Archive for August, 2010
Bob Cesca, Host of the Bob and Elvis show, recently wrote an Op-Ed over at the Huffington Post that supports the reasoning behind the photo to the right; The goal is simple re-write history and scare the white people by manufacturing the racial boogie man. You know “a guy who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture.”
And it works. So well, in fact, that it’s still actively used on AM talk radio and on Fox News Channel as a ratings-grabber, not to mention as a recruitment tool for the various tea party groups. If you can effectively convince the majority race that they’re being somehow victimized by the significantly smaller minority, you have a seriously powerful (and clearly immoral) psycho-weapon in your arsenal.
This year has to be some kind of high water mark for white antagonism against minorities, and evidence that the Republicans, along with the array of far-right apparatchiks, don’t really have a serious agenda for governing to sell or, for that matter, anything of value to say. And so they do this. They continue to tap into a mother lode of white majority self-pity and inchoate rage as a form of spackle over the gaping holes in their ridiculous policy arguments.
Bob Cesca is right, there are “gaping holes”; however the gaping holes are between the ears of …..well just watch the video.
I have a solution to all of this hateful rhetoric. The far right-wing, race baiting, tea- party attending, lap dogs should be required to wear shock collars and the critical thinking majority should control the remotes.
H/T Carl Dahle for the pic
By Rady Ananda
Early Sunday morning, French police stood helpless as sixty people, locked inside an open-air field of genetically modified grapevines, uprooted all the plants. In Spain last month, dozens of people destroyed two GMO fields. On the millennial cusp, Indian farmers burned Bt cotton in their Cremate Monsanto campaign. Ignored by multinational corporations and corrupt public policy makers, citizens act to protect the food supply and the planet.
The French vineyard is the same field attacked last year when the plants were only cut. But the security features installed after that incident kept authorities at bay while the group accomplished its mission yesterday.
Speaking for the group, Olivier Florent told Le Figero that they condemned the use of public funds for open-field testing of GMOs “that we do not want.”
Pitching tents in the rain near France’s National Institute for Agronomic Research (INRA) site in Colmar the night before, the group waited until 5 AM before converging on the site and locking the gates behind them. They uprooted all 70 plants, then submitted to arrest.
This is the second attack on GMO crops to make international news this year. In July dozens of people destroyed two experimental corn crops in Spain. In an anonymous press release, they wrote, “This kind of direct action is the best way to respond to the fait accompli policy through which the Generalitat, the State and the biotech multinationals have been unilaterally imposing genetically modified organisms.”
In the late 1990s, Indian farmers burnt Bt cotton fields in their Cremate Monsanto campaign. Monsanto did not disclose to farmers that the GM seeds were experimental. “Despite the heavy use of chemical fertiliser, traces of which still can be observed in the field, the Bt plants grew miserably, less than half the size of the traditional cotton plants in the adjacent fields.”
This case has been on going for 5 years (Delay was indicted in 2005)! If it was one of us common folk, we would all ready be sporting an orange jumpsuit, not to mention what it has cost the taxpayers.
Source: RawStory|AP
DeLay heads to Texas court in money laundering case, days after DOJ ends probe without charges.
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay is moving to the next round in his fight against criminal indictments in Texas, where he faces money laundering and conspiracy charges.
DeLay and two co-defendants were indicted in 2005 in connection with efforts to elect Republican state legislative candidates in 2002. Since then, pretrial arguments have been making their way through appellate courts.
On Tuesday, remaining questions to be decided before trial — such as whether to try the defendants separately and whether there was any prosecutorial misconduct — are before Senior Judge Pat Priest. No trial date has been set, and it wasn’t clear whether Priest would rule immediately on the issues before him.
DeLay’s attorney, Dick DeGuerin, says the former district attorney who originally pursued the case against DeLay, Democrat Ronnie Earle, was motivated by politics.
Source: Indiana University Media Relations
Every three years, the same phase of the moon happens on about the same date of each month. The annual Perseid meteor shower of August last happened in a moonless sky in 2007, so this year if the sky is clear when the Perseids peak before dawn on Aug. 12 and 13, there will be an unhindered display of silent fireworks.
This shower is one of the most popular every year because it happens on warm summer nights, when gazing at the starry sky is always enjoyable. There may be as many as 100 bright meteors per hour, some with smoke trails that last several seconds after the meteor has vanished.
The Perseids will be visible for most of August, though there will be fewer meteors to see the farther from the peak date you watch. If the peak on Aug. 12-13 is hidden by clouds, try looking for meteors again as soon as the night sky is clear.
To minimize the effect of local light pollution, which can obscure as many as half of the meteors, try to avoid artificial lights. Face east if you have a clear view in that direction, and look about half-way up the sky from the horizon. You won’t need binoculars or a telescope — the meteors move much too fast for that. The chances of seeing a fireball will be greatest near dawn, when Earth will be moving head-on into the meteor stream.
