Archive for May 22nd, 2010
Bill Maher on modern conservatives
Bill Maher wants right wingers to show their birth certificates to show that they are adult enough to have a discussion regarding how to run the country.
[C]onservatives are the ones who tend to believe in magical ideas, like: America is never wrong; you can defeat terrorism militarily; and lower taxes will somehow fix the deficit. And I’m not even mentioning the stuff about how Jesus used to fly around on a pterodactyl and just hated it when homos ate wedding cake. Now, am I saying there are no adults in today’s Republican Party? Absolutely not, there are — but like a lot of parents today, the adults let their kids cow them. And silence them. And rule over them.
Meanwhile, at Rolling Stone, Tim Dickinson has written an article titled “Rove Rides Again,” in which he describes the plan of Karl Rove and Ed Gillespie to become “free agent strategists,” and details their aim of raising major money to destroy the Democrats in the upcoming election. Dickinson notes that the recent United States Supreme Court case of Citizens United “opened the floodgates for unlimited political spending by corporations and individuals.” He also notes, however, that Citizens United “left in place strict limits on contributions to party committees, and it preserved the legal firewall that bars campaigns from coordinating directly with the outside groups now empowered to spend millions on their behalf.”
Rove is working with a group called “American Crossroads,” which appears to be the main destination for the money to be provided by the richest donors of the GOP. Rove and American Crossroads will collect unlimited contributions from individuals and corporations to back GOP candidates or instigating “the dirty tricks of which Rove is a Jedi Master.” All of this is foreseeable, of course, but what remains to be seen is how well Rove’s plan meshes with the plan of those who support the “Tea Party.” Dickinson’s answer is that Rove will exploit the frustration of the Tea Party for his own uses.
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The stench of secrecy.
According to the Environmental Working Group, most perfumes, colognes and body sprays don’t disclose that “many scents are actually a complex cocktail of natural essences and synthetic chemicals – often petrochemicals.”
This is getting to be a predictable story: The manufacturers are keeping these ingredients secret despite the fact that consumers should have access to the dangers and potential dangers of the chemicals.
The average fragrance product tested contained 14 secret chemicals not listed on the label. Among them are chemicals associated with hormone disruption and allergic reactions, and many substances that have not been assessed for safety in personal care products.
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