The World According to Monsanto

[Full-Screen]

h/t monkeyfister and thanks to jurassicpork for reminding me

Update: If this video has disappeared, Todd Green has found replacements.

Update 2: Ellroon has found another replacement.

The corporate media speaks for the corporations

Not for the people.

Wikistory

Wikihistory, by Desmond Warzel.

h/t

It’s crashing, and it won’t boot up!

h/t Chet Scoville.

Blackwater

[odeo=http://odeo.com/audio/16869233/view]

(h/t Charles @ Mercury Rising)

Big Oil, incorporated

In this case, the reality is considerably worse than the satire.

(h/t Monkeyfister)

Whither Microsoft

Here are the results of the voting on OOXML: Disapproved.

I’m too sexy for this plane, too sexy for this plane

Southwest should explain.

Hat-tip Melissa McEwan (in comments).

The name may change but the song remains the same

While we were distracted by war and terror

Let me see if I can explain the current financial meltdown as I think it is happening. My perceptions are based on reading only public information and there is certainly a great deal that I am unaware of. I’m not a current market trader, just an interested observer. I have no professional qualifications and I’m not your financial adviser. Just so we’re clear, and if you think I need to be corrected on anything feel free to do so in the comments.

Mortgage lending corporations (what used to be called S&L’s) have been making bad loans on bad credit for homes by giving some percentage against the entire value of the home, on the expectation that a default would likely occur and they would acquire the real estate at a substantial discount.

Now the loans themselves are not valuable, they are just paper which they don’t expect repayment on.

But the mortgage lenders have taken this paper and labeled it subprime, and sold it.

Somewhere along the line, they are going to expect you to bail them out.

Aug. 15 (Bloomberg) — The risk of owning corporate bonds rose after a Merrill Lynch & Co. analyst said Countrywide Financial Corp., the biggest U.S. mortgage lender, may have to file for bankruptcy.

Credit-default swaps on Countrywide widened after Merrill Lynch analyst Kenneth Bruce raised the possibility that a loss of access to short-term loan markets could force Countrywide into bankruptcy. Contract prices for mortgage lender Residential Capital LLC and for home-loan insurer Radian Group Inc. are also trading as if investors see a high probability of default.

“This market is feeling awfully similar to the fall of 1998” when Russia defaulted on its debt and banks had to bail out hedge fund Long Term Capital Management, said Bruce, who is based in San Francisco. Bruce downgraded Countrywide’s stock to “sell” from “buy” in a research note today.

Hat-tip Monkeyfister.

CNBC anchor Erin Burnett says Wal-Mart sells children’s toys with lead paint and poisonous food as if it’s a good thing

Keeping prices low, every day.

Hat-tip Logan Murphy @ Crooks and Liars.

Update: Chris Matthews leers:

Hat-tip Melissa McEwan @ Shakesville.

“[T]he court concludes that Novell is the owner of the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights.”

PJ @ Groklaw is eating chocolates.

Looks harmless? Was it made in China?

MSNBC (hat-tip Bryan @ Why Now?):

WASHINGTON – Toy-maker Fisher-Price is recalling 83 types of toys — including the popular Big Bird, Elmo, Dora and Diego characters — because their paint contains excessive amounts of lead.

The worldwide recall being announced Thursday involves 967,000 plastic preschool toys made by a Chinese vendor and sold in the United States between May and August. It is the latest in a wave of recalls that has heightened global concern about the safety of Chinese-made products.

The recall is the first for Fisher-Price Inc. and parent company Mattel Inc. involving lead paint. It is the largest for Mattel since 1998 when Fisher-Price had to yank about 10 million Power Wheels from toy stores.

Poisoning Big Bird is not nice. Boo.

How many children have been exposed?

Related post:

• Do I have to paint you a picture (with lead paint)?

The Simpsons v. the Faux Noise machine

Len Hart has much more.

“Corporate personhood”

Len Hart:

Why do corporate polluters buy politicians like Bush? It’s cheaper to pony up for crooks than it is to respect the law and the environment. I’ve often wondered how big corporations could make a credible moral distinction between paying off the mob and paying off the GOP, a Bush, a Harding, a DeLay!

In Texas, it is all systemized. It’s the way things are done. Election laws in the “Lone Star” state allow unlimited personal or political action committee contributions to elected officials. It’s a licence to buy yourself a politician. Every fascist fat cat has one or several. As braggin’ rights, it beats a four car garage, a membership at the River Oaks Country Club, or the Enclave. Best of all, it’s a hedge against having to act responsibly. It’s license to act like an asshole.

