.
Q. My brother tells me that since my husband has a big nose, and
genes for big noses are dominant, my baby will have a big nose
as well. Is this true?
A. The odds are greater that your brother will have a fat lip.
Q. Since I became pregnant, My breasts, rear end, and even my
feet have grown. Is there anything that gets smaller during
pregnancy?
A. Yes, your bladder.
Q. Ever since I've been pregnant, I haven't been able to go to
bed at night without onion rings. Is this a normal craving?
A. Depends on what you're doing with them.
Q. The more pregnant I get, the more often strangers smile at me.
Why?
A. Cause you're fatter then they are.
Q. My wife is five months pregnant and so moody that sometimes she's
borderline irrational.
A. So what's your question, d*&!#@%?
