What a wonderful world we will no longer live in.

Ugh.

Global Warming Close to Becoming Irreversible

Here's a slice -

As emissions grow, scientists say the world is close to reaching thresholds beyond which the effects on the global climate will be irreversible, such as the melting of polar ice sheets and loss of rainforests.


"This is the critical decade. If we don't get the curves turned around this decade we will cross those lines," said Will Steffen, executive director of the Australian National University's climate change institute, speaking at a conference in London.

Despite this sense of urgency, a new global climate treaty forcing the world's biggest polluters, such as the United States and China, to curb emissions will only be agreed on by 2015 - to enter into force in 2020.

And another -

Increased CO2 in the atmosphere has also turned oceans more acidic as they absorb it. In the past 200 years, ocean acidification has happened at a speed not seen for around 60 million years, said Carol Turley at Plymouth Marine Laboratory.


This threatens coral reef development and could lead to the extinction of some species within decades, as well as to an increase in the number of predators.

Ah, but wait - there's more!

Climate Change Poses Disaster Risk for Most of the Planet

Yeah ...

Some areas may be rendered uninhabitable by changing patterns of extreme weather, says the new report, which identifies small island states and large coastal cities threatened by sea level rise as likely examples.


"When you look around the world, there are lots of places that are marginal for one reason or another," Field said. "Climate change can impose additional stresses on top of the stresses that are already occurring, and the indications are that for areas that are kind of close to the border line, additional stresses might make them uninhabitable."

(h/ts to The Disaffected Lib here, and here.)

Interesting.

Robert J. Zimmerman, Trayvon shooter's dad, a magistrate in Virginia court system


http://www.thegrio.com/specials/trayvon-martin/robert-j-zimmerman-trayvon-shooters-dad-a-magistrate-in-virginia-court-system.php

Quote of the day - 03-29-2012.

Courtesy Brian Terrell -

'The time comes when silence is betrayal,' and Dr. King confessed that he was ‘moved to break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart.’ Condemning the destruction of Vietnam and the wasting of fortunes and lives for an arms race in the face of poverty at home and abroad was not a strategic choice he could make or not, nor is it for us. Dr. King recognized that he and others would find that ‘the calling to speak is often a calling of agony.’ Despite this, he insisted, ‘we must speak.’ No one, Dr. King said, was exempt from the responsibility to protest the war in Vietnam. No one today is exempt from the responsibility to protest the war in Afghanistan- our credibility in all matters and our humanity depend upon this. Silence is betrayal.

For context, read it all here - http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/29-0

Advice I need to keep reminding myself of when dealing with my kids ...

Somehow my kids work real hard to make me forget ...

What you should never do when angry




■Never yell.

You’ll fail here. But if your voice starts rising, let it be a warning bell that you’re lurching toward the idiot side of the pool. Take a short time out, even a few moments, to calm down, think things over, process your feelings and put things in perspective.



■Never dole out punishment when you’re angry.

A loss of self-monitoring capacity leads to moronic trigger-happy justice. Wait until you’re calm and clear-headed before considering repercussions. Not letting your kid eat sugar for a month probably won’t teach him any useful lessons, except how stubborn and random you can be.



■Never use violence.

Never. You can deeply damage your child, not to mention your relationship.



■Never destroy your child’s self-esteem.

Their lifelong happiness depends on it.



http://goodmenproject.com/featured-content/four-things-a-parent-must-never-do-when-angry/

AHAHAHAHA! - Maple Laughs miss playoffs ... again!

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/teams/story/?id=391601&hubname=nhl-maple_leafs

Yeah so did the Habs, but at least I get some solace in knowing the Make Believes find new ways to miss the playoffs as well.

Why the right-wing must be kept out of power ...

... because they are self-destructive, and will in turn destroy everything around them.

Case in point -

http://www.alternet.org/story/154707/the_republican_party_is_rotted_and_collapsing_from_within_--_and_we_can_thank_super_pacs_for_exposing_it?akid=8475.261788.qqqR_p&rd=1&t=8

Super PACs get around that by pretending to operate independent of the candidates, even though Romney, Gingrich and Santorum know the super PAC staffers and have met with major donors.


Critics have bemoaned how a handful of wealthy individuals have not just flouted what remains of the nation’s campaign finance laws, but have had the effect of monopolizing the airwaves in GOP primaries and caucuses, preventing more moderate candidates and viewpoints from gaining traction.

"... handy little exercise in logic."

http://whowhatwhy.com/2012/02/18/which-is-more-likely-a-conspiracy-of-millions-or-oil-companies-doing-what-they-do/

GOP Pie.

Ingredients: Money

I should add, it's coming from guess who? The one fucking percent of course!