Corporations get away with it because they claim the right of free speech. It’s called “corporate personhood” i.e., corporations have the same rights as do individuals. Clearly, however, corporations do not have the same responsibilities. I submit to this forum that if corporations have the same rights as people, then, when corporations break the laws, then the President, the Chairman of the board, the entire board of directors and every large stockholder should be rounded up and brought to trial. They are, after all, “persons” in the eyes of the law. Do the crime. Do the time!

Recommended reading:

• “It is time to rethink the notion of free speech for corporations.”

Do you pledge allegiance to the flag of the Corporate States of America?

Hat-tip Tengrain.

Because women and space aliens don’t smoke pot

This stupidest ad ever, via thehim.

Okay, I’m sorry if that seems harsh… But really?

Update: Thehim has data suggesting that there may be a real gender gap.

Update 2: Oh, what the heck.

Is she a good witch, or a bad witch?

Invent your own titles. Fun for the family*!

*Cannablog has been rated PG. Parental guidance suggested.

Saturday afternoon movie

Full-screen.

Hat-tip Monkeyfister.

Related film:

• Weapons of mass deception

Do you like milk?

Recommended viewing:

• Is milk good or bad? Yes.

News from the present through-the-looking-glass

William K. Wolfrum, again.

News from the future that might-have-been

William K. Wolfrum.

Late show

This is a six part series, one episode per day.

Previous episode:

• Episode five.

This is episode six.

Late show

This is a six part series, one episode per day.

Previous episode:

• Episode four.

This is episode five.

Late show

This is a six part series, one episode per day.

Previous episode:

• Episode three.

This is episode four.

Sunday afternoon movie

Update: Full-screen.

Saturday night movie

Late show

This is a six part series, one episode per day.

Previous episode:

• Episode two.

This is episode three.

Late show

This is a six part series, one episode per day.

Previous episode:

• Episode one.

This is episode two.

Late show

This will be a six part series, one episode per day.

This is episode one.

Tuesday night movie

Hat-tip Monkeyfister.

Witness, receive and transmit.

Tuesday night movie

Hat-tip Len Hart.

Related post:

• The word of the day is “Fauxism”

Why did CBS fire John Batiste?

Faiz at Think Progress:

To recap, here are the previous faulty rationales offered by CBS for firing [Gen. John] Batiste:

Reason #1: Batiste was engaging in ‘advocacy.’ CBS VP Linda Mason said Friday, “We ask that people not be involved in advocacy.” But Greg Sargent revealed instances in which CBS News military consultant Michael O’Hanlon has engaged in advocacy for the Iraq escalation.

Reason #2: Batiste was ‘raising money’ for VoteVets. Mason later amended her statement, saying “It isn’t just that he took an advocacy position. … General Batiste took part in a commercial that’s being shown on television to raise money for veterans against the war.” But the VoteVets ad that Batiste appears is not a fundraising ad.

Reason #3: Batiste was taking part in the ‘partisan political process.’ In fact, Batiste consciously avoided engaging in partisanship. Newsweek reports, “Batiste says he remains a ‘diehard Republican’ and has no intention of wading directly into the presidential campaign. … He took part in the VoteVets.org campaign, he says, because it’s a ‘nonpartisan group.’”

Were CBS truly concerned about not allowing its consultants to engage in the partisan political process, it would not have a McCain presidential campaign aide currently on staff.

Related posts:

• CBS fires Gen. Batiste over VoteVets ad
• Major General John Batiste left the army in protest in order to speak out
• Something about Katie Couric, too

Saturday night movie

Adult content

A man walks into a talent agent’s office, and says, “We’re a family act, and we’d like you to represent us.”

The agent says, “Sorry, I don’t represent family acts. They’re a little too old-fashioned.”

The man says, “But this is really special.”

The agent says, “Okay, well what’s the act?”

He looks at the agent and says, “Well, that’s the act. What do you think?”

The agent just sits in silence for a long time. Finally, he manages, “That’s a hell of an act. What do you call yourselves?”

“The Aristocrats!”

Saturday night movie

Hat-tip Monkeyfister.

Related posts:

• The VA Tech killer and his victims:
• Regulate the militia;
• Yesterday was terrible.

The fake news

Hat-tip Watertiger.

On “supporting the troops”

Maryscott O’Connor:

It’s a fucking nightmare, man. You know that expression, “War is hell?” You never really understand that until you’re in it. There’s blood everywhere. Dead bodies everywhere. ALMOST dead bodies. You want to put them out of their misery but then it’s an execution. So you have to leave them there, dying, suffering, slowly, in agony — it ‘s fucking awful.

