Benghazi Conspiracies Debunked, Republicans Proven Liars • Climate Change Causes Massive Storms, Including Snow

- Expect More Giant Snowstorms as Climate Warms

The storms that buried the Buffalo, New York, area in more than 7 feet (2.1 meters) of snow this week shattered records and shocked residents — even in a region accustomed to dealing with heavy snow. The storms are certain to provide new fodder for climate-change skeptics who seem to embrace every monster blizzard as evidence that global warming doesn't exist. And yet, the science behind these catastrophic storms suggests that they do not occur despite global warming, but in fact because of it. 

 A study of 20th century snowstorms published in the August 2006 issue of the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, before the big storms of recent years, found that most major snowstorms in the United States occurred during warmer-than-normal years. 

 Part of what gave us the record lake-effect snowfall in Buffalo was warm, late-fall lake-surface temperatures that combined with something highly unusual: a 5 sigma event. That is, a very unlikely event on the order of 1-in-a-million — a remarkably persistent, anomalous configuration of the jet stream, which brought frigid Arctic air down into the United States so early in the season."

- House Intel panel demolishes Benghazi conspiracies (with video)

The substance of a story is what matters, but sometimes, when a story breaks is nearly as important. The Republican-run House Intelligence Committee, for example, waited until late on a Friday afternoon, the week before Thanksgiving, to announce the results of a two-year investigation into the deadly attacks on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.


For the right, the findings were simply devastating: all of the Benghazi conspiracy theories, the GOP-led committee found, are completely, demonstrably, and unambiguously wrong. From the Associated Press account:

A two-year investigation by the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee has found that the CIA and the military acted properly in responding to the 2012 attack on a U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, and asserted no wrongdoing by Obama administration appointees. 

Debunking a series of persistent allegations hinting at dark conspiracies, the investigation of the politically charged incident determined that there was no intelligence failure, no delay in sending a CIA rescue team, no missed opportunity for a military rescue, and no evidence the CIA was covertly shipping arms from Libya to Syria.

The report, which is available in its entirety here, is an unflinching summary of the available evidence, which utterly destroys everything right-wing conspiracy theorists have been pushing for more than two years about the deadly attack. For conservatives, there’s no sugarcoating any of this – literally every accusation has been debunked. No exceptions.


And for Republicans, who’ve invested so much in the ugly exploitation of the terrorism for partisan gain, that obviously posed a problem. For House GOP lawmakers, the solution was to release the findings late on a Friday, shortly before a major national holiday, in the hopes the American public wouldn’t hear the facts. For the most part, the tactic worked exactly as intended: much of the national mediaoverlooked the findings, which were also largely forgotten on the Sunday shows.


Which is a shame, because this seems like an important accountability moment.


Republicans – lawmakers, media personalities, campaign committees, et al – decided the deaths of four Americans abroad should be manipulated into a partisan tool. The party and its allies built a political machine of sorts, raising money, attacking the character of officials such as Susan Rice, misleading their own base, and ignoring real work to chase after ridiculous conspiracy theories.


And now we know, with great clarity, that they were wrong.


It would seem an apology is in order.


Indeed, perhaps no one should be angrier than conservatives themselves. The people they trust most misled them, on purpose, telling loyalists for years that the conspiracy theories had merit, that this was a real scandal, that President Obama and his team were guilty of monstrous wrongdoing. Americans on the right, who assumed they could believe their powerful allies, bought it, only to be quietly told on a Friday afternoon that it was all a sham.


For conservative Americans, this betrayal should be no small development. If Republicans lied to them about a terrorist attack, what else is the party lying to its base about?


For Fox News, that has to be especially demoralizing. No entity was more responsible for keeping the conspiracy theories alive than the cable network, which aired, endorsed, and pushed the conspiracy theories with an unhealthy enthusiasm. Over the summer, Fox went so far as to say it would only coverthe parts of White House press conferences that addressed the 2012 attack.


And what, pray tell, did the network tell its viewers on Friday night after the Intelligence Committee’s report was released? Not much. Wouldn’t you know it, Fox News, which found no Benghazi detail too small, somehow managed not to tell its audience about the findings. The network ran one online report, which tried, to a genuinely (albeit unintentionally) funny degree, to overlook every relevant detail of the Intelligence Committee report.


The on-air apology to Fox’s viewers ought to be amazing, right?


Postscript: It’s worth emphasizing that the House Intelligence Committee’s findings, while devastating for the right, were arguably superfluous. The House Intelligence Committee, the Senate Intelligence Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, and the State Department’s independent Accountability Review Board have all published reports on the 2012 attack, and each found the same thing. In addition, the attack has been scrutinized by the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Senate Homeland Security Committee, the House Oversight Committee, and the House Foreign Affairs Committee, each of which has held hearings, and each of which failed to find even a shred of evidence to bolster the conspiracy theorists.


In other words, we knew the right’s Benghazi story was wrong before Friday afternoon, because their claims had already been discredited. This new report, however, should seal the deal.

- House Report Finds No Attempt by Whitehouse to Mislead Public Over Benghazi

The Republican-led House Intelligence Committee quietly issued a report late Friday concluding that there were no intelligence failures in the lead-up to the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi (in contrast to what all Republicans and republican media have been saying since the event took place)— and that there was nothing the military could have done to save Ambassador Chris Stevens and the three other Americans killed in the incident. AND: According to Mediaite, if you get your news from Fox News, which has run thousands of segments promoting various Benghazi conspiracy theories, you may have no idea of the new report’s existence.

March 17 2014 The Guardian newspaper

NASA-Funded Study: Industrial Civilization Headed for 'Irreversible Collapse'?

Natural and social scientists develop new model of how 'perfect storm' of crises could unravel global system

This Nasa Earth Observatory image shows a storm system circling around an area of extreme low pressure in 2010, which many scientists attribute to climate change. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution.
Noting that warnings of 'collapse' are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study attempts to make sense of compelling historical data showing that "the process of rise-and-collapse is actually a recurrent cycle found throughout history." Cases of severe civilisational disruption due to "precipitous collapse - often lasting centuries - have been quite common."

The research project is based on a new cross-disciplinary 'Human And Nature DYnamical' (HANDY) model, led by applied mathematician Safa Motesharrei of the US National Science Foundation-supported National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, in association with a team of natural and social scientists. The study based on the HANDY model has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed Elsevier journal, Ecological Economics.

It finds that according to the historical record even advanced, complex civilisations are susceptible to collapse, raising questions about the sustainability of modern civilisation:

"The fall of the Roman Empire, and the equally (if not more) advanced Han, Mauryan, and Gupta Empires, as well as so many advanced Mesopotamian Empires, are all testimony to the fact that advanced, sophisticated, complex, and creative civilizations can be both fragile and impermanent."

By investigating the human-nature dynamics of these past cases of collapse, the project identifies the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy.

