May 2, 2012

Max Keiser: How bankers stole Labor Day

Published on May 1, 2012 by RussiaToday

In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert discuss the bull market in discontent, MF Global clients begging JP Morgan for their money back, Zynga insiders dumping shares in an 'innovative' manner and Max does a mean impersonation of Jamie 'Pick a pocket or two' Dimon. In the second half of the show Max talks to activist Andy Stepanian about animal rights activism, Occupy Wall Street and the dangers of success against corporations.

May 2, 2012

Woof!.......Don't touch the bike!!!!......Woof!

Awesome ‘bike hugging’ dog guards and rides his owner’s bike
By Sarah Laskow


Apparently this adorable bike-guarding dog lives in Nanning, China, where he’s known as Li Li the Bike Hugging Dog.

Best dog ever? It’s unclear what he would do if someone tried to take the bike, but who would have the cold heart to even try? Plus, dude would probably clamber up on the seat and bite that thief.


http://grist.org/list/awesome-bike-hugging-dog-guards-and-rides-his-owners-bike/

May 2, 2012

Subsidy Buffet for Agribiz, Table Scraps for Good Food

from Civil Eats:



Subsidy Buffet for Agribiz, Table Scraps for Good Food

May 1st, 2012
By Kari Hamerschlag


The farm bill draft released by the Senate Agriculture Committee last week (April 20) falls far short of the providing farm and food policies Americans want. In a national poll last year, 78 percent said making nutritious and healthy foods more affordable and accessible should be a top priority in the farm bill. They’re going to be sorely disappointed. If it passes, this agribusiness-as-usual proposal will largely perpetuate our broken food and agriculture system, leaving in its wake a long legacy of poor health and degraded soil, water and habitat, especially in the industrial agriculture heartland.

Without the efforts of Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chair of the committee, the bill would have been even worse, but as it is, the proposal will continue to give away tens of billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies to the nation’s largest, most profitable and environmentally damaging farm businesses. To pay for this giveaway, the Agriculture committee’s proposal would slash programs for conservation, nutrition, rural development and beginning and socially disadvantaged farmers.

That’s exactly what the majority of Americans polled said they don’t want.

An All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet for the Subsidy Lobby

The committee could simply have ended the widely discredited direct payment program and redirected the money to healthy food or conservation programs that benefit the public and save money in the long run. Instead, legislators created an expensive new entitlement program (called “shallow loss”) that guarantees nearly 90 percent of the income of farm businesses already enjoying record profits. It also leaves untouched a bloated $9-billion-a-year crop insurance program that pays about 60 percent of farmers’ crop insurance premiums, no matter how large the farm, and sends billions to crop insurance companies and their agents. ........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://civileats.com/2012/05/01/subsidy-buffet-for-agribiz-table-scraps-for-good-food/

May 2, 2012

No Horsing Around with Evolution for Fundie Knuckledragger

from the Lexington Herald-Leader:



While thousands flocked to the Kentucky Horse Park this weekend for the Rolex Kentucky Three-Day Event, the park was getting less admiring attention from a different quarter.

One of the leaders of the Creation Museum in Petersburg — which supports a young-earth philosophy that decrees men lived alongside dinosaurs — has taken issue with a display at the International Museum of the Horse on the evolution of horses.

Ken Ham, president of Answers in Genesis, wrote a blog post published Saturday titled "Kentucky Horses Will Lead You Astray," which challenges the validity of a permanent display.

Ham contends the idea of horse evolution is false, and he particularly disputes the line of prehistoric horses that scientists link to the modern horse. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.kentucky.com/2012/04/28/2168147/creation-museum-head-doubts-horse.html#storylink=cpy

May 2, 2012

Robert Reich: The Tinder-Box Society

The Tinder-Box Society
Tuesday, May 1, 2012


The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 13,338 Tuesday, its highest since December, 2007. The S&P 500 added 16 points. Wall Street will remember May 1 as a great day.

But most of these gains are going to the richest 10 percent of Americans who own 90 percent of the shares traded on Wall Street. And the lion’s share of the gains are going to the wealthiest 1 percent.

Shares are up because corporate profits are up, and profits are up largely because companies have figured out how to do more with less.

.....(snip).....

