February 2010
31 posts
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Kraft, Frito-Lay, Safeway, and B&G employees were... →
Robert Watson, a top ingredient buyer for Kraft Foods, needed $20,000 to pay his taxes. So he called a broker for a California tomato processor that for years had been paying him bribes to get its products into Kraft’s plants.
The check would soon be in the mail, the broker promised. “We’ll have to deduct it out of your commissions as we move forward,” he said, using a euphemism for bribes.
Days...
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“Animals don’t behave like men. If they have to fight, they fight. If they...”
– The rabbit Strawberry, in Richard Adams’ Watership Down.
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Chat Roulette →
Wow. This might take over the world.
Warning #1: It’s addictive!
Warning #2: The people with whom you video chat can be doing anything. ANYTHING.
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Hey Jess & Patrick!
And your little dogs too!!!
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“How many of you have watched the movie Lonesome Dove? What happened to Jake when...”
– Featured Tea Party speaker at a meeting of the “minds” in Asotin County, Washington.
Logic doesn’t seem to exist for these people. It’s just one stupid thought to the next with little regard for relevance or coherence.
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Evan Bayh's cowardly acts
In “noble resignation” mode the past week, Evan Bayh has been acting like he’s one of the only sane voices in the Senate and wants more than anything for small-minded legislative gridlock to end.
But for once I find myself in agreement with Ross Douthat (who agrees with Michael Tomasky) that Bayh did very little to argue for progress or principles of any sort while in the...
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Head of UN urges 'a wake-up call' to save... →
Via secrets0ciety:
Speaking at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said that “business as usual is not an option” to protect the world’ s biodiversity. The failure of governments worldwide to meet their pledges to protect biodiversity by 2010 is “a wake up call” according to Ki-moon. Ki-moon told over 400 attendees, including scientists, UN...
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Vancouver, a breath of fresh air
Everyone knows Vancouver is hosting the Olympics this winter. Less known is that Vancouver is working toward becoming the “greenest city in the world” by 2020.
They’ve already reduced their greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels — despite a 27% population increase since then — with plans to do much more. During this time, Vancouver’s job market has expanded by...
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Texas cretins still rewriting textbooks for...
It’s not a new story that a few village idiots in Texas have been trying — with significant success — to etch right-wing propaganda into history and science textbooks nationwide, but the New York Times has a new in-depth look at the effort and its leaders.
Big surprise: they don’t know their history!
Don McLeroy, arch-conservative Christian fundamentalist, is the most...
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WatchBrilliant.
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Johnny Weir: Asshole in a fur unitard
Via the Huffington Post (h/t Michelle):
“I totally get the dirtiness of the fur industry and how terrible it is to animals. But it’s not something that’s the No. 1 priority in my life,” [ice skater Johnny] Weir said Tuesday night. “There are humans dying everyday. There are thousands if not millions of homeless people in New York City. Look at what just happened in...
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Ohio's up next for the animal protection movement
Remember Prop. 2? California residents voted overwhelmingly to phase out some of the worst agricultural animal abuses in that state in 2008.
Now Farm Sanctuary and many other groups are calling for volunteers to help enable another groundbreaking victory in Ohio in 2010. If the initiative passes, it will ban extreme confinement in tiny cages and pens, prohibit the slaughter and sale of...
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Roger Cohen, moral coward
Op-eds surrounding topics of non-human animal consumption regularly if too occasionally make it into the New York Times print and online editions. Often these pieces touch on some of the many contradictions and horrors inherent in farming and slaughtering other animals in a world with nutritional alternatives. Usually, however, their authors choose to rationalize away these realities instead of...
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Email from Dan
“Hey Matthew, don’t forget to post to the blog. Costa Rica is interesting so far, btw!”
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“The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own...”
– Oscar Wilde (via quote-book) (via lechuza) (via chasingbirds). Well, sometimes, anyway.
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re: that ridiculous Ashton Hill quote
Blogger adamalone felt I was off-base in my reaction to that horrible Ashton Hill quote. His thoughts in italics, with my responses in bold:
1. Yes, the above quotation (noun) is overindulgent and somewhat silly.
2. But, beginning your critique with sarcastic (ontological?) quips about ‘humanity’ and ‘sets’ does you no good when your main points are about narcissism and...