November 30, 2016

Google Earth Engine

Timelapse

Timelapse is a global, zoomable video that lets you see how the Earth has changed over the past 32 years. It is made from 33 cloud-free annual mosaics, one for each year from 1984 to 2016, which are made interactively explorable by Carnegie Mellon University CREATE Lab's Time Machine library, a technology for creating and viewing zoomable and pannable timelapses over space and time.

https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/

November 29, 2016

Inside a Trump Chinese shoe factory

100,000 pairs of footwear branded with Ivanka's name have been made at huge facility (but now it's moving to Africa!)

Donald Trump has railed at politicians for allowing US manufacturing jobs to be moved abroad to China
But 100,000 pairs of shoes bearing his daughter Ivanka's name have been made in Dongguan, China
The Huajian company is now moving production to Africa because labor there is evencheaper
It can employ five Ethiopians at its factory near Addis Ababa for the price of one Chinese worker

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3824617/Trump-factory-jobs-sent-China-never-come-back.html

November 28, 2016

Possible Trump Labor Secretary Has Labored Bio

Andrew Puzder is considered one of Pres.-elect Donald Fucking Trump's leading candidates for Labor secretary, based on his success creating jobs as CEO of the company that owns Carl's, Jr., the once-distressed fast-food chain. How did Puzder do it? By being hands-on. With young womens' boobs.

That's right, Trump is considering the mastermind behind the famous Carl's, Jr., two-point job-creation plan:

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246487?ct=t%28TFN+11_28_16%29&mc_cid=e0fd852c1e&mc_eid=%5BUNIQID%5D

The ads were/are hilarious/controversial among men/humans, and Puzder has been asked to justify treating young women like sex meat just to sell enough cow meat so his wife will touch his old man meat. Here's how he actually fucking explained his sophisticated, algorithm-based, marketing strategy: "I like beautiful women eating burgers in bikinis. I think it's very American."

Instead of distancing himself from the campaign, Puzder closered himself to it, moving on it like a bitch. "I used to hear, brands take on the personality of the CEO. And I rarely thought that was true, but I think this one, in this case, it kind of did take on my personality." Other Puzder ads included a commercial in which Paris Hilton took on glistening, white gobs of Puzder's personality while writhing on a car.

So what is Puzder's strategy for creating American jobs, other than enticing companies to stay in the US by showing them his boobs and offering generous tax felatements? Robots and immigrants, obviously, just like Trump's working-class voters working-class voted for.

Here's Puzder on the record about what creates jobs:
• More immigrants
• Robots to do whatever jobs Puzder's immigrants don't take
• Lower wages
• Less paid leave
• Less company health insurance
Puzder gained his expertise as a job creator by working his way through college and law school. We know this because he cited it in 2014 to explain his opposition to company health care and minimum-wage laws:

"I'm speaking as someone from a working-class family. I started work scooping ice cream for the minimum wage at Baskin-Robbins. To put myself through college and law school while supporting my family, I cut lawns, painted houses and busted concrete with a jackhammer. I know how important these jobs are. For one thing, they taught me—-as no lectures from my parents ever could—-that I needed a good education so I wouldn't have to settle for low-paying work the rest of my life."

Got that? Worked his way through college and learned the value of hard work and a good education (and shitting on your useless fucking parents). It would have been very different if Puzder had put himself through college and law school playing in some fucking long-hair band, he said in a 2009 interview, where he said, "I put myself through college and law school playing in [fucking long-hair] bands."

That's right, in a Fucking News exclusive, we have exclusively read past actual reporting and exclusively compared their contradictory bullshit to each other! It's like labor...for journalists!

Still, despite that one discrepancy in his story, it's not as if hard-working Puzder had the financial means to drop out in the middle of college so he could groove on bitchin' tunes and stick it to The Man for THREE FUCKING YEARS. Unless, of course, you read what Puzder claimed in THIS interview, in which he said he dropped out of Kent State in 1970, and, "I spent the next three years attending concerts and marching on Washington."

But wait, there's more Fucking News exclusive reporting on other people's reporting about Puzder's contradictory reporting about himself!

In 1975, Puzder finally graduated from Cleveland State University. How much student-loan debt was this working-class mower of loans and goer of concerts carrying when he moved to St. Louis, married now, with two kids to feed?

"I moved to St. Louis with about $10,000 in the bank," he explained as if he were one of fucking Fagin's Boys. But that's $10,000 in 1975 money, the equivalent in current dollars of three warehouses stacked to the ceiling with Courvoisier, Tom Collins mix, and Bob Seger double-albums.

Of course, it's possible Puzder's work ethic and educational values were formed earlier than that. "I grew up in farm country in Ohio," he told the St. Louis Business Journal in 2009. Or, as his law-school alumni magazine explained in an interview with him, "As a high schooler, Puzder began playing guitar and singing in rock 'n' roll bands in Cleveland [italics fucking added]." Yup, Puzder's "farm country" town of Chagrin Falls is just a half-hour tractor drive from Cleveland, where farm-country boys go to sing rockabilly.

