666cast episode 66: The Final Episode: Dawkins, the Debt Ceiling and Responsibility Taking

Yep, more on the debt ceiling (and how Big Brothery is going on in the meantime), why we should and shouldn’t care that Richard Dawkins is sexist (or not), and taking responsibility: the Japanese are doing it right.  Well, they’re doing it better than us.

Episode 66 of the 666cast is hosted at Archive.org.

Please subscribe to the feed.

Don’t forget to visit webstore666!

Call 740 297 6661 and let thepete know what you’d like to talk about!  DO IT NOW!

You can also send a voice message to website666 via audioboo.fm!

btx91:

Post from FB the other day. Head-desking.

I’m just annoyed because one thing wrong with a person doesn’t make him utter scum. It just means he’s a douche sometimes.  We all are and if you deny it, guess what: you’re kind of being a douche.

I’ll take Dawkins’s attitudes toward women over the attitudes of any of the major religions on Earth. 

stfuhatemongers:

lakalaka:

I agree with this one.

It seems like a lot of Black people have lost all respect for others in attempt to be the cool guy that they see in movies, rap songs, and music videos

I am going to politely disagree with this one. Racism is systematic and white people have power and privilege. Plus its still accepted (for some stupid reason) that white people are morally superior and more attractive. 

I can’t comment on general hatred and rude racially directed comments though. You could be right in that respect. 

Shouldn’t black people be racist against whites? I think there’s plenty of examples throughout distant and recent history that would suggest strongly that they should worry about how white people are are going to treat them.  

Frankly, I worry about how white people treat me and I’m white. 

I hope people don’t judge me by my race, but I have a hard time blaming them when they do.

Check out this is worrisome video of Fukushima residents confronting government officials about ongoing radiation concerns.I don’t know that much Japanese but I know enough to tell that those subs look pretty accurate. Hit up the original clip on YouTube for links to complete videos (no subs, sadly) and more info.Back in March and April of this year a bunch of us were encouraging people to remain calm about radiation worries. Many of us didn’t like the way every headline from the western news media seemed to be intentionally alarmist. I still say we did the right thing by discouraging the tendency to over-react. However, I think it’s time to start pushing the Japanese government and, more so, TEPCO to tell us all of what’s really going on here.This video is pretty worrying. I’m also curious if there are any similar video out there of meetings like this between Gulf of Mexico residents and the USG or BP regarding the BP Gulf Spill.Forgot to credit a post on Newsweek’s Tumblr for this find.

The only way out of the vicious economic cycle is for government to adopt an expansionary fiscal policy — spending more in the short term in order to make up for the shortfall in consumer demand. This would create jobs, which will put money in peoples’ pockets, which they’d then spend, thereby persuading employers to do more hiring. The consequential job growth will also help reduce the long-term ratio of debt to GDP. It’s a win-win. This is not rocket science.

The only way out of the vicious economic cycle is for government to adopt an expansionary fiscal policy — spending more in the short term in order to make up for the shortfall in consumer demand. This would create jobs, which will put money in peoples’ pockets, which they’d then spend, thereby persuading employers to do more hiring. The consequential job growth will also help reduce the long-term ratio of debt to GDP. It’s a win-win.

This is not rocket science.

Robert Reich, Vicious Cycles: Why Washington is About to Make the Jobs Crisis Worse (via underpaidgenius)

Actually, I disagree.  There’s a disconnect between what the government does and the actual job creation (notice how you almost never hear anyone talk about literally how a government encourages job creation?*).  The “job” cellphone call is dropped by corporations—the so-called “job creators.”  They seem to be in a fetal position, refusing to spend any of their profits on actually hiring people.  They’ve already got a shitload of money, so what can the government do to persuade them at this point? Nothing.

In short, we’re screwed until big business can start to understand their place in the American eco(nomic)system.

*The always interesting Planet Money podcast once talked about what governments can do to actually encourage job creation—which is not much. All they can do is “create an environment in which companies would want to invest” (I’m paraphrasing).  In other words, government has already done all it can do at this point.  It’s up to SOMEbody to make the first sacrifice and us workers have nothing left to sacrifice—big business, however…

There is a theory that standing while working at the computer is good for our health. There is also a theory that the opposite is true. While this great egg controversy is taking place, young French designer Jérémy Guénolé created a desk that allows to alternate the two approaches. The piece, called Postures, features different levels and encourages movement, which cannot be bad for anyone. ‘Starting from different work situations of a creative, I drew a range of hybrid furnitures that comply with the concept of wellness.’ – says the designer.