Austerity economics in Europe is fanning the flames, as public budgets are slashed on the false crucible of fiscal responsibility. In the United States, an anemic recovery and plunging home prices are taking a toll: a large portion of the public believes the game is rigged, and no longer trusts that the major institutions of society – big business, Wall Street, or government – are on their side. In Europe and America, 30 to 50 percent of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://robertreich.org/post/22204212722

May 2, 2012

Democracy Insurgency - The Curriculum

This is from POCLAD (Program on Corporations, Law & Democracy). It contains links to source material about the history of corporate 'personhood' and the transfer of rights from people to corporations, including court cases, studies articles etc. In other words, all the essential information we're not getting from schools or the corporate media. Here's the link to the page with the link to all of the resource materials:

http://www.poclad.org/DemocracyInsurgencyCurriculum/


DEMOCRACY INSURGENCY CURRICULUM


Real change, led by We the People, is needed in our nation and world. A bottom-up democracy insurgency calling and working for genuine self-governance has begun. It's represented in the US by multi-state responses to attacks on workers, the Occupy Wall Street movement and Move to Amend; and internationally by the massive "Arab Spring" demonstrations throughout the Middle East, North Africa and beyond.

The Declaration of Independence in 1776 was the first major collective statement in the colonies outlining oppression and asserting self-determination. The Populists followed the same course in their Omaha Platform of 1892.

The problem isn't a few corporate "bad apples" or in general this or that corporate abuse. The fundamental problem is never-intended constitutional powers and rights corporations have acquired permitting them to usurp us, We the People, from governing ourselves.

POCLAD invites you to join together with others where you are in study/action groups to study, learn and act. We've prepared this Democracy Insurgency Curriculum to assist those who want to embark on this quest.

May 2, 2012

Independent UK: If Murdoch thought the worst was over, he was wrong

If Rupert Murdoch believed his appearance at the Leveson judicial inquiry last week would quell the ever louder outcry over his and his company's conduct, he was wrong. By far the most damning judgement of this report is reserved for the 81-year-old chairman and chief executive of News Corporation.

By concluding that he is unfit to run a major international company (the majority verdict of the five Labour MPs and the Liberal Democrat MP Adrian Sanders, but not – interestingly – of its four voting Conservative members) the Culture Committee has dramatically increased the pressure on the tycoon.

He already faces a shareholder revolt at News Corp's next annual meeting in October, where there is a motion to unseat him.

The US Department for Justice may also take into account the committee's findings when considering whether News Corp directors permitted or wilfully ignored a newsroom culture that bribed police and public officials in the UK – potentially a criminal offence punishable by a fine or five years in jail under the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/martin-hickman-if-murdoch-thought-the-worst-was-over-he-was-wrong-7704399.html

May 1, 2012

A powerful paragraph from Chris Hedges.....

.....(snip).....

[font size="4"]Walter Benjamin argued that capitalism is not only a formation “conditioned by religion,” but is an “essentially religious phenomenon,” albeit one that no longer seeks to connect humans with the mysterious forces of life. Capitalism, as Benjamin observed, called on human societies to embark on a ceaseless and futile quest for money and goods. This quest, he warned, perpetuates a culture dominated by guilt, a sense of inadequacy and self-loathing. It enslaves nearly all its adherents through wages, subservience to the commodity culture and debt peonage. The suffering visited on Native Americans, once Western expansion was complete, was soon endured by others, in Cuba, the Philippines, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. The final chapter of this sad experiment in human history will see us sacrificed as those on the outer reaches of empire were sacrificed. There is a kind of justice to this. We profited as a nation from this demented vision, we remained passive and silent when we should have denounced the crimes committed in our name, and now that the game is up we all go down together.[/font]


The entire article is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/welcome_to_the_asylum_20120430/

May 1, 2012

Workers Strike at Joliet's Caterpillar Plant

Hundreds of workers at Joliet's Caterpillar facility went on strike Tuesday morning after they turned down a proposed contract offering no pay raise and more expensive health benefits.

The union workers told NBC Chicago the contract offer was so unfair they'd rather be picketing outside the plant's main entrance. They reported for work at 11 p.m. Monday then walked off the job at 12:01 a.m.

Union leaders said 94 percent of the approximately 780 machinist union workers voted to strike after the contract offer was voted down Sunday.

The deal was six years with no pay increases, and workers would be required to pay twice as much for health care. The workers say it's unfair, especially given Caterpillar's $1.5 billion first-quarter profit. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/Workers-Strike-at-Joliet-Caterpillar-Plant-149630455.html#ixzz1te5Y988e

May 1, 2012

Cetacean Bullying

A lone dolphin has spent the past several days residing in a California coastal bay after several reports suggest it was "bullied" by a pod of fellow dolphins that were blocking its return to the open sea.

"He was scared, he was intimidated, he was bullied," Peter Wallerstein of the Marine Animal Rescue told the Los Angeles Times.

At first, wildlife officials tried encouraging "Bolsa Chica Bob" to return to sea. But when the dolphin, who is nicknamed after the section of wetlands he has been taking shelter in, tried returning to the ocean he was met by two other dolphins who blocked his path.

"There could be tension among the dolphin pod, and dolphins can be very aggressive, even among themselves," Wallerstein said. ................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/bullied-dolphin-hiding-pushy-pod-officials-165111005.html