I think Elizabeth Warren would make a pretty good President.

Don't you?

http://www.truth-out.org/buzzflash/commentary/item/18187-the-american-people-know-that-the-system-is-rigged-against-them-elizabeth-warren

Of course that assumes her actions matches her words.

You'd think on this of all days, we'd learn from our past and move forward.

I've always wondered why a Canadian team hasn't won the Stanley Cup in over 20 years?

Turns out Nate Silver has the answer - the teams in the major metropolitan areas haven't had a strong incentive to really produce a winner, since their measure of success is really profit. This is no surprise since most if not all sports teams are owned by corporations whose goals pretty much revolve around profit.

I like this idea of having 2-3 Toronto teams, a second Montreal team, and another in the Pacific Northwest -

(Source: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/why-cant-canada-win-the-stanley-cup/?_r=0)

Canada really a happy place?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2013/09/08/happiness-canada-2013.html

I never really thought of it much. I definitely think life was certainly less stressful when I lived in Canada. But back then I was younger and had only myself to be responsible for.

Not sure how that'd work today.

On a related note, I wouldn't mind living in some of those other countries - Denmark, Norway, Switzerland,  Netherlands, or Sweden. Not sure about Finland or Iceland, but Austria or Australia sound good.

Curious - no countries in the top 10 from Asia, Africa or South America.

Why does American society force kids to recite the Pledge of Allegiance?

http://www.alternet.org/education/lets-end-pledge-allegiance-schools

We don't force corporations to incorporate it into their mission statements.

We don't force adults to recite it at work.

Why do we force kids to then?

Naughty naughty - two seconds makes a difference in the business world.

So does an hour.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/16-major-firms-may-have-received-early-data-from-thomson-reuters-20130905#ixzz2e6BvVPbC

Once again, a person doing their job is fired for speaking up.

Once again, no corporation who committed the act is being held accountable for their actions.

Overcoming 'Overburden'.

Read it - http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/04

It's a damn good start. Right now dealing with global warming is our biggest challenge facing us all.

The first step is overcoming the right-wing/corporate establishment that opposes any change to the economic system that allows them to flourish and destroy us further.

Always several steps behind.

Why is it I'm shocked, but not surprised by this?

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/09/03

"There are at least 12 significant feedbacks that will have a substantial effect on the rate and pace of warming. Yet feedbacks are often too complex to fully characterize, let alone model.  Yet their effects are serious.  For example just 3 of these feedbacks could add as much as 4.5 degrees to the warming forecasts for 2100.

The first is a result of decreases  in sulfur aerosols from phytoplankton, as the seas become more acidic and these critters begin to die off.  Sulfur aerosols are known to moderate solar gain and mitigate global warming.  This could increase warming by close to 1F by 2100.

Extreme weather events could add another 1.5 F since they effect the Earth’s ability to sequester human emissions and in some cases increase those emissions directly.Add these to the 2 F expected from methane releases – a conservative number if one compares the results of similar events in the geologic record – and these 3 feedbacks alone could add 4.5 F to our worst-case projections for 2100.

And of course, warming doesn’t simply stop in 2100, merely because we stop modeling beyond that.  It continues and accelerates, and, unchecked, becomes self-reinforcing and irreversible.  We’re already locked into thousands of years of sea level rise from the carbon we’ve put into the system to date. "