(via Posture Desk « Shoebox Dwelling)

For 5 months I had my desk set up so I’d have to stand at it. It was great for my back, but terrible for my heels.  I found that because I’m a workaholic, I kept forgetting to take breaks. Soon it hurt to walk. I’m sitting again. I already miss standing all the time because I’m slouching again (though less than I used to) and standing at my desk definitely helped me with focus, too.  Not sure why that was. 

However, until I can become more disciplined about *not* working at my desk (and taking breaks) I am sitting again.  I am using an external monitor that I have set in a way to encourage sitting with my back straight.  We’ll see how that goes.

That’s really what it’s about, money. That’s why they want you to use their social network, and why they want you to not use Zuck’s. Because they want the money. Remember, if you want to understand how corporations work, if you think about money, you’re most of the way there.

That’s really what it’s about, money. That’s why they want you to use their social network, and why they want you to not use Zuck’s. Because they want the money. Remember, if you want to understand how corporations work, if you think about money, you’re most of the way there.

Dave Winer - Why Google cares if you use your real name

Yup x 2  (via kirklove)

I mean… duh. ;)

[emphasis mine]

(via stoweboyd)

I’m torn between being gleeful in my typical anti-corporate, anti-culture homogenization, anti-box store way, and feeling bad that we’re losing hundreds of spaces where readers of all ages could find out about books.

I’m torn between being gleeful in my typical anti-corporate, anti-culture homogenization, anti-box store way, and feeling bad that we’re losing hundreds of spaces where readers of all ages could find out about books.

Borders Nostalgia | Conversational Reading (via housingworksbookstore)

I’m not torn at all. When big business says there’s no money in books, I think our society is in big trouble.  Libraries can barely stay funded and book stores are closing left and right.

This is very scary.

Time to Get Pissed About the USG Again: Scahill Reveals Secret Prisons in Somalia

In case you missed it, back on July 13, 2011 DemocracyNow reported:

Jeremy Scahill Reveals CIA Facility, Prison in Somalia as U.S. Expands Covert Ops in Stricken Nation

In a new investigative report published by The Nation magazine, independent journalist and Democracy Now! correspondent Jeremy Scahill reveals the CIA is using a secret facility in Somalia for counterterrorism as well as an underground prison in the Somali capital of Mogadishu. Scahill says the CIA is training a new Somali force to conduct operations in the areas controlled by the militant group, Al Shabab, and in Mogadishu. While a U.S. official told The Nation that the CIA does not run the prison, he acknowledged the CIA pays the salaries of Somali agents.

Seems like the only change Obama has brought to the United States Government is skin color.  Read the rest at DemocracyNow.org.

666cast episode 65: When White People Kill! (And die and run companies that want to be gods)

A Massacre in Norway, Amy Winehouse dying and Google going for Godhood all made for a hella hectic week here on Planet Earth. 

Episode 65 of the 666cast is hosted at Archive.org.

Please subscribe to the feed.

Don’t forget to visit webstore666!

Call 740 297 6661 and let thepete know what you’d like to talk about!  DO IT NOW!

You can also send a voice message to website666 via audioboo.fm!

666cast episode 64: the Big Picture, how the Rich Won't Escape and MORE!

IMPORTANT NEWS IN THIS EP! Plus, the rich won’t escape Climate Change and more!

Episode 64 of the 666cast is hosted at Archive.org.

Please subscribe to the feed.

Don’t forget to visit webstore666!

Call 740 297 6661 and let thepete know what you’d like to talk about!  DO IT NOW!

You can also send a voice message to website666 via audioboo.fm!

IMAGINE THIS: TIME LORD CARL SAGAN.

spaceandstuffidk:

kaiyves:

avarielle:

karlika:

Just sayin’.

His Ship of the Imagination can travel through time and space. That is all I’m saying.

I have been saying this for years and I’m glad someone else has realized it, too.

DOES THIS MEAN HE REGENERATED INTO BRIAN COX!?

Ohhhh, you mean this Brian Cox:



Not this one:



It is kinda easy to get those two dudes mixed up. ;)

Though, I do think the latter Cox would make an awesome time lord, too.