These factors can lead to collapse when they converge to generate two crucial social features: "the stretching of resources due to the strain placed on the ecological carrying capacity"; and "the economic stratification of society into Elites [rich] and Masses (or "Commoners") [poor]" These social phenomena have played "a central role in the character or in the process of the collapse," in all such cases over "the last five thousand years."
Currently, high levels of economic stratification are linked directly to overconsumption of resources, with "Elites" based largely in industrialised countries responsible for both:

"... accumulated surplus is not evenly distributed throughout society, but rather has been controlled by an elite. The mass of the population, while producing the wealth, is only allocated a small portion of it by elites, usually at or just above subsistence levels."

The study challenges those who argue that technology will resolve these challenges by increasing efficiency:

"Technological change can raise the efficiency of resource use, but it also tends to raise both per capita resource consumption and the scale of resource extraction, so that, absent policy effects, the increases in consumption often compensate for the increased efficiency of resource use."

Productivity increases in agriculture and industry over the last two centuries has come from "increased (rather than decreased) resource throughput," despite dramatic efficiency gains over the same period.

Modelling a range of different scenarios, Motesharri and his colleagues conclude that under conditions "closely reflecting the reality of the world today... we find that collapse is difficult to avoid." In the first of these scenarios, civilisation:

".... appears to be on a sustainable path for quite a long time, but even using an optimal depletion rate and starting with a very small number of Elites, the Elites eventually consume too much, resulting in a famine among Commoners that eventually causes the collapse of society. It is important to note that this Type-L collapse is due to an inequality-induced famine that causes a loss of workers, rather than a collapse of Nature."

Another scenario focuses on the role of continued resource exploitation, finding that "with a larger depletion rate, the decline of the Commoners occurs faster, while the Elites are still thriving, but eventually the Commoners collapse completely, followed by the Elites."
In both scenarios, Elite wealth monopolies mean that they are buffered from the most "detrimental effects of the environmental collapse until much later than the Commoners", allowing them to "continue 'business as usual' despite the impending catastrophe." The same mechanism, they argue, could explain how "historical collapses were allowed to occur by elites who appear to be oblivious to the catastrophic trajectory (most clearly apparent in the Roman and Mayan cases)."

Applying this lesson to our contemporary predicament, the study warns that:

"While some members of society might raise the alarm that the system is moving towards an impending collapse and therefore advocate structural changes to society in order to avoid it, Elites and their supporters, who opposed making these changes, could point to the long sustainable trajectory 'so far' in support of doing nothing."

However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation.

The two key solutions are to reduce economic inequality so as to ensure fairer distribution of resources, and to dramatically reduce resource consumption by relying on less intensive renewable resources and reducing population growth:

"Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."

The NASA-funded HANDY model offers a highly credible wake-up call to governments, corporations and business - and consumers - to recognise that 'business as usual' cannot be sustained, and that policy and structural changes are required immediately.

Although the study is largely theoretical, a number of other more empirically-focused studies - by KPMG and the UK Government Office of Science for instance - have warned that the convergence of food, water and energy crises could create a 'perfect storm' within about fifteen years. But these 'business as usual' forecasts could be very conservative. 

Climate Change CAUSES extreme Weather • Studies Prove Guns Are Dangerous and Pointless

- Gun Study Database: Proof that guns are dangerous, pointless, and we'd have fewer crime and deaths without them.



Published on Monday, January 6, 2014 by Common Dreams

Is 'Polar Vortex' Attributable to Climate Change? Yes.

As temperatures plummet, a reminder: 'Every weather event in the modern world is attributable to climate change.'

- Jon Queally, staff writer

A man wears a face mask and heavy clothes while walking through downtown Springfield, Ill., in blowing and falling snow as a strong winter storm moves through the Midwest Sunday, Jan. 5, 2014. (AP/Seth Perlman)Weather isn't climate and the climate isn't weather, but if someone asks whether the 'polar vortex' now being experience by tens of millions of people across the country is driven by climate change, you don't have to wait for the next wave of scientific research to come out. The answer is 'Yes.'
Sadly and predictably, however—as much of the nation faces the coldest temperatures seen in nearly two decades on Monday and into Tuesday— the push of bone-chilling arctic air into southern Canada and much of the United States has the climate change denialists pushing their familiar falsehoods about how near-record lows nationwide somehow disproves global warming.
In just one example, multi-millionaire and political pundit Donald Trump took to Fox News on Monday morning to say that the freezing temperatures help prove that there is a great "hoax" around climate change. "You know," Tump said when asked to explain, "I think the scientists are having a lot of fun."
On Monday, federal and state agencies issued dire warnings about freezing temperatures that have blanketed the midwest, saying that millions of Americans are under threat by windchill temperatures today and tomorrow that could be life-threatening. Temperature readings, factoring in windchill effect, were reported as low as -63°F in Montana and -50°F in places in North Dakota and Minnesota.
But the effort by Trump and others to portray the phenomenon known as the "arctic vortex" as some an event that discredits the international scientific consensus on the relationship between industrial society's relationship to planetary climate change, however, is being met with a firm rebuke of its own by climate activists, weather experts, and scientists.
As climate justice campaigner Jamie Henn of 350.org tweeted Monday:
The article referenced by Henn, wrriten by Greg Landen at ScienceBlogs.com, says that the "apparent contrast between extreme cold and global warming is actually an illusion."
In what way? Landen continues:

The Polar Vortex, a huge system of moving swirling air that normally contains the polar cold air, has shifted so it is not sitting right on the pole as it usually does. We are not seeing an expansion of cold, an ice age, or an anti-global warming phenomenon. We are seeing the usual cold polar air taking an excursion.
So, this cold weather we are having does not disprove global warming.
In fact, it may be because of global warming. The Polar Vortex can go off center any given winter, but we have been having some strange large scale weather activity over the last few years that is thought to be related to global warming that may have contributed to this particular weather event (explained here). This may be an effect of this strangeness, though the jury is still probably out on this particular weather event.

According to Dr. Dim Coumou, a senior scientist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) near Berlin, who spoke to Agence France-Presse, what drives the polar vortex is the difference in temperature between the Arctic region and those in the mid-latitudes closer to the equator.
"The reason why we see these strong meanderings is still not fully settled," Coumou told AFP, "but it's clear that the Arctic has been warming very rapidly. We have good data on this. Arctic temperatures have risen much more than other parts of the globe."
The idea that any particular "weather event" is or is not climate change, however, belies the deeper fact that all weather events are complex results of underlying climate conditions. As Jim Naureckas, a journalist at the media watchdog group FAIR, explained to his readers in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines last year, "attributing particular weather events to climate change is ridiculously easy."
The reason for that, he continues, is because (emphasis his):

"Every weather event in the modern world is attributable to climate change.  This is because weather is a chaotic system, which is to say it varies wildly based on initial conditions. Once we raised global temperature by a degree Celsius—which is an enormous intervention in the physical world—we irrevocably changed all weather, producing an entirely different set of events than the ones that would have otherwise occurred."

