Clipmarks | disenchantedcitizen's clips

Healthy Monday: Canada Joins Meatless Monday Movement

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 16:20:15 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: Could this happen here in the biggest meat consuming countries in the world? Don’t we care enough about our health to cut meat out of our diets at least one day a week? Most of our health costs stem from eating red meat. Most of our food costs stem from feeding cattle. Doesn’t it make economic as well as heatlh sense to cut down on our red meat consumption?

Red meat again linked to cancer risk: http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Red-meat-again-linked-to-cancer-risk-Study

How to reduce your red meat consumption: http://www.causecast.org/news_items/8699-how-to-reduce-your-red-meat-consumption

The growing case against red meat: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1887266,00.html

Clip Source: blog.eatwellguide.org

The global Meatless Monday movement continues to gain momentum. Britain, Brazil, Holland, Finland and Taiwan have already launched their programs. Now, we’d like to welcome the wonderful people of Canada and congratulate them as they begin their own Meatless Monday!

The Canadian Meatless Monday launched at this year’s Taste of Health convention in Vancouver, Canada. Taste of Health is an opportunity for those concerned with healthy, environmentally friendly food to come together. The convention’s 6,000 attendees welcomed Meatless Monday with open arms.

Unlike many of the solutions to global warming that require government action, Meatless Monday is a tangible personal action that every Canadian can easily embrace. More greenhouse gasses can be prevented by going meatless one day a week than by eating locally seven days a week.

Tags: red meat, cancer, health costs

Keep the government out of the news business

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:39:00 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: Turning to Washington for help to save the declining news business says much about the mentality of mainstream journalism leaders, an attitude that we and the government are on the same side. This is the mentality that led to the news establishment’s acceptance of the Iraq War.

Go to the clip to learn what happened to Mother Jones after becoming a tax exempt non-profit after it reported on lobbying in Washington.

Once you allow the government or private corporation to have any controlling link to the media you lose independence. Editors become fearful of criticizing the hand that feeds it. Publishers and benefactors become cozy and unbiased reports become fewer and fewer. Journalism becomes a de facto advertisement for consumer products.

We hope in the future we’ll see more I.F. Stones, more guerrilla warriors on the Web, in print and on the air. Because of them—and not because of a government handout—great reporting will survive, as it always has.

Clip Source: www.truthdig.com

As news organizations shed decent salaries, reasonable working conditions and job security, the business is heading toward a day when it will attract only inquisitive, rebellious misfits. From this group will emerge a few who are talented, tough and driven enough to become the I.F. Stones of the 21st century

Izzy Stone was a muckraking liberal anti-Cold War journalist who couldn’t get a job during the McCarthy era and went out on his own with the one-man I.F. Stone’s Weekly.

“I made no claim to inside stuff—obviously a radical reporter in those days had few pipelines into the government,” wrote Stone

I tried to dig the truth out of hearings, official transcripts and government documents, and to be as accurate as possible

In the worst days of the witch hunt and cold war, I felt like a guerilla warrior, swooping down in surprise attack on a stuffy bureaucracy where it least expected independent inquiry

Tags: media

Homemade furniture polish

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:22:33 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: I started replacing household cleansers with homemade stuff a few months ago and don’t plan on going back to the chemical soup that we have been led to believe we simply must have.

To clean windows and countertops use water, vinegar, and dish detergent, for example.

I just used this recipe for furniture polish yesterday and it really works.

More DIY tips can be found at the site as well as at Tipnut http://tipnut.com/ and TURI http://www.turi.org/turi_lab/do_it_yourself_home_made_household_cleaner_recipes

I believe the fewer chemicals we use in our everyday life the better off we are.

Clip Source: www.diylife.com

I don't use many store-purchased products to do my cleaning. I always end up with terrible migraines or my lungs hurt from breathing in the cleaning product. When I take the time and effort to make my own cleaning products, life suddenly gets much better and healthier, at least in the cleaning department.

Baking soda, lemons, vinegar, and salt are four items that can basically clean everything in your house, from countertops to clothing. I love making homemade cleaning wipes, knowing that when I use them, I will not suffer the consequences of cleaning. I also like to make my own homemade furniture polish, since, in my opinion, I get a better clean and a better shine with homemade polish.

Anytime you want to polish your furniture, you should make a new batch, as the olive oil may become rancid if you only polish your furniture once a month.

DIY soap – cleaning up your act

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 14:28:49 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: Half way recipes (in which you take a pure form of soap and spruce it up) can be easy to do at home. You can use Castille soap to make several varieties of body wash. Here is one recipe:
Vanilla Almond Soap

1/3 cup whole almonds
1 4-ounce bar Castille soap
1/4 cup distilled water
1 tablespoon almond oil
1/8 teaspoon vanilla essential oil

Grind the almonds in a food processor or coffee grinder. Using a cheese grater or a knife, shred the bar of Castille soap. Boil the water and add the shredded soap, stirring until you get a nice gooey texture. Reduce to a simmer and then add in the almond grinds, oil and vanilla. You can spoon the soap into molds (ice cubes can make little gift soaps) and let it sit for around five hours until it hardens.