Awesome Evangelion T-Shirts In-Stock Soon at Nihonju.com!

Above is Asuka yelling at everyone who looks at this shirt: “ANTA BAKAA!” aka “YOU IDIOT!”

Below is an incredibly subtle (and in my opinion, much cooler) shirt that is the image we see when Gendo is talking to his bosses (whom ever they are) in that creepy chatroom.



Both shirts will be available later this month from Nihonju.com for $38 plus shipping. Click on the pics to pre-order yours.

Via @Janina: If you don't like gay marriage...

From janinagavankar.com:

via happyplace.com

“If you don’t like gay marriage, blame straight people. They’re the ones who keep having gay babies.”
Makes just as much sense as the whole “gayness is against Gods will” argument!

Exxon spills 1000 barrels of oil into "America's last best river" (the Yellowstone River)

From DemocracyNow.org:

July 05, 2011

Montana Farmer Says Exxon Refuses to Admit Extent of Damage from Oil Spill Into Yellowstone River

Click here to see more photos of oil on Alexis Bonogofsky’s land.

Family farmer, Alexis Bonogofsky, didn’t get a phone call from ExxonMobil Pipeline Company when its pipeline ruptured Friday night beneath the Yellowstone River, leaking as much as 42,000 gallons of crude oil into the water and onto neighboring land of property owners such as herself. Instead, she discovered “globs of oil” Saturday morning while checking on the flooded pastureland where she grazes her goats. Since then she says company officials have failed to answer her questions about the health and environmental impact of the spill.

Please read more and listen to an interview with Bonogofsky (the above-mentioned farmer) at DemocracyNow.org.

What’s ironic is that the Yellowstone River is known as “America’s last best river”.  What’s even more ironic is that TransCanada is hoping to be allowed by the US State Department to pipe tar sands from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

What could go wrong?

The Unselfish Gene

The Unselfish Gene

In 1976, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote in The Selfish Gene, “If you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.” By 2006, the tide had started to turn. Harvard University mathematical biologist Martin Nowak could declare, in an overview of the evolution of cooperation in Science magazine, “Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of evolution is its ability to generate cooperation in a competitive world. Thus, we might add ‘natural cooperation’ as a third fundamental principle of evolution beside mutation and natural selection.”

Why is this deep-rooted belief about human selfishness beginning to change? To some extent, the answer is specific to evolutionary biology. But similar ideas challenging the notion that people are born selfish have surfaced in several other fields, such as psychology, sociology, political science, and experimental economics. Together, these ideas are tracing a new intellectual arc in the disciplines concerned with human action and motivation.

I love it when evidence against the existence of the negative side of humanity is found.  Anyone who says “human nature is to be XYZ” makes me think: “there’s an ignorant person.” 

But that’s Richard Dawkins for you.  He’s got great ideas about atheism, but in the end, he’s just like so many of us, a big dumb white man.

From underpaidgenius:

dbreunig:

Why we don’t have a debt deal. (via YouGov US Opinion Center)

The difference between liberals and conservatives…

So wait—the question is “Which would you rather have? Flaccid or stupidly stubborn?”

I think Colbert needs to start asking this question of his guests.

I’d settle for a congressperson who cares more about me having a job than him/herself having their own.

Of course, the ideal is that we have competent leaders that know when compromise is worth good and when it isn’t. I don’t see anyone in Washington who has a goddamn clue about what really matters.

Samurai Double Feature at the Japan Society in NYC TONIGHT!

Guess where I’m going tonight… Samurai double-feature! YAY Japan Society!! Going to stop off at Dainobu for ??????? (a couple of onigiri) on the way. In NYC? Dig Japanese cinema? See what else they’re screening this month: http://www.japansociety.org/japancuts

666cast episode 63: Breakdown of the Breakdown and Solutions!

This week a breakdown of the breakdown in our society—what are our main problems and are there solutions? The answers are simple, we just need to have spines.  Start by listening to this week’s 666cast!

Episode 63 of the 666cast is hosted at Archive.org.

Please subscribe to the feed.

Don’t forget to visit webstore666!

Call 740 297 6661 and let thepete know what you’d like to talk about!  DO IT NOW!

You can also send a voice message to website666 via audioboo.fm!