High society

Pirates are the ones that steal the gold, not the kids listening to the music

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) are a bunch of music pirates that extort money to line their own pockets from people who cannot afford to defend themselves from barratry and who are accused of the awful sin of unauthorized listening to music.

Not that I have a strong opinion about them or anything.

Chuck Dupree has more.

Update: Xeni Jardin writes about the RIAA going after a ten-year-old girl (seven when she’s alleged to have done the dirty downloading deed).

4:20 of Woodstock ’99

Fitzmas comedy special

Long live the king, and long live the free people of this world.

Climate control

Greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, have a certain “half-life” in the atmosphere before they are eliminated by natural processes, such as by plant respiration. When the production of new greenhouse gases has equilibrium with the elimination of circulating greenhouse gases, the climate is kept in balance.

Much discussion of reducing and controlling global warming has focused on how we may regulate the production of new greenhouse gases, and we must do so or we could never eliminate them quickly enough to prevent their building without limit and turning the earth into a place uninhabitable to humans.

It would also be helpful to begin encouraging the reduction of circulating greenhouse gases by broad based home agriculture. One green plant can reduce the carbon footprint of one person by a significant amount. If climate science has taught us anything, it’s that small changes over a large population make a huge difference.

What kind of shameful regime puts an innocent 9-year old child in a prison for two years?

Ask yourself.

First they hurt our children, then deny them medicine

Yesterday, Shakes wrote,

I missed it last night, but watched the whole thing in six pieces on ABC’s website: In an Instant: The IED Explosion, Bob Woodruff’s 36-Day Coma, Wounded Warriors, Are We Ready for Our Injured?, The Human Cost of War, and Woodruff’s Closing Thoughts. It’s absolutely staggering, and I highly recommend it, with the warning that it is deeply upsetting, so be prepared. But it’s a must-see. Truly.

I finally finished watching it today, and recommend you watch the whole thing from beginning to end.

Incidentally, I read that veterans overwhelmingly support medical marijuana. For the pain and suffering that it can relieve those suffering traumatic brain injuries, nothing else in the world would help more.

I’m very happy for Bob Woodruff and his family, and glad that he received the best quality medical care in the world. But people not so visible in the public eye are more likely to fall through the cracks, and those with internal brain damage are hard to treat with any technique; often the risks in trying to correct it with surgery are higher than the damage could possibly justify if we even had the diagnostic capability to know precisely what was wrong in all cases. Cannabis helps the neurons in the brain that still work.

TBM experiment

Hat-tip Radley Balko.

Democracy in California

Debra Bowen,

“As Secretary of State, I intend to begin a thorough review of all voting systems currently certified for use in the State of California.”

Hat-tip Brad Friedman, and if I haven’t written about the voting machine issue in awhile, BradBlog has remained on top of it and I know they could use your support.

The problem with current voting machines is they are proprietary and inherently untrustworthy. There is a strong political incentive to cheat, so there must be every protection against cheating. The consequences of a stolen election are dire indeed, as most people may realize. This is a matter of not merely life and death for one person, but potentially for the whole world, all of humanity. So if machines are used, they cannot be a black box that “does something” which cannot be audited publicly. No count which is stored in electronic form should ever be trusted if it cannot be checked against paper ballots, and such checks should be performable without cost to a candidate. It should never be the case that democracy is held hostage by the lack of financial resources on the part of outsider candidates to get a fair counting.

I’m pleased that Debra Bowen is doing her job, she is an exceptional human being in politics.

Pass it on

Hat-tip Cory Doctorow.

Web two point oh

I’ve been sharply critical of Google being involved in supporting Republicans, as controversial in its way as when they assisted China in limiting search results for that country. Now Google is doing something to change their fundamental search algorithm, by reducing the impact of links (which can be abused to create a false popularity rating) they will be putting more emphasis on the PageRank algorithm. This is to say, users of Google will determine page ranking in a form of direct democracy.

That is all a good thing if we want to try the democratic experiment, and apparently we do, but some attention must be paid to the counters of the votes. For that is what Google is presenting to us, as a gatekeeper to our network, will they practice censorship?

Yes. They will. You will not find terrorist manuals on Google. You will not find instructions on how to make a nuclear weapon. Google will take steps to reduce the ranking of pages that encourage violence.

All of that may be non-controversial, but this also means that Google will have the ability to circumscribe the limits of acceptable communication, and they are asking us to trust them in having that much authority. Once again, consider what they did on behalf of China, and ask if they will not do the same if under pressure here. Will this site be censored for discussing issues of cannabis?

I would like to think that we could trust them, but I think it is past time to consider ways of indexing a web and distributing the counting in an open source way, and that’s been going on for awhile already. We call one form of organization a blogosphere.