Category Archives: public protests

Speaking of Scam Artists

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PR Watch.org has this up on the gerrymandering in Wisconsin.

From the article:

In early February of 2012, GOP legislators released multiple documents, but continued to keep around 84 emails confidential. The three judges — two of them appointed by Republican presidents — again criticized the Republican legislators for “an all but shameful attempt” to keep documents secret, writing:  “Without a doubt, the Legislature made a conscious choice to involve private lawyers in what gives every appearance of an attempt — albeit poorly disguised — to cloak the private machinations of Wisconsin’s Republican legislators in the shroud of attorney-client privilege.”

And…incredibly:

According to the documents that were released, Republican legislators signed a pledge of secrecy during the redistricting process and were told to ignore what GOP leaders said publicly about the new election maps.

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What is this, high school or college where you make secret pledges?  Seriously?? Does this mean they get double secret probation?

Note that some emails obtained by Center for Media and Democracy  were not released to the lawyers challenging the maps.  Just incredible!

I think this is why Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the tea partiers are so baffled that they lost the election….how could they lose when they’ve worked so hard against the democratic process??

 

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More on ALEC sponsors here.

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And, lastly, ALEC and the electoral college here.  They just can’t figure out enough ways to demolish the democratic process….

 

 

Whales

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So, I finally got around to turning my calendar over to the month of February this morning.  It’s a nature based one, and this month has a whale majestically propelling itself out of the deep blue, much like this one.

A cool event here with a whale.  Playing hide-and-seek…gotta love it.

This once again proves that we know very little about wildlife and how they can display compassion.

Greenpeace is still fighting the good fight. 

This bears repeating:  the sad story of seagulls attacking the whales. Argentina has this plan to thwart them, but I think it’s not really addressing the reason behind the gulls’ attacks.  Something has caused them to begin attacking eight years ago…I hope that they’re going to test the dead gulls for mercury and other toxins, since it’s been documented that the birds are pretty messed up with mercury.  This would explain why they suddenly began this eight years ago–the rubbish aspect doesn’t really make sense to me because we’ve had garbage around for decades…why now?

Finally, a wonderful story here. The will to survive never ceases to amaze me…no matter how we screw up, nature still tries to come back.  Awesome.

The right to privacy

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…is slowly being eroded, we know, but then there are among us the rebels who won’t go quietly.

Oh, the imagination is running into overdrive with all the fun I could have of this…but I want to keep this blog, um, family friendly. haha.

From Cornell Law:

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

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I have a Paralegal Certificate and my professor told me that this means that if a police officer pulls you over, you have the right to refuse to give your name or any information unless you are put under arrest.  And with my experience with this, you don’t even have to be in suspicion of a crime–you just have to be in the area–doing your job–to be treated like you were a criminal.

Inquiry into Swartz case

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Two members of Congress have asked what reasons the DOJ had for so zealously going after Aaron Swartz.  (Be sure to click on the link to Wired).  I hope this isn’t just a we’ll pretend to be interested in fairness and justice...

I checked at Marcy Wheeler’s site, but nothing up about this.

Boycott Kellogg’s

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Organic Consumers posted this a while back (I’m sooo far behind in emails).  Financially supporting the companies that truly have the best interests of their consumers at heart is the best way to go.  Well, that and labeling our food.

Read the note on Kashi’s using genetically engineered soy in their “organic” products.  It is such a cop-out to claim pollination was the reason the soy was GMO–an easy way to escape accountability.  Instead of fighting GMO labeling, they should be fighting against Monsanto and the others involved in genetically modified food.  This food is highly likely involved in leaky gut, as the body cannot recognize the grain anymore, and treats it as a foreign substance and that leads to gut inflammation and eventually leaky gut.

A link here to eye problems and leaky gut and GMO’s.  Very interesting.  My eyes have begun to improve–I was using 1.50 readers and now am able to use the 1.25 magnification.  I’m also able to distinguish fine degrees of color, and I had lost some of my ability to determine colors.  I know this by my embroidery thread that I used for counted cross-stitch–the thread is numbered and has very minute distinctions, and it was difficult for me to separate them by color.  I grew so frustrated at it that I just put them all in one bag, unable to organize them.  This began to change when I started to detox.

Here’s a good opinion on the GMO’s.

More here on the global effort to get GMO’s labeled.

A debate between a professor and a neoliberal. (hat tip to organic consumers).