 

Postcards from Space: We Fly

Postcards from Space: We Fly

From  postcardsfromspace:

Watching the final launch of Atlantis this morning, I finally put my finger on what bothers me so fundamentally about the privatization of space travel.

For fifty years, the accomplishments human spaceflight—all that brilliance and innovation and technology and sheer goddamn pluck—have very literally belonged to all of us.That launch this morning? All that pride, and all that inspiration? It was ours.

Human spaceflight will continue, but it’ll no longer belong to everyone. It’s the difference between a state park and a private garden.

Some things should belong to no one—and to everyone. And this is one of them.

The US government is supposed to be “for the people, by the people.”  Corporations are “for getting rich, by exploiting people.” 

Going into space now, more than ever, is the ultimate in contrarianism.  At one point in human history merely saying the Earth revolved around the sun could get you killed.  Now saying it gets you laughed at and called a “space nerd”.  The truth about the universe is all but marginalized now.  We’ve learned over the past ten years that the truth doesn’t matter in politics or government, now we’ve learned truth doesn’t matter in science and knowledge, either.

I believe we’ve entered the Moronic Period of human history.

are2:

The Moon — Tom Guald

If you need another cartoon to help you understand how stupid it is for humanity to stop going into space I can’t help you.

And yes, I know private industry will go into space, but corporations aren’t people.

Texas kills again...this time a foreigner...

Yep, Texas has killed again!  This time it happened despite a bunch of procedural issues AND the President of the United States being against it.

From a blog post at WSJ.com:

Texas Executes Leal Despite White House Objections

July 8, 2011, 8:27 AM ET

By Nathan Koppel

Texas yesterday executed Mexican national Humberto Leal for raping and murdering a teenager despite complaints from the White House and diplomats that the execution violated U.S. treaty obligations.

In his final words, Leal accepted responsibility, saying, “I have hurt a lot of people,” according to this A.P. report  As the execution drugs began to take effect, Leal twice added: “Viva Mexico” (Here’s another account of the execution scene from the Huntsville (TX) Item.)

The Supreme Court yesterday denied Leal’s objection to the execution on the grounds that Texas law enforcement officials failed to advise him of his rights, under the 1963 Vienna Convention, to get assistance from his home country’s consulate or embassy.

Here’s a report from WSJ, which notes that Texas and other states routinely have failed to advise foreigners of their consular rights as required under the Vienna treaty.

So much for a just trial, huh?  But who needs standards? It’s not like he was using foul language in his last statement or anything… that reminds me of something motherjones just posted about:

markcoatney:

Apparently in Texas it’s OK for the state to execute 471 people since 1982, but it’s not OK for them to curse about it. 

At least they stopped publishing their final meals…

One of my favorite double standards! To stop some from killing we kill them.  This despite the very fallible United States Justice System convicting the wrong people on occasion.

We just sent four humans into space and we still kill people as punishment.  Well done, humanity.

70 years ago, the words were spoken, but 70 years later, they’re still true. Sorry, Charlie. Hate and fear and this system that forces us into both, is still winning. We’ve made a little progress in some ways, but have fallen backward in others. Shame.

The Real Reason Businesses aren't Creating Jobs...

Nobel-Prize-for-Economics-winning economist, Paul Krugman, said this in a recent column:

…businesses aren’t holding back because they lack confidence in government policies; they’re holding back because they don’t have enough customers — a problem that would be made worse, not better, by short-term spending cuts.

Really, so what did the first businesses do? They had no customers at all.  OH yeah, they got clever and worked out ways to attract customers with the resources they had.  Sorry, Paul—you’re just adding to the problem when you carry on with the same old rhetoric.  Businesses that can’t find enough customers are businesses that need to adapt or fail. 

Your attitude suggests businesses are victims in this.  There is no “right to exist” for businesses.  Adapt or die.

All Obama or any politician can do is help America be an environment that encourages job creation.  We need to cut businesses off from any incentives at all at this point.  No more tax breaks, no more bail-outs—besides, they shouldn’t *need* incentives to invest in the American people, the greedy bastards.  IT’S YOUR HOME COUNTRY, ASSHOLES!  INVEST IN IT!

OH, here’s one thing Obama can do: ban outsourcing. That’s right: BAN OUTSOURCING.  Force ALL companies based in America to hire AMERICANS ONLY.  Any company/politician/lobbyist that tries to fight this should be labeled “anti-American”.

Problem solved.