In other words, the whole debate about whether this hurricane, that tornado, or the current 'polar vortex' is or isn't climate change misses the point.
Writing about the climate dynamics that are driving the current 'polar vortex' event Jeff Masters, meteorologist and founder of the popular Wunderground blog, explains:

In the winter, the 24-hour darkness over the snow and ice-covered polar regions allows a huge dome of cold air to form. This cold air increases the difference in temperature between the pole and the Equator, and leads to an intensification of the strong upper-level winds of the jet stream. The strong jet stream winds act to isolate the polar regions from intrusions of warmer air, creating a "polar vortex" of frigid counter-clockwise swirling air over the Arctic. The chaotic flow of the air in the polar vortex sometimes allows a large dip (a sharp trough of low pressure) to form in the jet stream over North America, allowing the Arctic air that had been steadily cooling in the northern reaches of Canada in areas with 24-hour darkness to spill southwards deep into the United States. In theory, the 1.5°F increase in global surface temperatures that Earth has experienced since 1880 due to global warming should reduce the frequency of 1-in-20 year extreme cold weather events like the current one. However, it is possible that climate change could alter jet stream circulation patterns in a way that could increase the incidence of unusual jet stream "kinks" that allow cold air to spill southwards over the Eastern U.S., a topic I have blogged about extensively, and plan to say more about later this week.

Lastly, this video posted at the Mother Nature Network and featuring Masters as well as Rutgers University professor Jennifer Francis, helps explain the dynamics by which a warming planet can result in freezing cold weather patterns and extremes of all kinds:

American school books being re-written by insane fundamentalist republicans

I haven't seen this film yet, need to find it first. But it's a really important subject that I've mentioned a few times in articles I've posted- these crazy conservatives, who think that there were dinosaurs on Noah's Ark, are re-writing all US school textbooks, denying evolution, denying slavery, etc. These text book suppliers basically control all the text books used in all schools in the USA.

Sean

Climate Change Worse than Expected (worsened by meat production) • "Humane Meat is Lie" Admits Meat Producer • Doomsday Preppers • Report: USA Tortures People • Guns vs "Terrorism"

- How Resource Scarcity and Climate Change Could Produce a Global Explosion

Brace yourself. You may not be able to tell yet, but according to global experts and the US intelligence community, the earth is already shifting under you. Whether you know it or not, you’re on a new planet, a resource-shock world of a sort humanity has never before experienced. Two nightmare scenarios—a global scarcity of vital resources and the onset of extreme climate change—are already beginning to converge and in the coming decades are likely to produce a tidal wave of unrest, rebellion, competition and conflict. Just what this tsunami of disaster will look like may, as yet, be hard to discern, but experts warn of "water wars" over contested river systems, global food riots sparked by soaring prices for life’s basics, mass migrations of climate refugees (with resulting anti-migrant violence) and the breakdown of social order or the collapse of states. At first, such mayhem is likely to arise largely in Africa, Central Asia and other areas of the underdeveloped South, but in time, all regions of the planet will be affected.

- Why does America lose its head over 'terror' but ignore its daily gun deaths?

The thriving metropolis of Boston was turned into a ghost town on Friday. Nearly a million Bostonians were asked to stay in their homes – and willingly complied. ...If only Americans reacted the same way to the actual threats that exist in their country. There's something quite fitting and ironic about the fact that the Boston freak-out happened in the same week the Senate blocked consideration of a gun control bill that would have strengthened background checks for potential buyers. Even though this reform is supported by more than 90% of Americans, and even though 56 out of 100 senators voted in favour of it, the Republican minority prevented even a vote from being held on the bill because it would have allegedly violated the second amendment rights of "law-abiding Americans".
So for those of you keeping score at home – locking down an American city: a proper reaction to the threat from one terrorist. A background check to prevent criminals or those with mental illness from purchasing guns: a dastardly attack on civil liberties. All of this would be almost darkly comic if not for the fact that more Americans will die needlessly as a result. Already, more than 30,000 Americans die in gun violence every year (compared to the 17 who died last year in terrorist attacks).

- Report: Post-9/11 Torture "Indisputable" and "Unprecedented"

A new report from an independent task force finds that the Bush administration committed torture....The task force, an eleven-person team led by former Congressman Asa Hutchinson, a Republican and an undersecretary at the Department of Homeland Security during the Bush administration, and former Democratic Congressman James R. Jones, sought to piece together "an accurate and authoritative account of how the United States treated people its forces held in custody as the nation mobilized to deal with a global terrorist theat." The New York Times called the report "the most ambitious independent attempt to date to assess the detention and interrogation programs."
In the years since 2001, journalists, lawyers and activists have been unable to get the Central Intelligence Agency, Justice Department and Bush administration to state unequivocally that the interrogation tactics used on detainees constituted torture. The Obama administration chose not to commission an official study of interrogation and detention tactics, saying it was unproductive to "look backwards." But it is "indisputable," the report’s authors conclude, that torture occurred at Guantánamo, the C.I.A.’s so-called black sites and other war-zone detention centers.

- Livestock’s carbon footprint ‘catastrophic,’ say climate experts

A new report from an independent task force finds that the Bush administration committed torture.......livestock farming now accounts for the use of 70 percent of the global freshwater and 38 percent of the world’s land-use conversion. Some 70 percent of the Amazon Rainforest, in fact, has already been cleared for grazing and feed crop production.The "Livestock and Climate Change" published in the latest issue of World Watch magazine reported that livestock and their byproducts actually account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide GHG emissions as noted by Inquirer Science/Health on April 20. Forbes online, in its April 28 issue, wrote that the 2006 report estimated that 18 percent of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions attributable to cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, pigs and poultry (chicken) were in fact updated to 51 percent, citing an analysis performed by Robert Goodland, a former World Bank Group environmental adviser, with cowriter Jeff Anhang, an environmental specialist at the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corp.

- Major Poultry Producer Lies About Animal Treatment

Perdue is facing a lawsuit after attempting to cash in on consumer interest in animal welfare be falsely labeling their poultry as “humane.”New Jersey courts have given The Humane Society of the United States the green light to go forward with a class-action lawsuit against Perdue Farms, Inc. The major poultry producer is getting sued for misleading consumers after it falsely labeled its chickens as humanely raised, when they were actually subject to the same cramped and painful conditions of factory farms. Perdue disputed these charges in the New Jersey federal court, asserting that consumers should not expect the animals to be raised in humane conditions even if the label indicated so.

- Climate Change Worse Than Expected, Argues Lord Stern

Climate change looks far more threatening than it did six years ago as the world marches toward a warming of 4 degrees Celsius higher by the end of the century compared to the preindustrial era, said Lord Nicholas Stern, a professor of economics and chairman of the Grantham Research Institute at the London School of Economics.Stern called for new and better climate models and better economic assessments of climate impacts but maintained that the main obstacle to action is political will.
The former World Bank chief economist was critical of his own 2006 review on the economics of climate change, a document considered seminal to climate change discussions, which estimated that the overall cost of climate change would shave off at least 5 percent of gross domestic product growth annually. Stern said that the review underestimated the "immense risk" from global warming.

