Stunning, shocking video. We've GOT to get off of carbon fuel. Albert tar sands area is already bigger than England. "The mass extraction of fossil fuels from our earth does untold amounts of damage. Yet, many still deny that the damage being done by the oil industry is anything to be concerned about. If you ever doubted the amount of damage being done by the oil industry, just watch this video."
Matt Tiabbi on why the Pope's environmental message is making many conservatives angry:
That the pope's letter inspires such hysterical stupidities speaks to how deeply upsetting it must be to our guardians of mainstream opinion. But what exactly has all of these people so upset? To me, all of this speaks to the weirdly cultist, neo-Randian, Road to Serfdom vibe that is increasingly swallowing up the American cultural and intellectual mainstream. Capitalism and competition aren't merely thought of as utilitarian systems for delivering goods and services to people anymore. To people like Brooks and Rand Paul and Charles Murray (also known as Jeb Bush's favorite author), the free market is also a sort of religion that can address every important human question. We used to think of wealth and spirituality as being two completely separate things. But in the minds of some in modern America, they're becoming fused. The way Brooks and others clearly imagine it, one achieves wealth first, then dignity follows behind. We're losing the ability to imagine a dignified life without money. Which is pretty messed up. In the past, it was completely natural for a religious leader like a pope to suggest that our economic system leaves important spiritual questions unanswered. After all, that's what religion was supposed to be for, addressing the non-material parts of our lives. But in modern times, this idea offends many people. Hence this bizarre wave of criticism directed against an elderly cleric in a funny hat who is being blasted for being impractical, unrealistic and insufficiently appreciative of the material, despite the fact that it's precisely a pope's job to be all of these things. I'm not religious, and I'm not particularly a Luddite or an anti-capitalist. But I'm open to the idea that there should be something else in life beyond money, or that we may be losing something important when we communicate by clicks and drags instead of face-to-face meetings. Is that really such revolutionary thinking, especially coming from a pope? It seems like such a strange thing to get angry about.
This report from RAW story: Psychedelic drugs like MDMA and magic mushrooms are as safe as riding a bike or playing soccer, and bans against them are “inconsistent with human rights”, according to the authors of a letter published in the Lancet Psychiatry Journal today.
Lots of information here, including this stunning statistic:
Take an A student used to scoring in the top 10 percent of virtually anything she does. One study showed that if she gets just under seven hours of sleep on weekdays, and about 40 minutes more on weekends, she will begin to score in the bottom 9 percent of non-sleep-deprived individuals.
Chris Hedges has seen attendance dwindling at all types of public gatherings:
But it is not just sporting events. Public lectures, church services, labor unions, Veterans of Foreign Wars halls, Masonic halls, Rotary clubs, the Knights of Columbus, the Lions Club, Grange Hall meetings, the League of Women Voters, Daughters of the American Revolution, local historical societies, town halls, bowling leagues, bridge clubs, movie theater attendance (at a 20-year low), advocacy groups such as the NAACP and professional and amateur theatrical and musical performances cater to a dwindling and graying population. No one is coming through the door to take the place of the old members. A generation has fallen down the rabbit hole of electronic hallucinations—with images often dominated by violence and pornography. They have become, in the words of the philosopher Hannah Arendt, “atomized,” sucked alone into systems of information and entertainment that cater to America’s prurient fascination with the tawdry, the cruel and the deadening cult of the self.