See ... ?

http://whowhatwhy.com/2012/03/23/gop-pie-chart/ http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2012/03/wall-streets-huge-bet-on-romney.html

More stupidiots out there.

3644 (WA) - 14-FEB-2012. Classic example of stupidiocy. A moron who parked their SUV in a zone where it's clearly marked "NO PARKING".

(Hint: look carefully at the picture to see why one shouldn't be parking there)

And ... this is at an elementary school. Talk about setting a good example for kids.

International Agency for Enabling Aggression?

So claims Pierce R. Butler about the IAEA about this and more -

The primary issue standing in the way of final agreement, according to Soltanieh, was whether the IAEA could reopen issues once they had been resolved. The text shown to IPS includes a provision that IAEA “may adjust the order” in which issues were to be resolved and “return” to issues even after they had been resolved.


The Iranians accepted the right of the IAEA to adjust the order but did not agree that it could reopen issues once they were completed satisfactorily, Soltanieh recalled, because Iran feared that giving the IAEA that power would lead to “an endless process.”

Hmm ... endless process? Kinda like an endless war, eh? What a fucking surprise, and by remarkable coincidence in the year of a US Presidential Election between a Democratic incumbent, and whatever idiot the right-wing comes up with.

I wonder why after reading ...

... this, Zimmerman isn't charged with a hate crime? I mean after all, looking at what we know (so far) absent a crowd of people, it seems to me that Trayvon Martin was more or less executed for being dark-skinned.

Can we all say 'institutionalized racism'?

Ah when bands played as if their lives depended on it.

And ... when lyrics in a song actually meant something, and were performed with actual you know, integrity -



Man, when Hetfield sang - it had such intensity. He sounded better in standard tuning as well.

President Obama's real right-wing political opponent.

The Prime Minister of Israel., so asserts Mr. Steven Jonas. Consider the following -

... his goals of aggression have nothing to do with Iran and everything to do with the Palestinians and the Occupied Territories, known to the Israeli Right, their US far right-wing/Orthodox settler base in them, and their US Right-wing Christian supporters. They all make policy based on Biblical text, which does, from several millennia ago, describe "The Land of Israel." What Netanyahu and his even-further-to-the-right allies very possibly really want to do is annex the West Bank and drive out the Palestinians. And then they might ethnically cleanse Israel of its Arab citizens at the same time (because the Arab birthrate exceeds the Jewish birthrate and might eventually create a majority of the electorate). If Obama wins re-election, it is highly unlikely that any of this would be possible, and in one way or another Netanyahu would be forced into real negotiations. This is something he absolutely does not want to do (3). And so, the solution? Get a Republican government elected, by feeding strongly into the standard GOP myth that Obama (?Muslim, ?Kenyan, definitely "black" [even though he is half white]) is "weak." Iran would not be bombed anyway. Israel would certainly not have to negotiate with the Palestinians and might very well be allowed to proceed with its own "resolution" of the "Palestinian problem," which many Israeli government officials have openly advocated (4).

3. Jonas, S., "Why the Current Israeli Government Will Not Negotiate,"


http://www.planetarymovement.org/index2.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=541&pop=1&page=0.
4. DANNY DANON (a deputy speaker of the Israeli Knesset), "Making the Land of Israel Whole, The New York Times, May 18, 2011.

Hmm ... there's that religious thing again ... that lack of rational thinking and acting.

All about looking better in the eyes of their fairytale deity ....

.. and what better way than converting as many as possible?

http://www.truth-out.org/how-fundamentalist-mind-compels-conservative-christians-force-their-beliefs-you/1332095126

Beliefs have consequences, and one consequence of evangelical belief is that decent people end up doing ugly things in order to recruit converts and save souls. It is because they care about being good that they do harm. In the much quoted words of Steven Weinberg, “With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” The mechanism by which this happens is that religion creates a narrative in which the evil serves a higher good.

Check out the bit about the 4 moral emotions one particular religion in the US uses (Guilt, Shame, Embarrassment, and Pride )...

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-literary-mind/200911/the-four-moral-emotions

But recent research on emotion has shifted the traditional focus away from the "basic" emotions to another set of emotions which are thought to be more distinctly human. Focus has turned to the "self-conscious" emotions, which are sometimes also referred to as "moral," "social," or "higher-order" emotions. These are the emotions that an organism can only feel if it has a highly developed sense of self-reflection. Usually, the "self-conscious" emotions are listed as these four: guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride.

I'd say it's just another way to delude one self into thinking and acting as if one is better than anyone and everyone else. And ... in the process, suspend any practice of rational thinking or acting.

It doesn't get better for Rupert Murdoch, eh?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/03/13/phone-hacking-arrests.html

"British police made six arrests early Tuesday in the British media's phone hacking scandal, including Rebekah Brooks, the former top executive of Rupert Murdoch's News International."

