So…yesterday was Earth Day. Typically I grit my teeth and do my best to ignore the whole thing. Why do we need a whole day dedicated to this subject? Aren’t we barraged with it everywhere we turn already? I thought I was doing just fine with “waste not, want not”, […]
“As well as inflaming tensions between Germany and its smaller southern partners, the suggestion could also mean that Britons with holiday homes are dragged deeper into the eurozone crisis. Senior figures in Germany are now arguing that some richer home owners in countries like Spain, Portugal and Greece have so far avoided paying their fair share to rescue the euro, leaving Germany paying too much. Until now, the cost of rescue packages for countries like Ireland, Greece and Portugal has fallen largely on people who invest money in either those countries’ bonds or – in the case of Cyprus – bank accounts.” Continue reading →
“Gold retailers struggled to cope this week as parents buying dowries, casual shoppers and tourists snapped up bars, coins, nuggets and jewellery as a slump in the price of the yellow metal released years of pent-up retail demand. The price decline in the past week, the steepest in 30 years, has tarnished gold’s appeal for the portfolio investors whose money had fuelled a 12-year bull run. As investors rush out, consumers that were priced out of the market for years have rushed in. In the United States, sales of American Eagle gold for two days this week topped the volumes for the whole of March.” Continue reading →
“In what has been coined in the media as the ‘Kids for Cash Scandal,’ Ciarvarella and Judge Conahan have since been exposed as having made deals with the developer of the for-profit juvenile detention facilities co-owned by Robert Powell of PA Child Care and another company, Western Pennsylvania Child Care. While both judges were sentenced in 2011 and are now serving time, it makes one wonder just how many similar judicial branches are insidiously entangled with for-profit juvenile detention facilities and just how many people working for the system saw red flags and remained silent. Just how deep does the rabbit hole go?” Continue reading →
“Both the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians have called for more research into the therapeutic uses of marijuana and for the U.S. government to reconsider its classification as a Schedule I substance. The University of Mississippi grows and harvests cannabis for studies funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, yet because NIDA’s congressionally mandated mission is to research the harmful effects of controlled substances and stop drug abuse, the institute isn’t interested in helping establish marijuana as a medicine.” Continue reading →
“Border agents have no authority to interfere in interstate conmerce and delay a load travelling between states. Nor do they have a right to demand someone step out of the vehicle, show their ID, or interrupt their 10 hour sleeping period with no probable cause. A second officer with a drug sniffing dog comes snooping around the truck but the first officer says ‘he has a camera’ and the drug dog cop backs off immediately also. Apparently these power-starved jackboot lunatics have an aversion to cameras for some strange reason.” Continue reading →
“Khatib’s renewed threat to quit, almost a month after he first tendered his resignation amid recriminations over the choice of a perceived Muslim Brotherhood nominee as rebel prime minister, threw the opposition into fresh disarray as debate about the wisdom of arming it intensifies. In Istanbul, the United States pledged to double its aid to the armed opposition, including additional non-lethal military equipment. But it again held back from agreeing to opposition calls to arm the rebels, amid mounting concerns that weapons deliveries might fall into the wrong hands in a conflict in which Al-Qaeda has played a prominent role on the battlefield.” Continue reading →
“If the United States really, in the words of President Barack Obama, wishes to keep ‘looking forward’ instead of backward when it comes to the violent legal limbo that is the Bush administration’s legacy, someone might want to ensure New York State Senator Greg Ball (R) gets a copy of that memo. In several separate instances this weekend, Sen. Ball has advocated torturing the teen police are accusing of helping execute the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three and injured more than 140. ‘So, scum bag #2 in custody,’ he wrote on Twitter Friday night. ‘Who wouldn’t use torture on this punk to save more lives?'” Continue reading →