talk about how our tax money is being spent heres an info graphics to amuse you

source true majority

of course i would have been more interested about the iraq war costs but that ship has sailed and the attention spans are short. afghanistan was one war out of all the recent wars that was some what justified. but its the same story. the irony of all this is that little number on the bottom: civilian deaths due to the afghan war 14,000 that’s innocent men, women & children, just imagine your own family. now it makes me laugh when i hear that we went to this new war in libya “due to mounting civilian death at the hand of the regime” there. of course now “mums the word” and there’s no mention of the 1,000+ casualties thank’s to our french and british made tornado’s and our friendly new neighbor the NTC.  next on the list is syria. why, we can’t just stand by and watch assad kill 100s of people when we can kill 1,000’s and feed our military business machine with our tax money. who really runs this show? cause its getting really fucking boring. by dd

green scores of top brands

find the most responsible large brands in each sector based on www.climatecounts.org

 

climate score rates the big brands as they make the largest impact. busying from smaller, local, and more responsible brands is the key and the smaller ones are not listed here. but if you buy big this helps.

airlines: south west (not jet blue), see others in this sector

electronics: HP (not apple), see others in this sector

apparel: nike (not gap), see others in this sector

consumer shipping: UPS (not fedex), see others in this sector

cosmetics: l’oreal, see others in this sector

appliances: GE (not miele), see others in this sector

by ts

well it wasn’t such a happy weekend in new york after all

fox news “fair and balanced” take on the demonstrators, as usual “its just a bunch of dumb uneducated punks on the streets” riiight! this represents the 99% of americans who don’t make a million a year. nice job “fair and balanced”. but that said i’m impressed with o’reily’s ability to insult as many people as possible and sound as ignorant as he does in just under 5 minutes with out it ever phasing him for a moment.

sorry we had agreed not to talk shop on TS. but keeping silent in this time is a crime. over 700 people arrested just on saturday while we sat and talked about… oh i don’t know the weather. personally i don’t see why there needs to be a protest at all. what is this republican argument against the idea to pass a law that insures that the rich (those making over a million a year) will pay at least the same percentage of tax as the rest of us? not more. not less. what is the rationale behind this? in most developed countries the rich pay higher taxes, in the US the rich pay no taxes. seemed like it all worked until the country went broke, and then the rest of the world. does the u.s. government really need our help to pass this clearly logical law? are these people so blatantly corrupt that they can stand up and say no to such a tax law? well, with fox news bending over for the rich its clear to see why there isn’t more people on the streets. I wonder what o’reily gets to be this much of an ass? or is he really just a naive servant that he appears to be? by dd

when is halloween again?


its a bit funny that the entire world power is after a group of 20 year old digital rockstar hacktivist, calling themselves annonymous who are set to use their knowledge, as they say ‘at preserving free speech on the Internet’. they just arrested dozens of ‘suspects’ in the us and uk to ‘set an example’ for hacking into paypal, amazon, and various government sites including the CIA. the reason? a solidarity stance with wikileaks founder, and to punish paypal for its efforts to block payment to wiki, and amazon for kicking wiki off their servers in order to silence them. so far this has failed, not to mention that its rather biased and illegal as far as freedom of speech goes… but you know what, who really cares, let’s massage our brains with some pretty pictures. dd where’s your next post? by xy

italy, france, england and libya: a love story

one disturbing, sexist, ruler kisses another

 

can buy me love, love, love

my how times change… quickly. it was just yesterday, when i was shocked to hear that gaddafi was suddenly forgiven for his involvement in the terror bombing over lockerbie and surprisingly taken off the terrorist list. why? he was then invited as guest of honor, were he met his match – M. berlusconi – and became italy’s biggest trade partner (buying a stake of about 2% in fiat, 7.5% of juventus, and 7.5% in unicredit bank, etc). within months he was back on the shit list for “harming his subjects”. well… i’m glad we went in and “stopped the killing” (of course many more have been killed at the hands of foreign supported rebels and french sorties than by the evil dictator himself). so it surely wasn’t humanitarian reasons nor the kindness of strangers that got them involved. one should wonder what was (and is) really going on at the expense of ordinary people?  by ec

wildebeests face the mara

what is in a name? beauty, terror, raw force of survival. these images, by tomasz gudzowaty, of a wildebeest (aka gnu antelopes) herd over a million strong on the plateau surrounding the ngorongoro volcanic crater in the serengeti during the december to june rainy period, inspire and haunt. after the last rainstorm, the plain rapidly changes into a dry and hostile wasteland, the wildebeests migrate, following the escaping rain and at a certain point during the migration, the herd must swim across its largest obstacle – the mara river. an epic journey. by kl

