“10/03/2010, 12:03pm EST”
Photo credit: Michael P. Farrell / Times Union
The above photo, featuring model Joey Leo, was taken during the first-ever New York Vegetarian Expo Fashion Show yesterday in Albany, NY. (As The Ethical Man, I helped select the models for the show, which showcased 100% vegan apparel and footwear.) The Albany Times Union glowingly covered the fashion show and the larger event — check it out!
—Dan
“9/30/2010, 4:59pm EST”
Stephen Colbert goes to town on conservative Justice Antonin Scalia’s ideas about the U.S. Constitution. Are we living in an age where a cable comedian has a greater commitment to formal logic than a Supreme Court Justice? You bet we are.
—Dan
“9/21/2010, 11:30am EST”
EXPOSED: Republicans and Tea Partiers plot to disenfranchise voters in Wisconsin. →
The Republican Party of Wisconsin and local Tea Partiers, with the help of a conservative front group called Americans For Prosperity, are caught on tape laying down insidious plans to keep minority and student voters from participating at the polls this November. Why? Statistics. Minority and student voters are overwhelmingly more likely to vote for Democrats than Republicans. Those of us who have worked in voter registration and/or poll monitoring on election day know that this is straight out of the Republican playbook.
Check out Save Wisconsin’s Vote for the run-down and the damning evidence.
“9/14/2010, 1:32pm EST”
Photograph by Akos Major (via kevinnuut and Looks Like Good…).
“9/09/2010, 11:28am EST”
Men’s Journal just earned some major kudos in my book. Check out this snippet from the Men’s Journal Guide to Going Vegan, which chronicles the most immediate health and wellness benefits of going vegan:
Week One:
Your entire body will feel lighter, as the meat built up in your gut is literally forced out by the deluge of fiber from all the vegetables. You will also feel less sluggish. “You start to come out of this fog that many people have from eating heavy, fatty foods,” says Susan Levin, the director of nutrition education at the non-profit Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine. “When you give up dairy, you immediately breathe easier.” You’ll also have to deal with cravings for things like cheese. Find an appropriate substitute, like soy cheese. Your taste buds will adjust within a week.
Week Two:
You will have noticeably increased energy, and you’re likely to see some slight weight loss, because your overall calorie intake has likely gone down. “Not much weight loss,” says Levin. “We don’t want people dropping weight like crazy.” With increased energy, she says, you will find your workouts getting better and, as pro athletes have noted, your recovery time will become shorter. By the end of your second week, says vegan ultramarathoner Scott Jurek, you won’t feel as achy after your workouts.
With more energy, says Levin, comes a brighter mood and outlook. According to a 2009 Arizona State University study, people who cut all meat from the diets, including fish, showed less tension and stress.
Week Three:
“Enjoy everything you had in week two, but even more energy and probably a final layer of weight loss,” says Levin. But really, this week is where it gets molecular. “If you were someone who was meticulous and into blood labs, you’d actually see your blood sugars and cholesterol levels go down,” says Levin. “Your blood pressure will also fall as you’re breathing better and your arteries are clearing out.”
Want more energy? A thinner waistline? A clearer mind? Less stress? Lower blood sugar and cholesterol levels? Greater mental happiness? Quicker recovery time between workouts? Go vegan.
“8/19/2010, 7:44pm EST”
“Natural men have a certain amount of grit about them. They sweat and they smell. Homosexuals often abhor this sort of thing and will also be incredibly particular about the cleanliness of the home. Does your man tweeze his eyebrows, trim his pubic hairs or use face moisturizers?”
—ChristWire, from their hilarious and certainly well informed list of warning signs that your husband may be gay. I’m confused, though… You see, I smell good — plus I tweeze and trim. But I don’t always keep my apartment clean, nor do I use face moisturizers. Does this mean I’m bi??
“8/19/2010, 7:29pm EST”
Hilarious protest and counter-protest signs by those who acknowledge the rightness of giving LGBT people equal protection under the law.