This is really ugly -

"The dormant police investigation was reopened last year after reporters were found to have hacked into the voicemail of a missing schoolgirl who was later found to have been murdered."

Keep watch of this one, I'd like to see how Faux spins this.

Subversive television at its best.

Too bad it's not current. Though these guys could probably start all over from where they left off, and still be far more talented and funny than really anything on television today.



America!



Mystery!

Hey look - Frankenfood isn't really safer for you!

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/03/08/148227668/insect-experts-issue-urgent-warning-on-using-biotech-seeds
Here's a salient snippet -

"... researchers have found insects that are resistant to just one of the three different anti-rootworm genes currently on the market. (For those of you who care about the details, it's called Cry3Bb1.) New corn hybrids now are on sale that combine two different anti-rootworm genes.


In theory, if the toxins produced by these genes kill rootworms in different ways, this "pyramid" of genes should dramatically reduce the chances of insects developing resistance. So the EPA is allowing corn growers to plant this new "SmartStax" type of corn on a larger area — up to 95 percent of a grower's corn acres.

Many scientists think this is a big mistake. They've collected data showing that the two genes, working together, are indeed more effective than any single gene — but the combination is not nearly as effective as people had hoped. In addition, "SmartStax" corn is being planted in areas where some insects may already be resistant to one of the genes, so it's not a true pyramid."

Seriously - Why does any fucking trust a pesticide maker to make better quality food? Just look at some examples -

http://www.alternet.org/food/154284/monsanto_found_guilty_of_chemical_poisoning_in_france
http://www.mindfully.org/Pesticide/Monsanto-Roundup-Glyphosate.htm
http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms/10595-monsanto-a-history

"'A-mer-i-can' ID"

http://www.splcenter.org/alabamas-shame-hb56-and-the-war-on-immigrants/store-clerk-demands-a-mer-i-can-id

(thank you Buzzflash)

Gotta love those 'immigration laws' - exposing more bigots every day.

One of these days and tomorrow's plans.

Do you ever have one of those days when you feel just completely powerless and useless in one own's life?

Where it seems as though everyone is looking at you as if you just shit all over their things?

Where it seems as if you speak, and people are standing or sitting around looking at you, but they aren't really listening? More like just patiently waiting for you to shut up so they can then tell you you're wrong and repeat back what you've said so others can tell them they're right?

Or better still, how about when you're talking to someone about something important, and suddenly two people come up and interrupt what you're saying to this person, just so they can ask questions (to the person you're talking to) regarding their trip to Europe or wherever the fuck they and their spouse is flying to, this time. They do this knowing who you are, who you work for, what you do, and they do it anyways because you don't really exist in their mind or world, or rather, you're not really important enough to be polite to?

Do you ever find yourself forced into attending meetings with superiors only to hear about their house, or some holiday trip to the islands, or some boating excursion, or how others in the group are set up to be successful? It's almost as if you're just a placeholder in their lives for them to bloviate or pontificate, because if they were to do this by themselves, they'd realize they were crazy?

Do you ever find yourself forever the person being put on hold, seen as rude if you do the same?

Do you ever find somehow all the stupid people on the bus all seem to know each other, and all look at you the same, as if you're the stupid idiot?

Do you ever find yourself wondering why you're last in your own life, why you constantly are putting other people's needs and feelings and wishes over your own?

Do you ever observe other people you know treating people like shit, but when you get upset, you're the jerk, and not them?

Do you ever find yourself always to be the one waiting for others, but never them really waiting for you? They start things without you because they can't wait, or you'll catch up, or it's alright if it's a little cold, or well he's not around, let's enjoy!

Do you ever wonder why you allow people of all ages and sizes to walk all over you each and every day, and you stand in front of the mirror on every one of those days and ask yourself why you allow them to do so, and what are you going to do about it?

Do you ever get tired of watching others spend your money and your hard-earned on things that will be thrown away, discarded, destroyed, wasted, but if you were to so the same, you'd be quite a pig?

Well ... I've had days like that. In fact I've had far too many the last little while.

Maybe I'm conditioned to accept it all. But if so, why do I continually question it? Why does that not seem acceptable?

Perhaps because I'd like to think I'm a fairly reasonable man, and that not of any of this seems remotely fair or reasonable or even worth tolerating.

Then you find your then asking - Well, what can you do about it?

I have lots of ideas. I'm not joking, I have tons of ideas.

But I think what I lack is real focus. Or rather, I have difficulty taking an idea to completion and making it a reality.

That could be the case. Writing a book, a song, a story, a business plan ... somehow I want to do it all, and never complete any of it.