Of course, not Obama nor anyone else in the USG will have the spine to even suggest this.  Sad, really.

ashareem:

sexgenderbody:

USA: land of the suckers. “here’s a flag and a bible for you dumb fucks, we’ll keep the money.”

[pie charts showing income gap: richest 1% share of nation’s total income. 1928 23.9% in 1970s 9% 2007 23.5%]

Happy 5th of July!

What is "The Great Speedup"? Might as well call it "The Great Squeeze"

From Mother Jones:

All Work and No Pay: The Great Speedup

Illustration: Mark Matcho

You: doing more with less. Corporate profits: up 22 percent. The dirty secret of the jobless recovery.

— By Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery

This is an absolute must read for anyone trying to face the depressing realities regarding our economy and possibly even our society. Here’s a highlight:

Webster’s defines speedup as “an employer’s demand for accelerated output without increased pay,” and it used to be a household word. Bosses would speed up the line to fill a big order, to goose profits, or to punish a restive workforce. Workers recognized it, unions (remember those?) watched for and negotiated over it—and, if necessary, walked out over it.

But now we no longer even acknowledge it—not in blue-collar work, not in white-collar or pink-collar work, not in economics texts, and certainly not in the media (except when journalists gripe about the staff-compacted-job-expanded newsroom). Now the word we use is “productivity,” a term insidious in both its usage and creep. The not-so-subtle implication is always: Don’t you want to be a productive member of society? Pundits across the political spectrum revel in the fact that US productivity (a.k.a. economic output per hour worked) consistently leads the world. Yes, year after year, Americans wring even more value out of each minute on the job than we did the year before. U-S-A! U-S-A!

Seriously, go read the rest.

What’s the big deal? Well, notice that employers (aka corporations) don’t mind exploiting the workers (aka you and me).  When they want more from us but give us less or nothing in return, it starts to feel like a Ponzi scheme, doesn’t it?

We’re told the wealth will trickle down, but really it trickles up.

'Test tube' meat could slash energy use

Link: 'Test tube' meat could slash energy use

From edie.net:

Meat grown in laboratories could slash the energy used in its production, according to new research.

Beef, pork and lamb grown using tissue engineering techniques, often referred to as cultured or in vitro meat, need up to 45% less energy to produce according to scientists.

Work carried out by scientists from Oxford University and the University of Amsterdam, also estimates the artificial meat could lower greenhouse gas emissions by 96% compared to conventionally produced meat.

However, the meat is never actually part of a real animal and has been produced in laboratories on very small scale, but the high costs of the process mean it has not been taken up commercially, yet.

But do we know eating test tube meat won’t turn us into cannibalistic zombies? Hmmmm? Betcha didn’t think of that! ;P

Google to Retire Blogger/Picasa Brands in Google+ Push -- Ben Parr

Link: EXCLUSIVE: Google to Retire Blogger/Picasa Brands in Google+ Push -- Ben Parr

From stoweboyd:

Ben Parr reports — exclusively — that Picasa and Blogger will become cogs in the Google+ refactoring of Google’s social tools.

As I recently wrote, ” Google+ is currently a browser based system, but it is relatively easy to imagine the core functionality implemented in a next generation Android, and all the tools — like Circles and Hangouts — accessed as complementary apps, along with dozens or hundreds of others built by Google or a growing ecology of developers.”

And it seems that Google is moving to quickly ‘plusify’ systems that were standalone apps until the present day.

Hmmm, wish they would absorb YouTube and ditch that stupid name while they’re at it (“YouTube”—REALLY?).  Of course, sucking Blogger into g+ seems to be making it a serious competitor with… Tumblr.

Ruh-roh!

;)

Japan finds lots and lots of Rare Earth Minerals Under the Ocean Floor

thejpete:

Japan Finds Vast Reserves of Rare Earth Minerals That Could Be Used to Make Solar Panels and Other Electronics

by Brit Liggett, 07/05/11

Japan just announced that they’ve discovered a deposit of rare earth minerals off their coast in the Pacific Ocean that, if commercially viable, could change the worldwide market for the expensive materials. The deposit could yield as much as 80 to 100 billion tonnes of rare earth minerals and though Japan isn’t being specific about which materials they’ve found there, it is likely to contain gold and copper. China currently holds an estimated 97% of the world’s stores of rare earth minerals, which are used in many high tech gadgets like solar panels, cell phones, television sets and vehicles. Will Japan’s find change all of that?