The honest, small-town, big-city, country-farm, city-rocker values he learned doing whatever the fuck he actually did as a hair-growing, lawn-mowing, Washington-protesting, jackhammer hammerer eventually led him to become a mob lawyer, which is how he came to know the family that both founded the hamburger chain Carl's, Jr., and supported the pickup-dragging-a-chain John Birch Society.

Once ensconced as a successful, respectable, boob-slinging CEO, Puzder criticized a recent ruling by the National Labor Relations Board, which decided that McDonald's was kind of sort of an employer of all those millions of people wearing McDonald's uniforms and selling you McDonald's Chicken McSads. Puzder argued that McDonald's isn't their employer, because McDonald's just franchises its horrific "food" and "aesthetics" out to the real employers, the franchisees. Which means, by his own logic, all those Carl's Jr. jobs weren't created by Puzder, they were created by Carl's, Jr. franchisees, the Carl's Jr. Jr.s.

In other words, a top candidate of Pres.-elect Fucking Trump to be the United States Secretary of Labor is a small-town, big-city, farm 'n' roll, guitar-mowing, Baskin-Robbins-scooping, Washington-marching, mob-defending, hot-grill/hot-girl, Paris Hilton-jizzing, non-job-creating, robot-loving, immigrant-employing, hamburger salesman/pornographer with a law degree in not-economics. You can cast your confirmation vote now, Republican working-man Party!

If Puzder is not confirmed, the Constitution entitles Trump to nominate a Labor Secretary robot capable of automated wage-lowering; regulation-ignoring; and spraying its own shiny, automated boobs with Carl's, Jr., special sauce from Andrew's Puzder.

November 27, 2016

Evolution in Action: African Elephants Are Increasingly Born Without Tusks

due to poaching, researchers say

The species could become extinct in some areas, with those elephants that do survive evolving to be almost completely tuskless

An increasing number of African elephants are now born tuskless because poachers have consistently targetted animals with the best ivory over decades, fundamentally altering the gene pool.

In some areas 98 per cent of female elephants now have no tusks, researchers have said, compared to between two and six per cent born tuskless on average in the past.

Almost a third of Africa’s elephants have been illegally slaughtered by poachers in the past ten years to meet demand for ivory in Asia, where there is still a booming trade in the material, particularly in China.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/elephants-africa-tusks-ivory-poaching-born-without-a7440706.html

November 26, 2016

Boycott Continues, Nordstrom Refuses to Drop Ivanka Trumps Brand

Unlike Macy’s, Nordstrom isn’t interested in discontinuing sales of any Trump products, whether they’re causing lawsuits or boycotts. Ivanka Trump‘s products have been being boycotted for months with pretty substantial results, but according to Fortune, Nordstrom isn’t caving to the numerous calls for discontinuation that are pouring in on social media. (Note that Macy’s, too, is not necessarily unwilling to stock the Ivanka Trump line, but has not sold Donald Trump‘s items for over a year.)

While some designers refuse to even dress Melania Trump when she becomes First Lady, Nordstrom’s co-president Pete Nordstrom sent an email to staff on Monday that said this:

We’ve heard from customers, including some who are long time loyal customers, threatening a boycott of Nordstrom if we continue to carry the line. Similarly, we’ve heard from customers who say they will boycott Nordstrom if we stop carrying the brand. This is a sharply divisive subject. No matter what we do, we are going to end up disappointing some of our customers …We strive to be agnostic about politics and to treat all our customers with respect.

He went on to say that they stock items based not on the person or group that makes them, but on how well the items sell. The Ivanka-branded items sell well, so they stay in spite of spirited calls from those in the #GrabYourWallet boycott movement.

http://www.mediaite.com/online/as-boycott-continues-nordstrom-refuses-to-drop-ivanka-trumps-brand/

November 24, 2016

Atheist Group Vows to Defend Religious Minorities Threatened by Donald Trump

There are a lot of questions regarding what Donald Trump will do to Muslim Americans in this country once he takes office, but the San Luis Obispo (California) chapter of Atheists United is vowing to stand up for all religious minorities in the name of freedom.

A letter from one of the group’s board members, David Leidner, was just published in the SLO Tribune:

The words and deeds of President-elect Donald Trump during his campaign have caused concern among millions of Americans who value the separation of government from religion. From policies targeting religious minorities, to selecting a vice president opposed to gay rights on religious grounds, to pledges to appoint Supreme Court justices who would set back the rights of women under the guise of “religious liberty,” Mr. Trump is at odds with the majority of Americans and with true religious freedom.

To anyone whose status as an equal member of our community is threatened by religious discrimination, know this: Atheists United stands with you.

That’s a wonderful message — and one local atheist groups everywhere would do well to use as a template. We have our theological differences with religious groups, but atheists should be aware that if the government begins targeting one religious group, it won’t be long before they come after us, too. All the more reason to defend everyone’s right to peacefully practice their faith as they see fit.