Clip Source: www.alternativeconsumer.com

The body wash and shampoo aisle is overwhelming. There are literally thousands of different soaps and shampoos “specially formulated” for your hair by people who have never seen your hair. Here are a few things to watch out for when buying soaps:

soap companies can put “natural” on just about anything

“fragrance” means a conglomeration of chemicals

avoid anything that has palm oil, as it is extremely unsustainably harvested

A great resource when purchasing health & beauty products is the good guide.

You can also look for local soap producers, and see if you can support their business and get clean, chemical free soap

Make sure to recycle old soap as well. If you have little nubs of bar soap you can use them for tailor’s chalk (dry soap makes little white marks on fabric), bubble baths, or save them and form a new bar with the leftovers.

Tags: diy, soap

Lawmakers seek ban on laptops in airliner cockpits

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:30:36 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: This is the mentality of legislators. They approach this isolated situation as if it were a quickly escalating ‘problem’ that must be addressed immediately instead of leaving it to the airline to tighten their own rules of conduct for pilots. Legislators love to jump on stuff like this because it has the appearance, to us lowly tax payers, that they are coming to our rescue to protet us from the evil use of laptops in cockpits. And it makes them feel good about themselves that they are doing something useful.

More legislation! More rules! More laws! More oversight! Yeah, that will make us all be more responsible.

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

Lawmakers are moving to ban the use of computer laptops and other personal electronic devices in airline cockpits to prevent another incident like the Northwest Airlines plane that overshot Minneapolis by 150 miles.

Sen. Byron Dorgan, chairman of the aviation subcommittee, said in an interview that his staff is working on a bill that he expects to introduce in about a week

He said he was surprised to learn after the Oct. 21 incident that the Federal Aviation Administration doesn't specifically prohibit pilots from using laptops, DVD players, MP3 players and other devices during flight except below 10,000 feet while the plane is taking off or landing.

We decide

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:45:03 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen

Clip Source: darkmonkey.org.uk

Think Big and act small

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:43:18 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen

Clip Source: projectkickass.com

Welcome to Heaven

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:39:55 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: Everybody seems pretty smug in thinking they are of the right religion when all doors go to the same place.

Clip Source: religiouscomics.net

Clunkers: Taxpayers paid $24,000 per car

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:22:56 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: In order to determine whether these sales would have happened anyway, Edmunds.com analysts looked at sales of luxury cars and other vehicles not included under the Clunkers program.

Using traditional relationships between sales volumes of those vehicles and the types of vehicles sold under Cash for Clunkers, Edmunds.com projected what sales would normally have been during the Cash for Clunkers period and in the weeks after.

Edmunds.com's estimate of the ultimate sales increase generally matches what industry experts had thought, said George Pipas, a sales analyst with Ford Motor Co. But that misses the point, he said.

"The whole purpose of the program was to provide some kind of catalyst to kick-start the economy," he said, "and by all accounts the extra production that was added this year was a boost to the economy."

Emunds.com's projection indicates that, without Cash for Clunkers, October's sales increase would be even higher.

Clip Source: money.cnn.com

A total of 690,000 new vehicles were sold under the Cash for Clunkers program last summer, but only 125,000 of those were vehicles that would not have been sold anyway, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the automotive Web site Edmunds.com.

Still, auto sales contributed heavily to the economy's expansion in the third quarter, adding 1.7 percentage points to the nation's gross domestic product growth

The Cash for Clunkers program gave car buyers rebates of up to $4,500 if they traded in less fuel-efficient vehicles for new vehicles that met certain fuel economy requirements. A total of $3 billion was allotted for those rebates.

The average rebate was $4,000. But the overwhelming majority of sales would have taken place anyway at some time in the last half of 2009, according to Edmunds.com. That means the government ended up spending about $24,000 each for those 125,000 additional vehicle sales

Alternate Theory

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 02:13:12 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen

Clip Source: img1.visualizeus.com

America a Rude Nation? Debating Public Decency

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:30:23 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: Experts point to a variety of reasons for the apparent fall in civil standards:
1) The recession has placed many under heavy stress
2) The rise of the internet has fostered confrontational and provocative communications in which people get used to saying things they may never once have dared to utter face-to-face.

These may be conditions that allow rudeness to rear its ugly head, but they are not excuses for it.

Rudeness is rooted in lack of civility. If you don’t respect other people’s ideas, opinions, equality as compared to yourself, or simply their right to exist, it will be easy for you to resort to rudeness towards that person and you will be considered uncivil.

We have been losing our civility for a long time now and I believe it is due to a lack of respect for others and ourselves.