ancient astronaut theory: human arrogance, sky people, our notion of gods, the pyramids and an outlandish but fascinating theory

mayan temple tikal guatemala

mayan artifact with delta wings and serpent head

sombrero galaxy: NASA hubble telescope image

sky people: mayan artifact from tikal ruins guatemala

aliens who came to earth thousands and thousands of years ago? established civilization as we know it? bred earth and alien DNA to create a race known as man? i mean i would have laughed this man out, and considered him in desperate need of a hobby. i’d picture ron hubbard and a bunch of hollywood freaks on prozac writing alien scripts in the church of scientology. i mean come on, to believe this type of stuff is more foolish than believing in god and organized religion… but hell it’s fascinating!

 

in my search for documentaries on the similarities of the pyramids of egypt and south america, in accordance with my desperation in my choice of films on demand, i came across a history channel series titled “ancient aliens” and its 2nd episode: “gods & aliens”.  not generally being a fan of aliens, the word “god” did get me interested. after all, we’re told there’s a god up there and we’re told there are aliens up there. supposedly, both visited us and are planing to come back soon… i pressed play. twenty 44 minute episodes later i’m bummed that it’s all over. i thoroughly enjoyed the “stories” and the imaginative fictions, and although i find 80% of the “reasoning” and “facts” in the series assumptive and weak, i have come to place this theory that is frowned upon by millions (including myself) well above god and religion which billions still believe in. not that this says much about the theory but still.

 

the premise of the theory is grand but surprisingly fully compatible with evolution. what is different between this and christianity, or scientology, or religion in general, is that you are not asked to “have faith and believe” but look, ask and judge a “theory” based on assumptions. it goes something like this: 1- our solar system is a micron in relation to our galaxy (milky way). our galaxy is but one of estimated hundreds of billions of galaxies (per nasa hubble telescope research). 2- there is a higher probability that life exists somewhere out there, than the probability that it doesn’t. 3- life organisms can travel through space via galactic collisions (the big bang being one) this is referred to as panspermia. 4- we know that myths, stories, even religions and beliefs are generally routed in some form of events or truths that were passed down, granted distorted or exaggerated down the line. 5- the story referred to here is the story of beings in the skies, gods, angels descending, inception of a virgin by god and other nonsense. the type that is present in almost identical sequence in egyptian, greek, babylonian, mayan, african, indian and even pagan documents. what was there that provoked this completely disjointed cultures to talk about the same thing? 6- well the AAT’s have come up with a magical story:

 

aliens came to earth long ago. in a series of experiments, they meshed alien DNA with earth beings. the failures were the hybrids of men (actually alien) with bird heads, centaurs, unicorns, and cyclops as depicted by egyptian, mayan and other cultures in paintings and stories. the successful experiment was man, a sapien with a larger brain similar to aliens. this they claim is what darwin claims to be his missing link. james watson, the man behind the discovery of DNA, claims that there is a chance that man kind’s missing link was simply a fluke accident, but the chances of this accident are like a tornado going through a junk yard and coming up with a fully assembled 747 aircraft… meaning next to none. so the plot thickens… aliens then pass knowledge to this new man with a bigger brain. man being still dumb, sees the aliens as gods (thus the multiple gods of the past). so the aliens don’t actually resemble us, we resemble them. thus most alien sightings are with 2 large eyes, 2 arms, 2 legs and a pot belly (every mans future). eventually either man revolts against alien, or they leave earth for one of many reasons they give in the film. man idolizes alien in some cases, for it gave him life and knowledge. what we think of god today, they claim, was simply alien flesh and intelligence. the stories of angels with wings, are aliens that flew to the sky and back and this goes on and on… it has surely made me dream a bit and  i’m glad i saw it, beats natalie portman’s “black swan” any day. if you have 20 hours to kill you too can stream it on netflix. by dd

Broncks Black: by bowery lane bicycles


local, organic and grassfed, bowery lane bikes hand make in NY. heres a bit about the bike: “we conceive, build and finish these bikes for unsurpassed quality, sustainability and style. we use only american steel for our frames, which are forged in a factory that derives 30% of its power from solar panels. the facility is located within new york city limits, which means employees can commute via bicycle or public transport. in short, we produce these bikes conscious of our impact on the country, the environment and the local community.” well done, unfortunately im in the market just for a brooks leather saddle for my english 3 speed bike, but just in case you fancy that.  by dd