“8/18/2010, 6:02pm EST”
“Senate District 56 Republians [sic] exist to promote our Republican principals [sic], to help elect Republician’s [sic] to the various offices which represent our area and reflect our beliefs. We in the district support each other and our neighbors to have government enable us to succeed, and not us enabling government to grow.”
—The Republican Party of Minnesota Senate District 56’s mission statement, as presented by its official website. (Update: They’ve fixed the misspellings since somebody who isn’t a Republican actually noticed. Knowing they would, I took a screenshot.) Naturally, the mission statement is poorly worded, with little regard for grammar and syntax — even forgiving the typos and misspellings. You might be asking: why is anyone talking about a local chapter of the GOP in Minnesota? Their executive, Joe Salmon, posted a video claiming that Republican women are more attractive than Democratic women. The evidence for? Mentally incompetent GOP icons like Sarah Palin, Michelle Bachmann, and Michelle Malkin. The evidence against Democrats? Just a few self-made women with law degrees and earned achievements, like Michelle Obama (Harvard), Hillary Clinton (Yale), and Janet Reno (Cornell). As Minnesota Democratic chairmen Bob Melendez responded, “The day when a woman was judged by her looks rather than her competence and intelligence should have passed three generations ago.” Even after taking the video down due to the outrage of marginally decent people everywhere, Joe Salmon had this to tweet: “It [is] really unfortunate to relearn that the other side is severely lacking a sense of humor.” Time for you to go to your room and let the grown-ups do the talking, little Joey.
“8/11/2010, 11:49am EST”
Former Senator Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) reportedly died yesterday in a plane crash during a killing fishing trip. In the wake of his death, the media will likely avoid accurate contentious discussion about Stevens’ record. So, we give you the real Ted Stevens, by his own deeds:
Ted Stevens repeatedly voted to reduce the government’s program roster and balance sheet — unless his own priorities were at stake. Ted Stevens used his position on the Appropriations Committee to funnel billions of dollars in federal revenue to his own state, making Alaska the highest recipient of federal money per capita in the entire country by the time he was booted from office in 2008. In doing so, Alaska leeched heavily off of the federal taxes paid by residents of other states. In 2005, apparently the latest year with complete data available, Alaska ranked as the third-worst “recipient state” in the country, receiving $1.83 in federal money for every $1 they paid in federal taxes.
Ted Stevens voted to defund alternative and renewable energy programs. Ted Stevens voted against factoring climate change into federal project planning. Ted Stevens voted repeatedly to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge up to oil drilling and pipeline construction — even despite the fact that geological studies placed the range of retrievable oil and natural gas reserves between none and hardly any. Ted Stevens voted to keep smokestacks exempt from toxic mercury emission regulations. Ted Stevens voted to build roads in old-growth national forests and to open them up for massive logging. In 2007, after years of actively sabotaging meaningful legislative action to combat climate change, Ted Stevens claimed he was “concerned about the human impacts on our climate.”
Ted Stevens voted no on a bill that would have outlawed job discrimination based on sexual orientation. Ted Stevens voted no on a bill that would have added a sexual orientation category to existing hate crimes laws. Ted Stevens voted yes on a constitutional amendment to ban LGBT marriage.
Ted Stevens voted no on a bill that would have provided funding for contraception and education to reduce teen pregnancies. Ted Stevens voted yes on a bill that would have prohibited minors from crossing state lines to receive an abortion.
These are just a few of Ted Stevens’ odious acts, and his death does nothing to mitigate the selfishness, lack of integrity, and dismissiveness that marked his life’s work.
Voting Record Sources: OnTheIssues.org; Wikipedia.org
“8/09/2010, 9:39pm EST”
Dan and I were in Chicago yesterday to see Soundgarden at Lollapalooza, standing front and center. It was incredible to see them together again, and the music — no shock to the many who still listen regularly — hasn’t lost any of its dark and powerful beauty.
