Clipmarks | spirithiker's clips

Chevron: Will You Join Us? Don’t Be Stupid

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:05:59 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: It’s time to recognize Chevron for the hypocritical, phony, band-wagon-jumping, contemptible, lying, bastards they are.

The con game they are manufacturing against America’s common sense to make us believe they care about what is happening to the environment and us while providing a lifeline for the oppressive and murderous Burmese regime is disgraceful. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20071002_chevrons_pipeline_is_the_burmese_regimes_lifeline/

They orchestrated a coup against the US House of Rep last year in the wake of the juntas crackdown on it’s citizens by arguing that if they didn’t maintain access to Burma’s rich gas fields then someone else will. And our fool reps, with dollar signs in their eyes instead of compassion in their hearts, bought it.

This has only emboldened Chevron to pull that same wool over the publics eyes so they can stay in a business that enslaves indigents and props up a Fascist government all in the name of profit.

Please, don't support the

Clip Source: www.blog.thesietch.org

Oil companies want you to use their products, and despite what they may appear to say, they really want you to use oil

they will consider anything that does not allow them to make a profit from selling oil as commercial suicide

The public at large are very much aware that oil companies trade in death; not only through their greenhouse gas emitting activities, but through their politically smokescreened desire to expand their global reach, whatever the environmental or social cost.

They are prepared to start wars to get oil.

They are prepared to destroy ecosystems to get oil.

They are prepared to displace humans to get oil.

They are prepared to do anything it takes to ensure that they profit from the business of extracting, refining, distributing and selling oil.

We’re all in this together, aren’t we? Chevron want you to Join Them: “Will You Join Us” they plaintively ask, “we care too.”

Tags: chevron, bs ad campaign, human rights, environment, global warming

Nature Words Dropped From Children's Dictionary

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:43:45 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: There are probably 1,000's of obsolete words in this and many other dictionaries that could have been dropped without being missed.

Is this a reflection of changing attitudes towards nature?

Are we failing our children by giving them electronic substitutions for what nature use to teach us?

When we lose touch with a thing we lose respect for what it has to offer.

Maybe the publishers are simply making a statement.

Clip Source: www.planetthoughts.org

To make way for modern tech terms such as BlackBerry, blog, voicemail and broadband, the latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary has opted to drop terms pertaining to nature.

No longer can a child check this dictionary and learn more about the blackberry, dandelion, acorn, heron, otter, magpie, sycamore, or willow.

Why were these words deemed expendable? A statement from the Oxford University Press clarifies:

the 10,000 words and phrases in the junior dictionary were selected using several criteria, including how often words would be used by young children

While I can understand adding technology words into the dictionary, I cannot understand taking nature words out, devaluing their relative importance. Studies already show that children can name more Pokemon than wildlife species. They need more accessibility to nature names, not less.

The Oxford University Press claims that it has removed these nature words because they are less relevant to today's plugged-in child

Tags: nature, electronics, children, dictionary, changing attitudes

Obama Budget Would Create Health-Care Fund

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 03:14:40 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: I especially like the idea of competitive bidding by private insurers. Also, drug companies would be required to increase the rebate they now provide for medications sold to Medicaid patients from 15% to 21%.

This plan will increase spending on Medicare and Medicaid from 5% to 12% of GDP by 2050. Not a huge surprise. If it will allow more people to receive medical care than are currently getting it then it works. If we continue to delay healthcare reform it will only cost us more later.

In the meantime, here is one reason why healthcare costs us some much: http://img408.imageshack.us/img408/3769/healthcare.jpg

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

President Obama intends to release a budget tomorrow that creates a 10-year, $634 billion "reserve fund" to partially pay for a vast expansion of the U.S. health care system, an overhaul that many experts project will cost as much as $1 trillion over the next decade.

Obama would pay for the expansion by trimming tax breaks for the wealthy and tightening payments to insurers, hospitals and physicians, according to a senior administration official.

Under the Obama budget blueprint, about half of the new "health care reserve fund" would come by limiting the tax break on itemized deductions for families with incomes above $250,000

Nearly one-third of the reserve fund would be generated by forcing private insurers who sell Medicare managed care plans to undergo a competitive bidding process

The administration believes it's time to stop this waste,

Tags: healthcare, medicare, medicaid, healthcare providers

Neglected Diseases 'Need Sustainable Funding'

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:49:49 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: A lack of sustained funding means patients with sleeping sickness, for example, must endure toxic and dangerous treatments for just a chance of survival, even though a better treatment has shown some positive results in the lab, said the medical humanitarian group Medecins Sans Frontieres, urging political leaders to do more to assure funding.

Stimulating innovation and delivering effective, affordable treatments for diseases that affect the world's poorest populations, and that fall outside the mainstream market interest, remains a tremendous challenge for DNDi and its partners given the lack of sustainable and predictable funding sources.