- World Bank (Again) Warns of Developmental Setbacks From Climate Change

Climate change doesn't obviously fall under the mandate of the World Bank, which has the official goal of reducing poverty. But speaking in Tokyo last month, new bank president Jim Yong Kim said he felt "a moral responsibility to be very clear in communicating the dangers of climate change." The bank is following through. Yesterday, it released a new report spelling out the consequences of the world's current course. "The lack of action on climate change not only risks putting prosperity out of reach of millions of people in the developing world, it threatens to roll back decades of sustainable development," Kim writes.

- What Could Disappear

Maps show coastal and low-lying areas that would be permanently flooded, without engineered protection, in three levels of higher seas.

- "Just a Theory": 7 Misused Science Words

Hypothesis. Theory. Law. These scientific words get bandied about regularly, yet the general public usually gets their meaning wrong.

- The Doomsday Prepper Caucus

To get a sense of how part of America is going all-in on this bet look no further than National Geographic Channel’s hit reality show Doomsday Preppers... dismissing the popularity of Doomsday Preppers as mere pop-cultural voyeurism would be a mistake.That’s because the show is a microcosm of something else stirring in our country, something more foreboding. The ominous prophecies of government tyranny, financial meltdown and violent anarchy featured on Preppers inform more than just the survivalist movement circa 2013. They’re also being absorbed into contemporary conservatism, which has increasingly bought into these same doomsday storylines hook, line and bunker.

Sean

Iraq War, Worse Than Dumb • Earth In Extreme Danger from Climate Change • Study Shows Man Made Climate Change Responsible for Extreme Weather • Republicans Are Idiots, and They Admit It • Guns • Fish Feel Pain • Social Networks Bad • more

- Way Worse Than a Dumb War: Iraq Ten Years Later

The US war against Iraq was illegal and illegitimate. It violated the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions and a whole host of international laws and treaties. It violated US laws and our Constitution with impunity. And it was all based on lies: about nonexistent links between Iraq and Al Qaeda, about never-were ties between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, about Iraq’s invisible weapons of mass destruction and about Baghdad’s supposed nuclear program, with derivative lies about uranium yellowcake from Niger and aluminum rods from China. There were lies about US troops being welcomed in the streets with sweets and flowers, and lies about thousands of jubilant Iraqis spontaneously tearing down the statue of a hated dictator.

And then there was the lie that the US could send hundreds of thousands of soldiers and billions of dollars worth of weapons across the world to wage war on the cheap. We didn’t have to raise taxes to pay the almost one trillion dollars the Iraq war has cost so far, we could go shopping instead.

But behind these myths the costs were huge—human, economic and more. More than a million US troops were deployed to Iraq; 4,483 were killed; 33,183 were wounded and more than 200,000 came home with PTSD. The number of Iraqi civilians killed is still unknown; at least 121,754 are known to have been killed directly during the US war, but hundreds of thousands more died from crippling sanctions, diseases caused by dirty water when the US destroyed the water treatment system and the inability to get medical help because of exploding violence.

- Earth Hurtling Towards Temperatures Not Seen in 11,000 Years

"Under all plausible greenhouse gas emission scenarios," the world is on track to surpass temperatures not seen since the dawn of civilization, according to new research.

- New Study Finds Connection Between 'Hotter Planet' and 'Extreme Weather'

A new study by German scientists suggests that several episodes of extreme weather in recent years can be directly contributed to what are described as "planetary waves" of warm air flows caused by increased heat on the planet driven by human industrialization and carbon emissions.

- Study: Over 100 Million Americans Drinking 'Toxic Trash' Water

New analysis from Environmental Working Group shows carcinogenic chemical lurking in nation's public water

- In Blind Poll, Republicans Choose Progressive Budget Solutions Over Their Own Party's

When the Business Insider polled registered voters and asked for their preferences among three Congressional plans floated to avoid the looming "sequestration" cuts in Washington, they found that when stripped of their partisan labels, the policies most favorable to the majority were those offered by the progressive wing of the Democratic caucus.

- What researchers learned about gun violence before Congress killed funding

President Obama has directed the Centers for Disease Control to research gun violence as part of his legislative package on gun control. The CDC hasn’t pursued this kind of research since 1996 when the National Rifle Association lobbied Congress to cut funding for it...

One of the critical studies that we supported was looking at the question of whether having a firearm in your home protects you or puts you at increased risk. This was a very important question because people who want to sell more guns say that having a gun in your home is the way to protect your family.What the research showed was not only did having a firearm in your home not protect you, but it hugely increased the risk that someone in your family would die from a firearm homicide. It increased the risk almost 300 percent, almost three times as high.

- Since 1968 More Americans Killed by Guns than in ALL Wars Through US History!

A new book titled Do fish feel pain? by the renowned scientist, Victoria Braithwaite, is a very important read for those interested in the general topic of pain in animals, especially because it has been long assumed that fish are not sentient beings and are not all that intelligent. A few years ago I reviewed the literature about sentience in fish and other animals who live beneath the surface (see also) and it's clear that a strong case can be made for protecting fish and other aquatic animals from harm. Professor Braithwaite's book contains an incredible amount of recent scientific data that support this idea.

- Vegetarian diet reduces heart disease risk by up to a third

In the biggest ever study of its kind in the UK, researchers from Oxford University have found a vegetarian diet dramatically reduces the risk of heart disease.

- Fish do feel pain: Yes they do, science tells us

A new book titled Do fish feel pain? by the renowned scientist, Victoria Braithwaite, is a very important read for those interested in the general topic of pain in animals, especially because it has been long assumed that fish are not sentient beings and are not all that intelligent. A few years ago I reviewed the literature about sentience in fish and other animals who live beneath the surface (see also) and it's clear that a strong case can be made for protecting fish and other aquatic animals from harm. Professor Braithwaite's book contains an incredible amount of recent scientific data that support this idea.

- Commenting threads: good, bad, or not at all.

Commenting threads drive users away, reinforce disinformation, and Facebook is negatively effecting online communication.

- Anti-Gay Zealot Guilty of Child Pornography After Videotaping 14-Year-Old Daughter Having Sex

A New Hampshire lawyer who works with a virulently anti-gay Christian-right organization has been found guilty of child pornography charges after videotaping her own daughter having sex with two men on multiple occasions.

