A tale of two shelter cats. Harry and Ginger

I'm a little dazed and confused but this sure beats the pound

We went to a country shelter today to look at Ginger, a 10 yo female cat, whose owner had died. She’d been there for two months. Sue really tried to get a friendly response from Ginger but couldn’t. Staff said Ginger was [...]

1 in 8 Americans and nearly 1 in 4 children now receive food stamps

New York Times interactive map. Click to use.

California only enrolls about half of those eligible, a proportion *less* than any other state. The report breaks the numbers down by county, with several having more than 40% of the total population receiving aid.

Something is broken when this many people can’t get by [...]

Food Stamps

A story in yesterday’s New York Times about the rising use of food stamps paints a pretty grim picture of where we are as a nation. For instance, the program,

now helps feed one in eight Americans and one in four children.

About 20,000 people are added to the program everyday. And more and more [...]

Climate change. Two things all can agree on

Zero Hedge 1) The carbon footprint of war negates most everything else we do to slow climate change.

2) Carbon trading is a scam that investment will manipulate and make billions from.

(Posted from my iPhone with the WordPress app)

Bikini baristas

Best tv segment of bikini baristas:

Quickie records pop punk tribute to bikini baristas:

Pretty in Pink owners stiff bikini barristas:

My thoughts:

First: They aren’t wearing “bikinis” — they are wearing underwear. Some of the bras are see-through, and the women are required by their employers to wear pasties [...]

If the left does not make an effort to organize populist anger then the right will grab it by default

The Blue Voice ponders Jerry Brown, radical politics on both sides of the spectrum, civil liberties, and more in a thoughtful post.

They quote from an interview Jerry Brown did with The Progressive in 1995. Brown makes a crucial point, that militia anger is based on real grievances. The Blue Voice thinks Brown misses the [...]

Afghanistan war. Emergency anti-escalation rally

Saturday, Dec. 12, 2009 • 11am-4pm • Washington DC

Tiger Woods cancels meeting with police for third time

WTF? Apparently the rich and famous have a separate system of justice from the rest of us and don’t have to play by the same rules.

You try telling a cop the person they want to speak to is sleeping and see if they go away. I’m guessing they won’t.

Does the US still have [...]

Time to boycott the fondue cheese and cuckoo clocks

The Swiss have voted to outlaw minarets, thus Islam has been demonised, which of course will be helpful to those who want to promote hatred.

I guess Bin Laden and the Swiss People Party will both be celebrating.

Islam is as European as it gets, think of Spain as a Muslim country, an oasis of [...]

Solar-powered micro turbines

US company Capstone and Israeli firm HelioFocus plan to develop a micro-turbine that runs on concentrated solar power. It will use super-heated air to drive the turbines.

“The ability for solar projects to generate energy more efficiently and at night is the value proposition driving this joint product development effort between HelioFocus and Capstone,” [...]