Now it's possible this could all be perceived as a mid-life crisis. On the other hand, what does it mean if you've felt this way pretty much your entire life?

Seriously, my whole life - I've always known what I want to do - simply be happy. And yet despite everything I've done - and not done - here I am and no where near attaining that happiness and retaining it.

Oh yes, purusing it is great - and like they say, as long as you're chasing it, you're never licked.

But at some point you (well really I) need to face the fact that somehow I'm off the path. Or that the path I'm on isn't leading me where I want to go. Or I'm being held back from heading there. Or I'm not moving at any noticeable speed.

What is the answer?

Do I just retreat back into the idiocy that exists in my life? Do I return to the distractions I use to avoid facing my own unhappiness? Do I continue to say to myself, tomorrow I'll look at that, tomorrow I'll work on that some more, and so on?

Do I resume the arguing and fighting over things with people who don't really care, or if they do, they do so because they like seeing you mad, or because they think that's the only way you live, or they live?

I could take a contrarian approach and rather than pursue happiness, perhaps I should try and rid myself of as much unhappiness as I have. While there is some merit to that, a part me wonders if I'll then just find something new to be unhappy about.

Or I could just revel in watching other people, other companies crash and burn, suffer the consequences of their fate, and so on?

Somehow I think, while those things may have value, it's really limited at best. None of those things really bring me closer to happiness. It'd be like being on the happy path, and clearing away all the shit and stupidity off the roads and off to the sides. Yeah nice, but I'm not moving down the path, nor am I really getting where I want to go.

John Lennon once said that when asked by his teachers what he wanted to be when he grew up in life, he said that he wanted to be happy. And that when his teachers told him he didn't understand the question, he responded that they didn't understand life.

How I truly understand how he felt.

I think, the answer for me - is to decide what are the things that would make me happy in life. So first, list them out.

• Good health and looking good
• To be loved and respected by my family and friends, as I try to be with them
• Lotsa money - true financial security
• Lotsa sex
• Creating and performing my music
• Creating seeing my stories, films come to life
• Making my ideas in various areas come to reality
• End global warming
• End hatred, misery, starvation and suffering on the planet for all people

Okay. I purposefully didn't place any numbers on these. And while I initially thought I should put this in some order, it dawned on me that really it doesn't matter.

Now the next step is to catalog all my ideas and plans along these areas.

To be continued ...

If only Lego would reconsider ...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2012/03/07/montreal-lego-habitat.html

Habitat 67 is a cool place, more than 45 years later.

Hey look - misandry AND racism!

The tone of racism and misandry in this CNN article is horrific -

http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/08/us/south-carolina-indian-adoption/index.html

Sadly we live in a day and age where the article wouldn't be so hostile towards the biological parent if a woman.

Beating up on citizens, one drone at a time.

http://www.thenation.com/article/166600/how-fund-american-police-state

This is why I can never ever be a good satirist. Because every time I think of something outlandish, reality comes up and trumps it time and again.

Case in point -

"Yes, it’s true that Montgomery County, Texas, has purchased a weapons-capable drone. (They say they’ll only arm it with tasers, if necessary.)"

Ah the joys of having two small children

I recall before being married or having children that I could actually sleep in on weekends. Somehow I get the impression that isn't going to happen for quite some time.

Quote of the day - 03-03-2012.

Courtesy Joan McCarter - next time hear someone lamenting on why 'both' sides of the political debate in the US don't try and give a little and so forth. Here's a quote from McCarter who why such people are idiots -

"There is no "difficult philosophical stalemate." There's a party that wants to blow government to smithereens while forcing America to relive the first half of the 20th century, and another party that seems to be watching them, baffled and uncertain how to deal with them, trying to cobble together some kind of governing agenda."


Quite an apt description of the American Right-Wing/Establishment - the biggest threat to humanity, progress on any real kind of level, and above all the biggest roadblock to solving global warming.

Those pesky Canadians and the Internet.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/03/02/canadians-more-time-online.html

The report, 2012 Canada Digital Future in Focus, by the internet marketing research company comScore, found Canadians spent an average of 45.3 hours on the internet in the fourth quarter of 2011, up from 43.5 hours during the same quarter a year earlier.
That’s more than internet users spent online in the fourth quarter of 2011 in the United States (38.6 hours), the U.K. (35.4) and South Korea (30 hours).

Nice convenient graphic to look at next time some right-winger tells you about the wonder of Ayn Rand ...

Realize she was full of shit, and so are those who subscribe to her believes about conservatism (from here) -



"America's real producer class is overwhelmingly concentrated in the blue cities and states -- the regions full of smart, talented people who've harnessed technology and intellect to money, and made these regions the best, most forward-looking places in the country to live. "