Fascinating photo essay of Louisiana prison hospices. Yes, those are human beings behind bars--there simply must be a better way to deal with most of them than letting them rot behind bars. The essay starts with a mind-blowing statistic: In Louisiana, one out of every 55 residents is behind bars, many of them for life.
According to accompanying article, the hockey player in this video is only 9 years old. While you become spellbound by the way he shoots the puck, don't forget to be also dazzled by the way he skates. Unbelievable.
How paranoid have we become? Here's what Allison Kilkenny of Alternet has to say:
The culture itself is sick, which is why America has a military budget that is almost as much as the rest of the world’s defense spending combined, and is over nine times larger than the military budget of China, and yet Americans feel more afraid, and more paranoid, than ever. Everyone is against us, we're told. Everyone hates our freedom, and our amazing culture. China wants to overtake us. The entire Middle East wants us dead. Europeans laugh at us, and think we’re stupid. Emperor Penguins are plotting something. Canada is about to attack. And then there's Iran. Don't even get us started on Iran. Until Americans decide to break this addiction to "The List," this cycle of irrationality will continue into the foreseeable future.And see this post, for the best friend of America's politicians: peddling nightmares.
This just in, from Scientific American:
[T]he waste produced by coal plants is actually more radioactive than that generated by their nuclear counterparts. In fact, the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.
At issue is coal's content of uranium and thorium, both radioactive elements. They occur in such trace amounts in natural, or "whole," coal that they aren't a problem. But when coal is burned into fly ash, uranium and thorium are concentrated at up to 10 times their original levels. Fly ash uranium sometimes leaches into the soil and water surrounding a coal plant, affecting cropland and, in turn, food . . . [E]stimated radiation doses ingested by people living near the coal plants were equal to or higher than doses for people living around the nuclear facilities.
Not that the risk of radiation from either coal plants or nuclear power plants appears to be significant for those living nearby.Here's one elaborate attempt to try to get people to use the stairs. I'm sure there would be a cheaper way to get the job done. Maybe they could post a big sign, something like "Escalator only for people with disabilities."