November 24, 2016

presidential elector suing to unbind from state's election result

A presidential elector leading a historic protest against the Electoral College system is planning to take his fight to court.

ADVERTISEMENT
A lawyer for Michael Baca, a Colorado elector, told Politico that his client is preparing a lawsuit challenging state laws that force electors to vote for their party’s nominee.

There are currently 29 states with laws on the books that bind electors to the election result in their respective states, but those laws have never been enforced.

Further, the penalty for violating the law is typically a small fine.

There are at least six “faithless" electors who say they plan to undermine the Electoral College by voting for someone other than their nominee.

If they move forward with their protest, it will be the largest electoral defection since 1808, when six Democratic-Republican electors refused to vote for James Madison.

Art Sisneros, a GOP elector from Texas, told Politico he will decide next week whether to join the protest and cast his vote for someone other than Donald Trump.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/307481-anti-trump-presidential-elector-suing-to-unbind-from-states

November 23, 2016

Fighting Terrorists Since 1607

‘The beginning of genocide’: Historian debunks myth of Thanksgiving honoring Native Americans

Renowned indigenous historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz explained this week that the Thanksgiving holiday was “never about honoring Native Americans” as many children are taught in U.S. schools.

In an interview with Democracy Now’s Nermeen Shaikh on Wednesday, Dunbar-Ortiz addressed misconceptions about the holiday.

“Actually, it’s never been about honoring Native Americans,” she remarked. “It’s been about the origin story of the United States, the beginning of genocide, dispossession and constant warfare from that time—actually, from 1607 in Jamestown—until the present. It’s a colonial system that was set up.”

Dunbar-Ortiz, who is the author of An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States and co-author of All the Real Indians Died Off: And 20 Other Myths About Native Americans, asserted that the idea that Thanksgiving was created to honor Native Americans “is a completely made-up story to say the Native people welcomed these people who were going to devastate their civilizations.”

According to the historian, President Abraham Lincoln envisioned the holiday as “a day for families to be together and mourn their dead and be grateful for the living.”

“And I think that’s an appropriate holiday, that—how people should enjoy it,” she said. “But they should take Native Americans and Puritans out of the picture for it to be a legitimate holiday of feast and sharing with family and friends.”

Dunbar-Ortiz observed that “nationalism” made it difficult for people to let go of the myth.

“Americanism is white supremacy and represents negative things,” she concluded. “There’s almost no way to reconcile it. It simply has to be deconstructed and faced up to; and, otherwise, there will be no social change that’s meaningful for anyone.”

Native peoples are expected gather in Plymouth, Massachusetts on Thursday to commemorate the 47th National Day of Mourning.

“Many Native Americans do not celebrate the arrival of the Pilgrims and other Europeean settlers,” organizers of the event noted in a statement posted to Facebook. “Thanksgiving day is a reminder of the genocide of millions of Native people, the theft of Native lands, and the relentless assault on Native culture.”

November 23, 2016

Tony Perkins On Thanksgiving

Be Sure To Praise Jesus For This New Opportunity To Undo LGBT Rights (because I'm a Supremacist and everyone else is wrong)



Via press release from hate group leader Tony Perkins:

Americans should be eternally thankful for the wisdom possessed by our Founding Fathers, who, rooted in their Christian belief that there is no king but Jesus, instituted a form of government that requires the political leaders to be elected by the people. This means that no single president, administration or Member of Congress can govern without the approval (or disapproval) of the people.

The election two weeks ago was another stirring reminder that the American people are anything but predictable. With virtually every mainstream media outlet and almost every poll predicting a liberal victory, voters chose a different path. In what felt like an overnight seismic shift, the people placed a new party in the White House and gave one party unified control.

As we have made clear over the last two weeks, this election is a God-given opportunity to right some of the wrongs done to life, natural marriage, and religious liberty over the last eight years. This reprieve that the Lord has given is all the more reason to be particularly thankful this year. On behalf of Family Research Council, we extend our deepest thanks to you and your family for helping us bring about a culture in which human life is valued, families flourish, and religious liberty thrives.

November 22, 2016

Howard Dean: Steve Bannon Is A Nazi

http://www.newschannel6now.com/story/33755463/howard-dean-calls-trump-strategist-bannon-a-nazi

OTTAWA, Canada (CTV/CNN) - Former Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean made a strong accusation against one of Donald Trump's White House appointees.

Dean slammed Trump's newly named chief strategist, Steve Bannon, during an interview on a Canadian news program.

Speaking about Trump, Dean said, "He's a complicated guy. He appoints a reasonable person, who's much more conservative than I am, but for somebody who can talk to as chief of staff and then his senior advisory is a Nazi."

Dean was referring to Bannon, the former Breitbart CEO, went on to accuse him of several discriminatory beliefs.

"He's anti-Semitic, he's anti-black and he's anti-women," Dean said. "It's a big word, and I don't usually use it unless somebody's really anti-Semitic, really misogynist and really anti-black."

Dean said Trump's appointment of Bannon makes him "very nervous" and said it calls into question the president-elect's judgement.