- It’s The Policy, Stupid: 4 Policies That Undermine The GOP’s New Voter Outreach Strategy

In the face of a shrinking supporter base and lost elections, the Republican party is trying to make itself seem like a more caring and inclusive party. HOWEVER, a closer examination of their actual policy positions reveals a big disconnect between the principles they continue to try to advance and their empty rhetoric:

- Need for gun reform made clear in details of Newton gun massacre

Great segment from the Rachel Maddow show yesterday. Watch the whole thing, and share it. And actually the other segments on the show were quite good so watch them too. :)

- Republican Rick Santorum Admits 'Smart People' Will Never Be On Our Side (VIDEO)

Sean

Can't embed Vimeo videos so you'll have to click the link below...

NOTE: This is all real, no CGI (but with minor Photoshop editing). Watching something like this you believe we can solve every problem on earth. And we pretty much can. Humans caused them after all. It just takes people understanding the following: opinion and fact are not the same thing; education is important and shouldn't be demonized; compassion is essential and isn't weakness; science can actually prove things; pushing ourselves to be better actually makes us better; learning what works and what doesn't is good; apathy is evil; ego is negative; vanity is ugly; voting against your own best interests is futile; rising only to the lowest common denominator (figuratively) guarantees perpetual misery; and if we work towards common goals we can get things done.

It's really not so difficult. We can do amazing things. Why not try to do the simplest, too? End hunger, save the planet, end war, tax the rich, live sustainably, put power into the hands of the people rather than corporations, treat animals with compassion, etc...

If we can accomplish the amazing things we see in this video, composed of photos taken from the International Space Station then we can do all these other things, too. You are the revolution.
http://vimeo.com/45878034

Sean

Owning a Gun Makes you LESS SAFE • Gun Violence Rises • Secret History of Guns and Republican Hypocrisy • Climate Change at Crisis Level • Pot Farms Destroying Environment • Humane Meat Farming Stupidity • Why Republicans are Wrong About Everything

- The Secret History of Guns

Republicans use to support strict gun control laws- when African Americans were arming themselves in the face of severe police brutality. Now they seem to have forgotten all that and want everyone, well, mostly white guys, to have guns.

- The Daily Chart Of Gun Deaths That Can’t Stop Growing. Check It Out Now While It Still Fits On Your Computer.

I’m ever so slightly obsessed with this chart. It’s tracking the number of gun deaths reported by the public since the Sandy Hook school shootings. It starts with 20 little figures of the children who were killed in December … where it ends is up to us. 

- Blackout: How the NRA suppressed gun violence research

In 1993, a group of researchers published a study that challenged the most basic assumptions of many gun owners: That owning a gun makes you safer.

The study, rigorously conducted by ten credentialed experts, and appearing in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, found instead that the reverse is true. “Although firearms are often kept in homes for personal protection, this study shows that the practice is counter-productive,” the authors wrote. “Our data indicate that keeping a gun in the home is independently associated with an increase in the risk of homicide in the home.”

- Republican member of House Science Committee believes Earth is only 9,000 years old

Republican Georgia Congressman Paul Broun came into the national spotlight because of various comments he made that included claiming evolution is a "lie straight from the pit of hell."

As it happens Congressman Paul Broun sits on the Congressional Science, Space, and Technology committee. Many across the nation are crying foul claiming that Broun's religious beliefs put him directly at odds with scientific matters that are of national importance. Broun said this during a speech earlier in the year: "I don't believe that the Earth's but about 9,000 years old. I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That's what the Bible says."

- Put Down the Spliff: Marijuana Farms are Ravaging the Environment

Unregulated pot farming is having disastrous effects on California's natural habitats.

- We are Almost Completely FUCKED: Al Gore Rallies Citizen Deputies to Break Through Climate-Change Denial While There’s Still (a little) Hope.

“The most extreme climate ‘alarmists’ in U.S. politics are not nearly alarmed enough,” he writes. “The chances of avoiding catastrophic global temperature rise are not nil, exactly, but they are slim-to-nil, according to a new analysis prepared for the U.K. government.”


- 'Planetary emergency' due to Arctic melt, experts warn

Experts warned of a "planetary emergency" due to the unforeseen global consequences of Arctic ice melt, including methane gas released from permafrost regions currently under ice.

- Which Cities Will Be Completely Underwater In Less Than 100 Years?

This makes the term "rising sea levels" a lot more real. It looks like LA has less than 100 years while San Franscisco and lower Manhattan have less than 150 years. New Orleans and the rest of New York have about four centuries left before they're gone.

- Arctic expert predicts final collapse of sea ice within four years

As sea ice shrinks to record lows, Prof Peter Wadhams warns a 'global disaster' is now unfolding in northern latitudes

- Study: Wind Could Power the World

There's enough energy available in the wind to satisfy the entire world's energy needs, a new study says.

- Analysis: 93 Percent Of Fox News Climate Coverage Is ‘Misleading’

According to a review of recent climate coverage at these two outlets, 93 percent stories from Fox News on climate were misleading and 81 percent of stories in the WSJ op-ed section were misleading.

- Shocking Study: By 2030, Climate Change Could Kill 100 Million People ’

A report commissioned by 20 governments and conducted by the humanitarian organization DARA found that, “More than 100 million people will die and global economic growth will be cut by 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change,” reports Reuters.

- Americans' Surprising Food Vows for 2013

Among the top five consumer health trends for 2013 is veganism!

- CO2 hit record high in 2011 – UN report

The amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached a record 390.9 parts per million (ppm) in 2011, according to a report released Tuesday by the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO). That's a 40 percent increase over levels in 1750, before humans began burning fossil fuels in earnest.

- A Comprehensive Analysis of the Humane Farming Myth

The very existence of labels like “free range,” “cage-free,” and “humane certified” attests to society’s growing concern for the welfare of animals raised for food. But any time consumers of meat, eggs or dairy advocate for “humane” treatment of farm animals, they confront an unavoidable paradox: the movement to treat farm animals better is based on the idea that it is wrong to subject them to unnecessary harm; yet, killing animals we have no need to eat constitutes the ultimate act of unnecessary harm.

Scientific evidence has irrefutably demonstrated that we do not need meat, milk or eggs to thrive, and that in fact these foods are among the greatest contributors to the leading fatal Western diseases. Unlike animals who kill other animals for food, we have a choice. They kill from necessity. We do so for pleasure. There is a huge moral difference between killing from necessity and killing for pleasure. When we have plentiful access to plant-based food options, and a choice between sparing life or taking it — there is nothing remotely humane about rejecting compassion, and choosing violence and death for others just because we like the taste of their flesh, and because they cannot fight back. Might does not equal right.
If you’re buying “cage free,” “free range” or “humane certified” animal products from a grocery store, you are more than likely being deceived about the welfare of animals raised for food.


- Five Ways Deregulation Is Ripping America Apart

Conservatives believe that enriching individuals will eventually enrich society, and that government should not get in the way of the process. This is what happens as a result...

- Five Practical Reasons Not To Vote Republican

There is no shortage of reasons not to vote Republican. The litany includes tax cuts for the rich, cutbacks in government programs, obstructing needed legislation, disregard for the environment, denial of women's and other human rights, military escalation.