Just so long as they don’t find any sakuradite. ^_^

Read the rest at inhabitat.com.

Am I right? Anime geeks, back me up on this! ^_^

Japan finds lots and lots of Rare Earth Minerals Under the Ocean Floor

Japan Finds Vast Reserves of Rare Earth Minerals That Could Be Used to Make Solar Panels and Other Electronics

by Brit Liggett, 07/05/11

Japan just announced that they’ve discovered a deposit of rare earth minerals off their coast in the Pacific Ocean that, if commercially viable, could change the worldwide market for the expensive materials. The deposit could yield as much as 80 to 100 billion tonnes of rare earth minerals and though Japan isn’t being specific about which materials they’ve found there, it is likely to contain gold and copper. China currently holds an estimated 97% of the world’s stores of rare earth minerals, which are used in many high tech gadgets like solar panels, cell phones, television sets and vehicles. Will Japan’s find change all of that?

Just so long as they don’t find any sakuradite. ^_^

Read the rest at inhabitat.com.

"Happy" 4th of July! (?)

Every year on this day I feel compelled to do one of two things:

1) have fun and watch things explode.

2) stop ignoring all the blatant hypocrisy and contradiction in celebrating an inherently corrupt, corrupting, violent, closeted-imperial nation, that is so self-centered and full of so much hubris, it is quickly falling behind in the world in every way but militarily.

Regardless of which I choose, every year on the fourth, I always have to bite my tongue to avoid lecturing people who are as blatantly pro-America as a baptist is pro-Christ on Christmas.  I understand there’s a certain amount of shit-iness in the world we need to accept just to get to the end of the day, but when does it stop?

When do we stop looking only at the good and start dealing with the bad?

If we’d only focus on the bad, it might stop.  But as long as we keep ignoring the bad, the list of contradictions and hypocrisies will only grow.

American history is like the little white lie that keeps getting told over and over until the truth, itself, is irrelevent.

Call it the little red, white and blue lie.

666cast episode 62: The End of Our World Continues! (Very slooowwwllyyyy)

The end of our world continues! Just veeery slowly! Is that a reason to not worry? Of course not! Listen to find out why. Check out the links below to read more about what I talk about in this week’s 666cast!

Read about China jumping the shark: http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/95/and-then-it-happened.html

Stowe Boyd writes about how over a billion people are starving, food prices are rising and the Water Wars have begun: http://www.underpaidgenius.com/post/6209964169

If you’re not already listening to the “Stuff You Should KNow” podcast, go subscribe now: http://www.howstuffworks.com/podcasts/stuff-you-should-know.rss

Read about eugenics: http://www.howstuffworks.com/environmental/life/biology-fields/eugenics-info.htm

Read about Barbara Harris’s non-profit that hopes to stop addicts from reproducing—because nothing good ever came from an addict: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Project_Prevention

I misspoke in the podcast—turns out Kansas didn’t ban all abortions, thankfully: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2081248,00.html

India offers cars and money to folks who get sterilized, bribing the creators of the next generation not to: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13982031

Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman moderates a discussion between Julian Assange and Slavoj Žižek: http://livestre.am/sYC

Exxon oil spill in the Yellowstone River: http://website666.com/post/7173252503/coalspeaker-oilstone-exxon-oil-spills-in

Episode 62 of the 666cast is hosted at Archive.org.

Please subscribe to the feed.

Don’t forget to visit webstore666!

Call 740 297 6661 and let thepete know what you’d like to talk about!  DO IT NOW!

You can also send a voice message to website666 via audioboo.fm!

coalspeaker:

Come on down!!

Eugenics with a reward: India health officials offer cars and other prizes as a reward for sterlization..

Ah, this is lovely.  India’s government seems to be preparing for the upcoming resource-shortage by bribing the parents of future generations to not create said future generations. This kind of quiet eugenics reminds me of Barbara Harris who thinks it’s cool to pay addicts and criminal-types to sterilize themselves via her “Project Prevention” non-profit.  Check out the Stuff You Should Know podcast that talks about her and the idea of sterilizing addicts.

I’ll be talking more about this topic in the next 666cast.

coalspeaker:

Oilstone: Exxon oil spills in Yellowstone River and forces evacuations.. No word yet on what caused the leak .. the oil stretches for miles. Ain’t that America..