More than 500 million people are at risk from these three parasitic diseases.

Clip Source: us.oneworld.net

Millions of people are suffering and dying needlessly from diseases whose potential treatments don't promise to turn a profit for drug companies, warned doctors and humanitarian aid workers yesterday.

Some 500 million people worldwide are at risk from sleeping sickness, visceral leishmaniasis, and Chagas disease, but those deadly ailments receive less than 5 percent of the global research and development (R&D) funds allocated even to neglected diseases.

All three diseases can be fatal, are most prominent in poor regions of the world

and existing treatments for all three ailments have various, significant drawbacks, including high cost, toxicity, and considerable difficulty to administer

The grim state of the global economy is also threatening to cut aid to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria

Tags: disease, drug profits, big pharma, humanitarian aid

U.S. arrests 755 in Mexican drug cartel raids

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:36:07 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: This may hurt a little, but it is definitely not going to stop it.

This is likely a small percentage of what is out there.

Right now there are a lot of people looking for new connections. And many of them starting to go through withdrawals.

Clip Source: www.msnbc.msn.com

Federal agents have rounded up 755 suspects in a wide-ranging crackdown on a Mexican drug cartel operating inside the United States, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Wednesday.

The sweep against the Sinaloa cartel culminated in a series of Drug Enforcement Administration raids overnight and early Wednesday that led to 52 arrests. In recent months, the DEA and other agencies have staged raids in 120 cities across the country that led to the 755 arrests.

The Justice Department said that as part of the 21-month-long investigation, DEA and other federal agents had seized $59 million in U.S. currency; 12,535 kilograms of cocaine; more than 16,000 pounds of marijuana; more than 12 pounds of methamphetamine; approximately 8 kilograms of heroin; approximately 1.3 million pills or 500 pounds of Ecstasy; approximately 120 kilograms of MDMA powder; and more than $6.5 million in other assets, including 149 vehicles, 3 aircraft, 3 maritime vessels and 169 weapons.

Tags: drugs, mexican cartel, dea

Senate to announce investigation of torture under Bush

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:27:39 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: Is it going to happen?

Keeping fingers crossed.

Clip Source: rawstory.com

The Senate is quietly preparing plans to investigate allegations of torture under President George W. Bush, according to comments published Wednesday by Senate Judiciary Chairman Pat Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).

The Senate Judiciary Committee could announce a hearing to consider various plans to probe allegations of torture as early as today, according to Salon's Mark Benjamin, citing Committee Chairman Pat Leahy and members of his staff.

Sen. Whitehouse said he’s “convinced” the investigation will move forward.

Plans to establish the commission still remain in their infancy, as senators and staff look at previous panels, such as the 9-11 Commission, and investigations following Watergate

Whitehouse, a former U.S. attorney, noted that a torture commission might need the power to immunize witnesses on a case-by-case basis

The prospect of future prosecutions

are beside the point

Most important was putting a spotlight on abuses committed by the Bush administration

Coal: The Great Leveler

Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:12:11 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: For some reason I cannot get the video to clip.

Check out the link, it is a parody using John Denvers song Country Roads about the destruction of West Virginia coal mining.

It will be worth it.

Clip Source: www.twilightearth.com

Police State 101 Practiced in Baltimore

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:15:46 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: This latest policy is an attempt to nopt have to answer all those pesky questions, like, was the shooting justified? The population of Baltimore will now have to have total and complete faith in their police department that no police officer will use his weapon against any citizen without legal justification.

Guaranteed, if this policy is allowed to stand, other jurisdictions around the country will soon adopt it.

Do we really have that much faith in our police?

Clip Source: citypaper.com

Police work, it is said, is only easy in a police state.

So welcome to the city of Baltimore, where a police officer who uses lethal force and takes human life is no longer required to stand behind his or her actions and suffer the scrutiny of the public he or she serves, where the identity of those officers who use lethal force will no longer be known, where our communities are now asked to trust in the judgment of those who clearly don't trust us.

if we let stand Commissioner Frederick Bealefeld's new policy of withholding the identities of officers who use lethal force, make no mistake, there will not be any independent public oversight of such efforts ever again.

Discussions about what an officer did or did not do prior to taking a human life

an accurate accounting of any other incidents

that involved the use of deadly force by that officer--all of this now disappears behind a self-serving and Orwellian veil of secrecy

Tags: police state, public safety, media oversight

Student Busted for Squeeze Play

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:49:34 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: OMG. If you are in the Boulder Colorado area, stay far away from this woman.

Fair warning.

Clip Source: www.thesmokinggun.com

Does this woman look like a testicle crusher?