Clip Source: thejakartaglobe.com

Americans have often had a reputation in much of the world as brash and rude. Now a torrent of expletives, vitriol and name-calling has left many in the United States convinced that the old stereotype may be correct.

From Congressman’s Joe Wilson’s notorious interruption of a speech by US President Barack Obama with a shout of “You Lie,” to tennis superstar Serena Williams’ foul-mouthed threats to a line judge at the US Open, the lack of common civility has many gentler Americans worried about the state of their society.

Their concerns only grew when rapper Kanye West jumped on stage at the MTV Video Music Awards show to protest an award to 19-year-old Taylor Swift.

Before the latest outbursts, a Gallup survey last month found that increasing numbers of Americans are convinced that the level of political civility is deteriorating.

“American society is among the most informal in the world, and often that informality crosses over into incivility.”

State’s high court dismisses juvenile convictions

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:41:07 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: Is there any segment of the judicial system that can be trusted?

I’m willing to bet this is not the only judge who uses the judicial system to line his pockets. We have been taught to trust the police, trust the judges and this is what we learn of real life.

This society is going to hell too damned fast.

Clip Source: post-gazette.com

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court yesterday dismissed thousands of juvenile convictions issued by a judge charged in a corruption scandal, saying that none of the young offenders got a fair hearing.

The high court yesterday threw out more than five years' worth of juvenile cases heard by disgraced former Luzerne County Judge Mark Ciavarella, who is charged with accepting millions of dollars in kickbacks to send youths to private detention centers.

The Philadelphia-based Juvenile Law Center, which represents some of the youths, said the court's order covers as many as 6,500 cases. The justices barred any possibility of retrial in all but a fraction of them.

The Supreme Court had previously overturned hundreds of juvenile convictions involving low-level offenses. Yesterday's ruling covered all cases heard by Mr. Ciavarella between 2003 and 2008, including ones involving more serious crimes.

Pay problem parents not to breed – mayor

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:29:21 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: No comment.

Clip Source: www.news.com.au

AN outspoken Kiwi politician has proposed a new solution to the country's child abuse problem - pay the "appalling underclass" not to breed.

Michael Laws - who stirred up controversy by calling the late Tongan King a "bloated brown slug'' - has again hit the headlines.

"That there is a group within our society who give their children no hope nor opportunity from the moment that they are born," the regional mayor wrote on the New Zealand radio website where he broadcasts as a talkback DJ.

"That these ‘parents’ are known to authorities ... and yet the authorities can only intervene after children have been harmed."

Mr Laws goes on to write: "it would be far better for this appalling underclass to be offered financial inducements not to have children, given the toxic environment that they would provide for any child in their care."

The mayor believes "the consequent financial and social savings to our community would be considerable

There are too many people who should not have children

Beehive Believed to Be Cause of Condo Fire

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:22:03 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: Condo owner decides to destroy a beehive with hairspray and a lighter. What could possibly go wrong?

Clip Source: www.cfnews13.com

A beehive and flammable liquid may be to blame for a massive condominium fire that left dozens of people homeless.

According to fire officials, an anonymous caller told them two residents wanted to get rid of a beehive hanging off the second floor of the building.

They first sprayed the beehive with hairspray and lit it on fire. The two residents then put out the flames using a fire extinguisher and left after thinking the fire was out.

Eventually the entire building went up in flames.

Residents are angry about what happened because people's lives were needlessly put in danger.

"To actually spray with hairspray, or any chemical, and light it on fire, and now there are all these people without a home -- It's crazy. I mean, all these people with what they're going through because of a wasps nest that easily could have gotten rid of another way," said Jessica Plaza.

No charges are currently pending.

Hot Mormon Moms Pose for Calendar

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 20:03:30 GMT

clipped by: disenchantedcitizen
clipper's remarks: After looking at the calendar "website" it is obvious that these are not "active" Mormons. The site selling both the "hot mom" and "hot missionary" calendars also has anti-Mormon bumper stickers.

Clip Source: blogs.orlandosentinel.com

Twelve Mormon moms are putting modesty aside and becoming calendar girls -- all in the name of raising breast cancer research dollars.

"Hot Mormon Muffins" features the "Devout Dozen" -- moms touting recipes alongside revealing outfits and suggestive poses. The calendars cost $15.99.

As expected, the calendar has raised concern in the Mormon community.

Tami Roberts is "Miss May" and says she sees no reason for her church to be upset.

"We're not all in a stereotype, we're not all the same. And I'm not a stereotypical Mormon for sure," Roberts said.

She doesn't believe posing for the calender is a violation of her faith, but instead a way to challenge the misconceptions of her religion.

The church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is not commenting.

Chad Hardy, the calendar's creator, was denied a diploma from Brigham Young University and stripped of his church membership when he developed a 2008 calendar called "Men on a Mission" that featured partially-nude Mormon men.