And I just found out that there’s a bit more of that music to go around. A previously unreleased song (“Black Rain”) premiered yesterday on Seattle’s 107.7 The End radio station. The track is from their Badmotorfinger sessions about twenty years ago and clearly bears the sonic hallmarks of that album. Listen here.
“8/06/2010, 5:30pm EST”
Investigation: Conservatives have been conspiring to rid Digg of progressive stories →
Is it surprising that right-wingers — some of whom are the most batshit crazy conspiracy theorists around — would themselves conspire to censor progressive information and ideas?
Not really. This is what they do. Their highest principle is to gain power by whatever means necessary. They frequently point fingers without basis, only to be found guilty of the same alleged crime.
See the Shirley Sherrod ‘racism’ case, for example, in which Sherrod — and, by stupid-person extension, the entire Obama administration — stood accused of being secretly racist towards white people, when all the facts of the story point towards racism on the right. (Often, the media has moved on by the time the facts come out, though thankfully this was not the case with Sherrod.)
I suspect they are able to assume that others conspire in part because they themselves have such a strong predisposition towards conspiracy. Plus, it’s one of the only ways to ram through a completely illogical and insane agenda and/or to tear down a pretty reasonable one (e.g., the public option = government taking over your healthcare decisions). With bankrupt ideas and arguments, conservatives are repeatedly resorting to poisoning the well with disinformation.
“8/03/2010, 1:26pm EST”
I think the above exchange speaks for itself. Whoever is commenting here on behalf of FAIR Vodka needs to start thinking A LOT more deeply. It’s surprising really, given that FAIR is supposedly all about being conscious, with a stated commitment to fair trade and sustainability.
“7/30/2010, 11:17am EST”
Update: Read Congressman Weiner’s related op-ed in the New York Times.
Congressman Anthony Weiner (D-NY) is the new breed of progressive. Much like Alan Grayson, he’s principled, media savvy, and courageous. Contemporary Democrats are famous for running scared even though the other side is repeatedly shown to be bluffing about everything under the sun — their supposed intellectual prowess, their supposed political acumen, their supposedly innocent motivations.
What I’m about to say is very nearly true: Republicans lie and front about everything. They adopt double-standards as a matter of momentary political convenience everyday. As Congressman Weiner rails against in the above video, Republicans demand and receive concession after concession, and then they vote no anyway. In the Senate, Republicans have broken all filibuster records by a longshot, to the point where the media literally say, without explanation or further comment, that bills require 60 votes to pass in the Senate. (They don’t!) Naturally, in 2005, when Democrats filibustered a small percentage of Douche-In-Chief George W. Bush’s pernicious and insidious lifetime nominations of federal judicial appointees, Republicans waged a media war painting Democrats as “obstructionist,” and that was just the nicest thing they said.
Ironically, all it takes is a little courage and principle to win elections. Democrats have recently gotten by on the increasingly obvious ineptitude of Republicans. But that tactic doesn’t win large-enough majorities to steamroll the habitual filibuster of the unity-at-all-costs Senate GOP, and it doesn’t get the right kinds of Democrats in office. Meanwhile, it depresses their voter base, which is forced to infer that Democrats will never enact uncompromising progressive (read: effective, nuanced, realistic, and compassionate) policies, even though that is exactly what our country- and world-in-crisis require. And that depressive effect on Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters is exactly the GOP’s mission!
So I say: Fuck yes, Mr. Weiner. Keep it up.
“7/29/2010, 12:10pm EST”
If you liked the brutally intense Inception score... →
… as much as we did, then you might find this interesting.
“7/27/2010, 10:44pm EST”
An awesome demo by PETA in tourist-land Times Square, NYC. That’s Joshua Katcher, a.k.a. The Discerning Brute, wrapped up on the right.
—Dan
Welcome to HERE.am, the official blog of the band HERE. Founded by twins Dan and Matt Mims, HERE executes harrowing, audience-shocking post-rock music and fine discourse.
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