19-year-old sophomore

Chalie Simon

went to Job Donkor's home at about 4 AM and became irate when he sought to remove her from the residence

Simon allegedly "grabbed his testicles and squeezed hard," according to a police report

Donkor told police that he had dated Simon "on and off" during the prior 18 months, and that they had broken up "approximately 20 times

Simon was apparently angry because Donkor had not, as promised, called or sent her a text message by 3 AM

Simon

was arrested on assault, trespass, and domestic violence charges.

New Material Helps Prevent Nuclear Plant from Shutdowns

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:21:05 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: When we found cracks in the containment structure, we used to have to shut the whole plant down.

Clip Source: www.amazon.com

3M Performance Plus 8979N Nuclear Grade 48-Millimeter-by-54.8-Meter Duct Tape, Slate Blue

Temporarily out of stock.

Rachel Maddow Responds to Bobby Jindal

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:16:56 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: Hilarious!

1. I'm just like Obama.

2. Tax cuts cure everything.

3. Tax cuts and prayers are far more effective than monitoring possible natural disasters.

4. Sarah Palin and I are running for President in 2012 along with Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Republicans rock!

Clip Source: www.reddit.com

My parents are immigrants, like President Obama. My skin is brown - but not as brown as President Obama.

I'm the governor of Louisiana

And let me tell you - government doesn't work! Here's an example: Katrina

Remember when a Republican president who was pretty incompetent was told by his former Arabian horse breeder turned disaster recovery head of FEMA that "Mr. President, there's a big storm heading to New Orleans, and he did nothing about it" - and then Bush went to San Diego and played guitar? Yup - proof right there that government doesn't work!

Now, let's talk about this "stimulus" plan

You may remember that 9 years ago, we had a surplus in the deficit, we were paying down the debt, and we were doing that with a combination of a reasonable tax rate and drawing down spending

Then Republicans got into office, and we cut taxes and spent the money on two wars and on piling up security for places like a Kentucky Fried Chicken center. And look how well the economy did!

Man Really Needed to Check Facebook

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:03:59 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: Don't stand between this man and his fix.

Clip Source: www.dcexaminer.com

Sheriff's officers said a 19-year-old man snatched a Starbucks customers laptop after being told he could not use it to check his Facebook account. According to officers, the man then grabbed the customer's laptop and ran out of the coffee shop, located in an outlet mall.

Two people in the parking lot tackled the man and held him there until a mall security guard arrived.

The victim got his laptop back and the man was charged Saturday with robbery by sudden snatching, a felony.

King Jackson

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:59:11 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: Do you believe in reincarnation?

Clip Source: ourbeststuff.com

Food Dangers Increasing. Frankenfoods Are Stealing Our Nutrients.

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:56:40 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: In 1935, our nation boasted more than 6.8 million farms. By 1964, with the advent of pesticides, fertilizers and other new technologies, that number fell to fewer than 3.2 million farms.

And they call this progress?

In 1935, one farm fed about 18 people, by 1964 one farm fed 60 people.

In 2007, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 2.2 million farms remained, each one feeding 137 people on average.

A study in HortScience Review cites three studies showing that fruits and vegetables are less nutritious than they were a few decades ago. Because farmers want food to grow faster, for quicker profit, crops no longer have time to absorb natural nutrients and chemical-based fertilizers can’t provide those nutrients.

Money wins out again. And consumers lose, again.

Clip Source: www.alternet.org

As the news headlines appear, one by one, about salmonella in peanut butter, antibiotics found in vegetables, melamine in milk, mercury in high fructose corn syrup and the potential of clones in the U.S. food supply, consumers have more and more reasons to be wary of our industrial food system.

One can go vegetarian, buy organic, or avoid processed foods, but it is hard to truly avoid all of the dangers that lurk in our food. For these reasons and others, many choose to buy their food from local, sustainable farmers. But with economic trouble hitting seemingly every sector, how long will these farmers be able to hold on?

In many ways, the family farmer is an endangered species in America, made even more precious by the daily influx of bad news about food produced by the alternative -- industrialized agriculture.

Tags: environment, chemical fertilizers, frankenfoods, profit, greed, nutrients, farming

Man Dies After 12 Hours of Sex with Two Partners

Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:42:33 GMT

clipped by: spirithiker
clipper's remarks: I'm calling BS on this one.

Clip Source: mysterytopia.com

Twelve hours of sex with two women was too much for a 28-year-old Russian businessman Sergei K., who died from overdoses Viagra.

Man with partners placed a bet that can withstand the 12-hour sex. They agreed to a bet promising that they will pay 200,000 rubles (about 5000 dollars) if he stay in bed half the day.

Sergei spent12 hours in bed with partners and got a bet. However, at one point, his heart stalled, after which he died.

Sergei was first consumed a couple of Viagra tablets, and then ate the walnuts and cream, which is normally considered to have a natural aphrodisiac.