And people think we need less regulation of business! >_<

I wonder if this spill will play as well in the MSM as the BP Gulf Spill did.

If we have to cut social services at home in order to pay for two wars overseas, then the terrorists have won.

If we have to cut social services at home in order to pay for two wars overseas, then the terrorists have won.

In that case, Bizarro World has also won.

What the fuck is wrong with us?

I think future historians and, later, archeologists will call this the “Moronic Era.”

What better name for a time period *we* call the information age while so much stupidity and willful ignorance is going around?

A MUST-READ: Climate Chaos: Christian Parenti's New Book Exposes How Global Warming Could Lead to Global Warfare

A MUST-READ: Climate Chaos: Christian Parenti's New Book Exposes How Global Warming Could Lead to Global Warfare

From DemocracyNow.org:

Extreme weather from Texas to Somalia may indicate that a new era of climate war is upon us. Just this month, massive floods have shut down two nuclear power facilities in Nebraska. In New Mexico, the nation’s top nuclear weapons lab in Los Alamos is being threatened by an uncontrolled wildfire. Meanwhile, the United Nations warns the Horn of Africa is facing its worst drought in 60 years, affecting more than 10 million in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Uganda. We speak with award-winning journalist Christian Parenti who argues in his new book that global warming is leading to social and environmental catastrophe. “The weather associated with climate change, extreme weather such as the drought, punctuated by flooding in East Africa, punctuated by flooding in East Africa, is adding to this.Climate change very often doesn’t just look bad weather, it looks like ethnic violence or religious violence or banditry or civil war,” says Parenti.

This is an incredible story—go check it out. Scary, scary stuff.  You can also read a chapter from Tropic of Chaos (Parenti’s book) for free.

cormack:

love to everyone at the london protest today. 

Capitalism isn’t working? Seems to be working just fine for the rich and who do you think came up with the idea in the first place?

fuckyeahanarchistbanners:

Help Stop Police Violence - Watch The Cops: Its legal! // New York, NY

I wonder how long this will be the case. After all, the UK has passed a law that makes it possible to arrest individuals for taking photos in public.  Hopefully, our lawmakers will be more freedom-minded.

glasgow-effect:

I for one welcome our new jellyfish overlords.

Is this the frontline of the new war with the army of Aquaman?  I hope so! We SOOO DESERVE IT!

As Drought Intensifies, Towns and Schools Worry About Maintaining Athletic Fields - NYTimes.com

As Drought Intensifies, Towns and Schools Worry About Maintaining Athletic Fields - NYTimes.com

From the often brilliant underpaidgenius:

So they have the worst drought ever in Texas, and folks are worried about the football fields.

Kate Galbraith via Texas Tribune

Across Texas, as one of the worst droughts in history intensifies, numerous cities and towns have instituted water restrictions. Earlier this week, the federal Department of Agriculture designated most of the state a natural-disaster area, allowing farmers and ranchers statewide to apply for emergency low-interest loans.

A notable if lesser worry is the condition of athletic fields. Too much dirt creates safety concerns, and some fields are getting patchy. Worse, a summer of 90- to 100-degree temperatures and tightening restrictions on sprinklers lies ahead — not to mention that players will begin trampling the fields in August, when practices start.

“The extreme heat and no rain is burning up our fields,” James W. Riggen, a maintenance official with the Midland Independent School District, said in an e-mail.

[…]

In Llano, if the football practice fields cannot get the estimated 54,000 gallons of water that they need each week, the community may feel the effect. That’s because practice would move to the game field, which is watered by a working well. But heavy use could make that field unsuitable for games, so Llano might have to play its entire schedule at opponents’ homes, hurting morale — and the local economy.

“A lot of folks come to the ball game,” Mr. Hill said, “and they buy some gas and eat dinner.”

I can’t even begin: so many layers of what’s wrong here.

Just remember that this drought — stretching across the entire southwest and northern Mexico is permanent. There will be no return to normal. So maybe it doesn’t matter if Texas pours out the last remaining gallons of water trying to maintain their ball fields. They are only hastening a return to subsistence, where the people that don’t emigrate out of this desert region will have to exist based on the water that comes every year from the sky, because the aquifers are all played out.

We are so rock stupid.

It’s going to be a good 666cast this Sunday…