Saturday, January 30, 2010

Modern Moses reaches for tablet

 

By Brian Fairrington, caglecartoons.com
Visit Brian E-mail Brian

‘Princess and Frog’ items recalled for cadmium

For years, I’ve been reading about toxic toys from China. Now, toxic toys seem to be a homegrown product. The producers of these necklaces are American!

Regulators cited toxic metal in pendants sold exclusively at Walmart

“The recall of about 55,000 "The Princess and the Frog" necklaces reflects concerns of an emerging threat in children's products.”

Go here to read the story.

 

Friday, January 29, 2010

Biggest and brightest full moon of 2010 tonight

 I don’t know if we (here in Humboldt County) will get clear enough skies to view this first full moon of 2010.

We’ll find out     tonight.

As a bonus, Mars will be just to the left of the moon tonight

Photo source:NOAO/AURA/NSF

This enhanced image of the moon was taken with the NOAO Mosaic CCD camera, using two NSF telescopes at Kitt Peak National Observatory. The moon is superimposed on a separate image of the sky.

Excerpt:

“Tonight's full moon will be the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. It offers anyone with clear skies an opportunity to identify easy-to-see features on the moon.

This being the first full moon of 2010, it is also known as the wolf moon, a moniker dating back to Native American culture and the notion that hungry wolves howled at the full moon on cold winter nights. Each month brings another full moon name.”

Go here to read the whole story.

Full moon craziness
Many people think full moons cause strange behavior among animals and even humans. In fact several studies over the years have tried to tie lunar phases to births, heart attacks, deaths, suicides, violence, psychiatric hospital admissions and epileptic seizures, and more. Connections have been inclusive or nonexistent.

The moon does have some odd effects on our planet, and there are oodles of other amazing moon facts and misconceptions.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Sooty’s one-night stand made him a legend

Thanks to Gecko Tales

Get the hell out of the way!

In California, the "Move-over" Law (a new national law) became operative on January 1, 2010.

Related Links:
http://www.moveoveramerica.com/

www.snopes.com/politics/traffic/moveover.asp

Move Over" laws, which... more

Justice openly disagrees with Obama in speech

 It’s good to see Obama stand up for somethingbut it comes too late. Corporations have cemented their power under his administration, and there’s just no other way of putting it.

Alito visibly responds negatively when president mentions recent decision

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito didn't like hearing President Barack Obama publicly criticize the high court's ruling removing corporate campaign spending limits — and he didn't try to hide it.” Go here to read the story.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Now that’s not what I would call sporting

Thanks to Cagle Cartoons

NYC Police Accused of 'Anal Assault' Over Marijuana Use

New York City police have arrested over 300,000 people for low-level marijuana possession since 1997, sometimes employing outrageous methods to humiliate citizens.

 Excerpt:

Yesterday in State Supreme Court in Brooklyn, Michael Mineo took the stand to describe in detail his harrowing experience on a Brooklyn subway station in 2008: being held down by three New York City police officers and sodomized with a foreign object.”

Read the story here.

Albert Einstein Marilyn Monroe Illusion

When you look at this picture close range you see Albert Einstein.

Now stand up and take several steps back, roughly 15 feet away,

It will become... Marilyn Monroe.

source

Cluster of birth defects under investigation by EPA

If there’s one subject that really gets me hot-under-the-collar it’s deadly chemicals polluting the land we live on.

Since the early 1970s, I’ve crusaded against Agent Orange and other dioxins, and the companies that made them. I got my share of Agent Orange via Uncle Sam while in Vietnam.

I confess that’s why I got involved in fighting the use of deadly chemicals long ago. Along the way, I editorialized on the subject every opportunity I got. What bugs me is that it’s common knowledge that these chemicals have deadly effects on humans, yet they continue to be sprayed and reap a deadly harvest!

When I read this article – case in point - it made me sick. It also proves that corporations still run the country. That’s the only answer for the continued use of these deadly chemicals. Why has the EPA allowed these companies to continue spraying them? This article acts like the EPA is surprised by the cluster of deformities discovered near a toxic waste dump. The EPA is portrayed as the good guy whose going to ride in on a white horse and bring justice to all. Don’t hold your breath.

Especially now, since the Supreme Court passed the worst piece of legislation in history allowing corporations to be treated like individuals. The flood gates have been opened and there’s no turning back…

Excerpt:

“Residents suspect the facial deformities are linked to a nearby toxic waste dump. The dump is set to be expanded to accommodate waste from large population centers, including Los Angeles, and residents have filed a lawsuit against the Kings County Board of Supervisors challenging its approval of the expansion.”

