- 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.
- 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.
- 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 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."
- Unregulated pot farming is having disastrous effects on California's natural habitats.
- “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.”
- 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.
- 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.
- As sea ice shrinks to record lows, Prof Peter Wadhams warns a 'global disaster' is now unfolding in northern latitudes
- There's enough energy available in the wind to satisfy the entire world's energy needs, a new study says.
- 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.
- 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.
- Among the top five consumer health trends for 2013 is veganism!
- 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.
- 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.
- 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...
- 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