But the following five reasons have to do with money -- specifically, who's paying for the $1 trillion of annual tax savings and tax avoidance for the super-rich? And who's paying for the $1 trillion of national security to protect their growing fortunes? The Republicans want that money to come from the rest of us.

Sean

Worldwide Distrust of USA • Milk Not Recommended • REPORT: Vegetarian Diet Needed to Prevent Global Crisis • Pussy Riot • Contrary to Republican Warnings, all is Well with Repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell • Meat Farmers Hinder Medical Science • more

- Worldwide Distrust of US Intentions Follows 11 Years of War

Global survey shows a US held in contempt by its enemies and mistrusted by its allies

- We Are at War

The War on Terror exploits the tragedy of September 11th for the benefit of a very few. Poor people continue to pay an enormous price, while the elites, including our own government and the corporations it answers to, ignore everything but the influx of cash into their coffers. The war business is profitable if you refuse to count the cost of human lives.

- Drug Resistant H1N1 in Europe

Two Dutch travellers were infected with oseltamivir-resistant influenza A(H1N1)pdm09 viruses with an H275Y neuraminidase substitution in early August 2012. Both cases were probably infected during separate holidays at the Catalonian coast (Spain). No epidemiological connection between the two cases was found, and neither of them was treated with oseltamivir before specimen collection. Genetic analysis of the neuraminidase gene revealed the presence of previously described permissive mutations that may increase the likelihood of such strains emerging and spreading widely.(NOTE: The N1H1 virus, or Swine Flu, jumped to humans on farms raising animals for meat).

- Eating Fewer Animal Products Leads to Weight Loss

A recent medical study revealed that successful long-term weight loss was attributed to decreased meat, cheese, and sweets consumption.

- Milk: No Longer Recommended or Required

A substantial body of scientific evidence raises concerns about health risks from cow’s milk products. These problems relate to the proteins, sugar, fat, and contaminants in dairy products, and the inadequacy of whole cow’s milk for infant nutrition.

- National Pork Producers Council: Anti-Science & Anti-Animal

The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) summed up its anti-scientific and anti-animal views when, in attempting to defend the industry’s confinement of mother pigs in cages so small the animals can’t even turn around, NPPC communications director Dave Warner told the National Journal, “So our animals can’t turn around for the 2.5 years that they are in the stalls producing piglets. I don’t know who asked the sow if she wanted to turn around…”

When your own communications director makes a remark like that, you have an industry in crisis. I’ve contacted Mr. Warner three times asking for any scientific evidence he has that he believes justifies cramming pregnant pigs into crates. He hasn’t replied, because he has no reply; the science is in, and it all points in one direction: Gestation crates are so cruel that pig “farmers” could be locked in jail on felony cruelty charges if they abused dogs or cats so egregiously.

- Farm Use of Antibiotics Defies Scrutiny [Meat Farmers Hindering Critical Science]

The numbers released quietly by the federal government this year were alarming. A ferocious germ resistant to many types of antibiotics had increased tenfold on chicken breasts, the most commonly eaten meat on the nation’s dinner tables.

But instead of a learning from a broad national inquiry into a troubling trend, scientists said they were stymied by a lack of the most basic element of research: solid data.
Eighty percent of the antibiotics sold in the United States goes to chicken, pigs, cows and other animals that people eat, yet producers of meat and poultry are not required to report how they use the drugs — which ones, on what types of animal, and in what quantities. This dearth of information makes it difficult to document the precise relationship between routine antibiotic use in animals and antibiotic-resistant infections in people, scientists say.

- Climate Change Stress Killing Forests, and Why it Matters

Forests cover some 30 percent of Earth’s surface, and it’s hard to overestimate how crucial they are to the functioning of the planet. Forests provide shelter for uncountable numbers of species, hold soil in place that would otherwise wash away, pull excess carbon out of the atmosphere, absorb and re-emit water at such a rate that they literally control the weather, and serve as an economically vital natural resource.All of those functions have long been endangered by human activities such as excessive logging and clear-cutting to open new agricultural land. But another factor, increasingly, is the stress of climate change — in particular, the higher temperatures and more frequent and intense droughts that human-generated greenhouse gases have begun to trigger. Now a new paper, released Sunday in Nature Climate Change, has attempted to lay out just how climate stress affects forests, and how serious the consequences of could be.

- Why Keep Looking for the Right Way to do the Wrong Thing?

True, there may have been a time when killing was necessary for our survival, but for those of us living in the modern world, that is (thankfully) no longer the case. Today, we continue to harm and kill animals only out of habit, convenience, pleasure or for profit. Killing for those reasons is simply not ethically-defensible, regardless of whether the killing is done by a worker in a factory in Ohio or by some local guy in our own backyard.

- Ray Bellamy: Denial won't save the Earth

The climate scientists are in nearly unanimous agreement that increasing greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels are causing global warming and associated severe weather events. The far more frequent dramatic weather is exactly what the experts predicted more than 30 years ago and will now be expected to be the new norm. The atmosphere we all depend on for our life-giving oxygen is being used by major industries, many of which, such as the petroleum refiners, we are subsidizing with our tax dollars.

- Vegetarian Diet Needed To Prevent Global Food And Water Crisis, Report Says

A new report warns that unless the world's population adopts a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years, we may face a global food shortage crisis nothing short of a catastrophe.

- New Solar Technology Generates Electricity and Hydrogen Gas

A new solar panel technology includes photovoltaic cells that could generate electricity during the day while at the same time producing hydrogen gas to power a fuel cell at night. The technology that makes this possible is two new types of nanocrystals that replace the traditional organic molecules in a solar panel's construction.

The nanocrystals, which are made of zinc selenide and cadmium sulfide, with a platinum catalyst added, could potentially create a solar panel and fuel cell combination that would provide clean energy 24 hours a day, while also lasting much longer than the typical 20-year lifespan of today's conventional solar panels.

- Don't Ask Don't Tell Study Shows No Negative Effects On Military One Year After Repeal

In the fierce debate that led up to President Barack Obama's repeal last September of Don't Ask Don't Tell, the 1993 law that banned gay and lesbian service members from serving openly in the military, supporters of the law warned that a repeal would have disastrous consequences for the armed forces. One letter, signed by more than 1,000 military officers, claimed that a repeal would undermine recruiting efforts, negatively affect "troop readiness" and "eventually break the All-Volunteer Force."One year later, the first academic study of the military's new open-service policy has found there have been no negative consequences whatsoever.

- 4 Reasons To Keep Fighting to Free Pussy Riot (Slideshow)

Pussy Riot members Maria Alyokhina, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Nadezhda Tolokonnikova have been jailed for two years and two other members of the band have reportedly fled Russia. Four reasons to keep fighting to free Alyokhina, Samutsevich and Tolokonnikova and to support the opposition to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Sean

Rich Not Paying Taxes Causes Financial Problems • Pig fever sweeps Russia • Republicans Lie at Convention • Gun Industry Lies • STUDY: Pot Makes You Stupid • Republican Racism • Dumb Libertarians • Ayn Rand's Baseless & Juvenile Philosophy

- Liar's Poker: GOPers 'Make Stuff Up'—How Will the Media Respond?