Go here to read the whole story.

ABOVE PHOTO: Maria Saulcedo sits next to a memorial to her daughter Ashley, who died at the age of 11 months. Five babies, including Ashley, were born with cleft palates in Kettleman City over a 14-month-period and some residents blame a nearby toxic waste dump. (Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times /December 7, 2009)

Dog washed out to sea has lucky escape

 The pooch in this story was certainly a lucky dog. I don’t know what the odds were for that kind of rescue, but he sure beat them!

WARSAW (Reuters) A dog had a lucky escape when a Polish boat rescued him from an ice floe that had carried him more than 100 miles up a river and out onto the icy waters of the Baltic Sea.

"My crew saw... a shape moving on the water and we immediately decided to get closer to check if it was a dog or maybe a seal relaxing on the ice," Jan Joachim, senior officer aboard the Baltica, told Reuters Television.

"As we got closer to the ice floe we saw that it was a dog struggling not to fall into the water."

Ship engineer Adam Buczynski managed to scoop the dog off the floe onto an inflatable dinghy and wrapped him in a blanket.

"He didn't even squeal. There was just fear in his big eyes," said Buczynski.

The dog was first seen on the ice floe some 100 km (70 miles) inland to the south on the Vistula river but firemen were unable to rescue him. When the Baltica crew found him, he had already drifted some 24 km (18 miles) out to sea.

"We were in the right place at the right time," said Joachim, noting that they rescued him shortly before night fall.

The crew are now trying to locate the dog's owner.

Poland is in the grip of bitterly cold weather, with night temperatures in some areas falling as low as -34 Celsius (-31 Fahrenheit).

Photo source

Tuesday, January 26, 2010

Oh Lord won’t you give me a Mercedes- Benz?

Customized Mercedes-Benz SL600s, Luxury Crystal Benz, studded with 300,000 Swarovski crystal glass, are displayed at the pavilion of custom car accessory company Garson/D.A.D at Tokyo Auto Salon 2010 at Makuhari Messe in Chiba, east of Tokyo, January 15, 2010. The annual auto show, which showcases custom cars and accessories for cars, will be held until Sunday.

REUTERS/Toru Hanai (JAPAN

Monday, January 25, 2010

Obama is facing reality – a watered down health bill and bribing the public with a shell game involving tax credits and other mumbo jumbo

No doubt about it.

The honeymoons over and Obama’s agenda meets capitol hill reality.

Another Poll finds growing anxiety about health bill So what is Obama going to do? How is he get to get back that populist fever that carried him to the White House? Here’s one way he’s trying to woe his waning followers:

President seeks to offer some attractive options to taxpayers

Excerpt:

The initiatives amount to a package of tax credits, spending expansions and new mandates on employers to encourage retirement savings by workers. Most of them will be included in Obama's budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, and they will require approval from Congress. Obama will release that budget Feb. 1.”

Read the story here.

After carefully reading this article I decided it was a load of pure manure that means little to Americans who need help now.

Clinic with two doors, a symbol of two-tier care

One side is for patients with insurance, the other for those who pay up front

Two doors into medical care on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The door on the right leads to quicker service and personal attention from a doctor. The other leads to longer waits and more uncertainty. As it turns out, they're the same place.”

Read the story here.

Photo by David Friedman / msnbc.com

Sunday, January 24, 2010

The results are in: Men are evolving faster than women!

By Dave Stancliff/For the Times-Standard

Posted: 01/24/2010 01:24:13 AM PST

I have good news and bad news for men everywhere. The good news is, a recent study has determined that men are evolving faster than women!

It's time to get rid of all of those knuckle-dragging jokes about men being more primitive than women. Science says it isn't so. It's true, ladies. According to the study's co-author, Dr. David Page, director of the prestigious Whitehead Institute in Cambridge and a professor of biology at MIT, “The Y chromosome appears to be the most rapidly evolving of the human chromosomes.”

Go here to read the rest.

                                  Update: 2:25 p.m.

Links to today’s column picked up by the following sites:

brokencontrollers

tweetmeme by Gilhurtado

 

Blog Break Until Presidential Election is Over

I finally hit the wall today. I can't think of what to say about all of the madness going on in this country right now. I'm a writer...