Lastly, I really wonder about the exposure even if you’re not eating GMO foods (or at least trying not to by buying organic).  I say this because every year, around late July, I begin to have more severe allergy symptoms, culminating in September, when I usually have headaches several days out of the month (this has been after mercury poisoning–at least, that’s when I first noticed it).  I found a link here on the increase in allergies and GMO’s.

Here is a paper that must have been written by a Monsanto toadie, it is so slanted towards GMO’s and gives very little attention or support for research towards health concerns.  This is what I was seeing when I was a student in college and I took a class in science writing:  they had a forum at this strongly agricultural school on GMO’s when they were first being introduced in 1997-98 (only we found out later that they had been unleashed onto the unsuspecting public earlier.)

A good blog here on GMO.

 

 

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Related to this is an stunning affirmation of those in power that amalgams are safe.  Just stunning. Absolutely stunning.  (hat tip to organic consumers).  It just goes to show that Washington is bought by those whose interests don’t include the health and well being of the public, but of who has the $$$ to fund their campaigns.

And my previous blog  with this on how not only mercury affects us, but the animals, as well.  My other blogs on it here and here.

And I’m finished.  So much for catching up on my emails. 😛

 

 

Failure to prosecute Wall St.

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…because we’d much rather go after computer wizzes who have legal access to files and download them for the public so that the public knows what their government is doing…

link here.

bgrothus has this link in the comments section.  Remember, folks, the derivatives were the cause of the meltdown.  They were betting on people losing their mortgages….these scumbags were betting on people like me losing their houses. 

…and not only betting on people losing their houses, but on people dying.  It’s amazing how they can make it seem….normal.  Just coldly predict how long someone lives and apply a monetary value to it, i.e., insurance $$.

(crap, I have to go, and I wanted to explore this more….argh)

Martin Luther King, Jr. and Beyond Vietnam

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Susie Madrak has a post up on MLK’s birthday celebration.  This is my view, too, on how everybody brings up “I Have a Dream” speech, and then fail to acknowledge his “Beyond Vietnam” speech (which he gave a year to the day before his murder).

He was expanding from the Civil Rights protests towards protesting the condition of the poor and of the terrible consequences of war.  This was more of a threat to the status quo than anything he had done prior.  Indeed, even his friends that had supported him during the Civil Rights era were abandoning him when he started advocating for the poor and protesting against war.  According to those that knew him, he never felt so alone.

He knew that advocating those positions was dangerous.

And he did it anyway….

 

She’s just a whore…

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…she probably deserved it…we can’t be arresting our star football players…/snark (be sure to click on the Prinniefied.com link–good coverage of the case there.

More here.  

It’s unbelievable that the dude in the video was saying that it should go through the courts…um, yeah, that’s kinda what they’re protesting about–that it wasn’t being forcefully dealt with because of the town’s football worship….

…and attitudes towards women in general and rape specifically…

You know, the arguments are as old as the hills:  the victim brought it on by herself by drinking/partying/wearing skimpy clothes, and on.  What other crime would they ever make that kind of accusation? Rape is the only crime where the victim has to prove they didn’t want the crime to happen.

Case in point (from the NY Times article):

He said that online photographs and posts could ultimately be “a gift” for his client’s case because the girl, before that night in August, had posted provocative comments and photographs on her Twitter page over time. He added that those online posts demonstrated that she was sexually active and showed that she was “clearly engaged in at-risk behavior.”

So….because she was sexually active and wearing skimpy clothes…God, this gets soooo old.…she couldn’t possibly have been raped, because everybody knows that sluts don’t get raped.  They *always* want it and if they don’t put out, well, then one just has to take it. /said with cynicism and dripping sarcasm.

Also telling is the statement “..some people deserve to be peed on…”  In other words, she’s not a human being— she’s an object to be peed on.

The coaching staff’s statement that she “made it up” to cover for her bad behavior is so out of line, but not surprising, given the mindset.  And the coach himself, well, what can one say to “you’ll get yours!” ??

Sadly, the mindset is not just in Steubenville or the U.S. or India, but all over the world. such as this group in Australia.

More blame the victim here.

More here on the politics of rape… note the conservative viewpoint to deny that rapes occur.  As this article illustrates, even women  attack other women about whether they were raped or not.  I seriously wonder if Katie Roiphe wasn’t raped and is in serious denial?