So now it’s “game on.” No more lie and let live. The Republicans more or less announced, then displayed, yesterday that they will officially not be bound to facts or even the attempt to stay in the same area code.

- How Romney Keeps Lying Through His Big White Teeth

"We're not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers," says Neil Newhouse, a Romney pollster.

A half dozen fact-checking organizations and websites have refuted Romney's claims that Obama removed the work requirement from the welfare law and will cut Medicare benefits by $216 billion.

Last Sunday's New York Times even reported on its front page that Romney has been "falsely charging" President Obama with removing the work requirement. Those are strong words from the venerable Times. Yet Romney is still making the false charge. Ads containing it continue to be aired.

Presumably the Romney campaign continues its false claims because they're effective. But this raises a more basic question: How can they remain effective when they've been so overwhelmingly discredited by the media?

The answer is the Republican Party has developed three means of bypassing the mainstream media and its fact-checkers.

- Rick Santorum repeats Romney claim that Obama is ending work requirement in welfare

Now Santorum is lending his voice to Mitt Romney's campaign message that President Barack Obama has gutted that reform and done away with rules from the 1996 law that require welfare recipients to eventually get a job.

- Putting Mitt Romney's attacks on 'You didn't build that' to the Truth-O-Meter

In speeches and videos, the Romney campaign has repeatedly distorted Obama's words. By plucking two sentences out of context, Romney twists the president's remarks and ignores their real meaning.

- Santorum says when his grandfather came to the U.S. in 1925, 'there were no government benefits'

Contrary to what Santorum said, millions of Americans in 1925 would have either qualified for benefits directly, such as payments to veterans, or have been protected by workers' compensation laws that provided benefits to those who became disabled by their jobs. And state and local governments had the longstanding role of paying support to people who were disabled or indigent. This provides a much more complex picture than Santorum is painting. We rate his statement False.

- Add It Up: Taxes Avoided by the Rich Could Pay Off the Deficit

Conservatives force the deficit issue, ignoring job creation, and insisting that tax increases on the rich wouldn't generate enough revenue to balance the budget. They're way off. But it takes a little arithmetic to put it all together. In the following analysis, data has been taken from a variety of sources, some of which may overlap or slightly disagree, but all of which lead to the conclusion that withheld revenue [not paying taxes], not excessive spending, is the problem.

- The Curious Appeal of Ayn Rand

Mitt Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, recently made news by declaring himself an unabashed admirer of quasi-philosopher Ayn Rand. Reportedly, Rand’s books are required reading for Ryan’s staff. I think the case can be made that Ayn Rand appeals to people for the same reason Friedrich Nietzsche appeals to them. Her bold “truths” are not only an exciting mixture of defiance and heresy, they are epigrammatic and digestible enough not to over-tax the intellect.

The two reasons why undergraduate students (and certain congressmen) get such a thrill out of Ayn Rand’s “Objectivism” philosophy: (1) it comes off as non-conformist and slightly “dangerous,” and (2) it unapologetically glorifies all those egotistical impulses we had as teenagers. There’s a smug, self-congratulatory element to it.

- Two people removed from RNC after taunting black camera operator

Two people were removed from the Republican National Convention Tuesday after they threw nuts at an African-American CNN camera operator and said, "This is how we feed animals."

- RNC Attendee Allegedly Threw Nuts At Black CNN Camerawoman, Said ‘This Is How We Feed Animals'

An attendee at the Republican National Convention in Tampa on Tuesday allegedly threw nuts at a black camerawoman working for CNN and said "This is how we feed animals" before being removed from the convention, a network official confirmed to TPM.

- Study links teen marijuana use to IQ decline

Teens who routinely smoke marijuana risk a long-term drop in their IQ, a new study has suggested.

- Ron Paul Also wants to Deny Rape Victims Abortions, unless it's an "honest rape"

Teens who routinely smoke marijuana risk a long-term drop in their IQ, a new study has suggested.

- The Heat is On, and it's Time to Prepare

Extremely hot summers — warmer than virtually ever occurred during a base period of 1951-1980 — have occurred across more than 10% of the world's lands during the past several years. This means that extremely hot temperatures are more than 10 times more likely to occur now than 50 years ago.

- How the Gun Industry Got Rich Stoking Fear About Obama

There is no divorcing the politics of guns from their profits. America’s gun lobby and gun industry both benefit from creating a fearful vision of life in the United States—a picture of criminals constantly menacing our families and a government hellbent on taking our guns—that is very effective at selling weapons. In fact, in large part because of the way anxieties about his gun policies have been manipulated, the Obama era has been a golden age for firearms manufacturers, and the run-up to Election 2012 could be for Glock and Remington what the Christmas shopping season is for Macy’s and Sears: a time to cash in before the narrative changes.

- Destroying Precious Land for Gas by Sean Lennon

Few people are aware that America’s Natural Gas Alliance has spent $80 million in a publicity campaign that includes the services of Hill and Knowlton — the public relations firm that through most of the ’50s and ’60s told America that tobacco had no verifiable links to cancer. Natural gas is clean, and cigarettes are healthy — talk about disinformation. To try to counteract this, my mother and I have started a group called Artists Against Fracking.

- Pig fever sweeps across Russia

Russian authorities have incinerated tens of thousands of pigs and closed roads in the past few weeks, in an attempt to contain an emerging outbreak of African swine fever, a viral disease so lethal to the animals that it has been likened to Ebola. The spread of the disease comes with a heavy economic toll — last year, the Russian Federation lost 300,000 of the country’s 19 million pigs to swine fever, at an estimated cost of about 7.6 billion roubles (US$240 million).

African swine fever was also detected for the first time in Ukraine in late July, and European and Asian countries are on the alert to deal with outbreaks that could cost their pork industries billions of dollars. With no vaccine or cure for the disease, mass culls and vigilant hygiene offer the main defence.

Sean

Tom Morello on Paul Ryan • Romney/Ryan • Lying Republicans • Climate Change • Fascist Ronald Reagan • Going Vegan • more

- GOP's Concern for Disaster Preparedness Doesn't Extend Beyond Tampa

Since assuming control of the House, Republicans have consistently played dangerous politics with disaster relief funds and slashed the budgets of storm monitoring agencies, thereby executing the same small-government-at-all-costs mentality that led to widespread destruction in New Orleans. They may go to great lengths to assure the safety of party delegates in Tampa Bay, but they have not shown the same compassion for storm victims in the rest of the country.

- Four Ways the Ohio GOP is Already Stealing the 2012 Election

The Ohio Republican Party has moved four ways to steal America's 2012 election. The Buckeye State is almost certain to emerge as a decider in this year's presidential election, and the GOP is moving fast to ensure victory, no matter what it takes.

- Tom Morello: 'Paul Ryan Is the Embodiment of the Machine Our Music Rages Against'

Rage Against the Machine's guitarist blasts Romney's VP pick and unlikely Rage fan

- If You Aren't Young/Old, Middle Class/Poor, Gay, A Student, A Vet, Or A Woman, You'll Love Paul Ryan

Meet Mitt Romney's vice presidential nominee, Paul Ryan. He wants to basically cut everything. And then basically give Mitt Romney the biggest tax cut ever.

- Paul Ryan Cracks Joke As 71 Year-Old Citizen Is Forced To The Ground (VIDEOS)

This took place last fall at one of Congressman Rep. Ryan’s “Pay to Play” town hall meetings where he was discussing cutting Senior’s Social Security, and Medicare as a means of debt reduction. As you might imagine, one senior was not pleased.

- 3 Essential Things To Read About Paul Ryan Today

Mitt Romney chose super-conservative superstar Rep. Paul Ryan as his vice-presidential nominee this morning. Read these articles if you want to know who he is and what this might mean for America.

- Millionaire Mitt Romney Would Pay ONLY 0.82 Percent in Taxes Under Paul Ryan's Plan

Under Paul Ryan's plan, Mitt Romney wouldn't pay any taxes for the next ten years -- or any of the years after that.

- The Five Reasons Why the Ryan-Romney Economic Plan Would Be A Disaster for America

The Romney-Ryan Economic Plan - The Five Reasons Why the Ryan-Romney Economic Plan Would Be A Disaster for America

- Paul Ryan: Randian poseur

Mitt Romney couldn't have chosen a better example of the fakery at the heart of today's GOP

- Mitt Romney: “I was too important to go to Vietnam”

Monday, at a press event in California before the GOP primary in that state, former Gov. Mitt Romney was asked about his support of United States military involvement overseas. He was pleased to answer the question, however after his response, his answer to a follow-up question regarding his four deferments from the Vietnam War did not please onlookers, especially veterans.

- Republican Official: N.M. Governor ‘Dishonored’ Gen. Custer By Meeting With American Indians

A progressive group called on Republican National Committee leader Pat Rogers to step down on Friday after emails showed him telling New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez’s staff that meeting with a group of American Indians “dishonored” Gen. George Armstrong Custer, the 19th century commander who killed scores of American Indians.

- Romney's Campaign Strategy: Lie, Lie, and Lie Some More -- Can Democracy Survive with 0% Media Accountability?

The Romney campaign has turned to a strategy of swamping the public with flat-out, blatant lies, one after another, again and again, endlessly and lavishly repeated. They do this because they are making a calculation that it will work! So what is going on? And can democracy survive this assault?

- Why reproductive rights have the Republican Party on the defensive

I put together this chart based on the latest CNN poll (pdf), which asked respondents, "Now I am going to read some specific situations under which an abortion might be considered. For each one, please say whether you think abortion should be legal in that situation, or illegal."88% believe abortion should be legal when a woman's life is endangered, 83% believe abortion should be legal when a woman's physical health is endangered, and 83% believe abortion should be legal when a pregnancy is caused by rape or incest.
In other words, the Akin/Paul-Ryan/GOP-platform position on abortion is really unpopular.

- Book Reveals Extensive Effort by Reagan, FBI to Undermine California’s Student Movement in 1960s

FBI director J. Edgar Hoover ordered his agents to investigate and then disrupt the Free Speech Movement that began in 1964 on the Berkeley campus of the University of California. In part two of our interview, Rosenfeld discusses how Ronald Reagan collaborated with the FBI to target California’s student movement and strengthen Reagan’s own rise to power.

- Study Shows Bill Nye Was Right About CNN's Climate Coverage

CNN anchor Carol Costello recently asked Bill Nye "The Science Guy" if he is "disappointed" that climate change is largely ignored in American political discourse. Nye responded: "Well if I'm disappointed, everybody, it's in you guys." And with good reason: CNN rarely mentions climate change, even while reporting on its consequences -- as a new Media Matters study shows.

- Arctic sea ice extent breaks 2007 record low

Arctic sea ice appears to have broken the 2007 record daily extent and is now the lowest in the satellite era. With two to three more weeks left in the melt season, sea ice continues to track below 2007 daily extents.

- Arctic sea ice levels to reach record low within days

The dramatic melt expected over the next week signals that global warming is having a major impact on the polar region

- MIT Study Shows Geothermal Could Produce 100,000 Megawatts of Energy in the US Within 50 Years

So far, Humans have harnessed the strength of the sun, water, and wind to generate clean electricity. Now, it may be time to take advantage of the earth’s capacity to provide renewable power. An interdisciplinary panel from MIT estimated that the United States could potentially produce 100,000 megawatts of geothermal energy within the next 50 years.  The report estimates that 200,000 exajoules of energy could be captured from EGS (enhanced geothermal systems) by 2050 in the US alone – that’s roughly 2,000 times the total consumption of the country in 2005.

- Central Valley Meat Co. Shut Down After Undercover Video Surfaces From Within Slaughterhouse

Federal regulators who shut down a Central California slaughterhouse after receiving an animal welfare video were investigating Tuesday whether beef from sick cows reached the human food supply.The video appears to show workers bungling the slaughter of cows struggling to walk and even stand. Under federal regulations, sick animals cannot be slaughtered for human consumption.

- Veganism: Making The Transition

It seems that every few weeks, a news story breaks about an undercover investigation inside a factory farm. Just this past week, the DC-based group Compassion Over Killing, revealed footage taken by one of their investigators that caused the USDA to shut down a slaughterhouse near Fresno, CA. This time it was dairy cows being slaughtered for hamburger. COK's undercover video documented horrific abuse: a cow being suffocated by a worker who is stepping on her muzzle, cows too weak to walk or even stand being jabbed with electric prods, cows still fully conscious having their throats slit.

When confronted with these images, most people turn away, disgusted and sad. Yet time and time again we hear of the abuse, torture and neglect farm animals endure. Many of my friends not involved in animal rights ask me: How can this be?
The answer to that question is many-fold: desensitized farm workers, "standard" farm practices that are exempted from animal cruelty laws, the phenomena of seeing animals as commodities rather than sentient beings. My question back to them is always the same: What are you going to do about it?

- Answers to the plant based diet protein deficiency myth

Anyone who is vegan, or even vegetarian, is likely quite familiar with the infamous question, "But where do you get your PROTEIN?" Some veggie lovers may already know how to answer this question without missing a beat. But if you're not quite sure, read on to arm yourself with knowledge; not just for a quick response, but more importantly for your own health!

- Wondering About a Vegan Diet? (Infographic)

Want to know how to be healthy and cruelty-free? No worries—eating vegan is easy! Get all your answers and more with PETA's "Wondering About a Vegan Diet?" infographic, and don't forget to share this infographic on Facebook.

Sean