I don't believe in God,
I didnt' see him up there.
(Yuri Gagarin, 1934-1968)
Saturday, January 14, 2012
QUOTE OF THE DAY: Yuri Gagarin and God
I heard this one yesterday during a documentary about the last few days of the famous Soviet cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin:
I always knew you were a special man, Yuri.
RAVE: Americans Say Pizza is a Vegetable!
In case you didn't know it, pizza is a vegetable.
I sure as hell didn't know that either. No wonder I always struggled in biology.
Yip, you read right. That ode to carbohydrate-heavy, high calorie eating fast food is, in fact, a vegetable. At least, that is according to United States legislators.
Move over you lowly celery and beetroot and lettuce, here comes the almighty PIZZA!
I heard about this funniest, most ridiculous news this morning on Russia Today - it was a report on how pizza has been declared a 'vegetable' for some time now in the United States, on the utterly spurious 'logic' that the tomato splattered on a pizza (which is from tomato concentrate anyway) thereby warrants a pizza being designated as a vegetable.
All of this has been primarily used to justify why American kids in public schools can be fed pizzas on the grounds that, being a 'vegetable', it will be nutritious and meet vegetable intake requirements mandated for kids in American public schools.
As reported at www.knowyourmeme.com:
"On November 14th, 2011, The Associated Press published an article about a spending bill put forth by House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee that would attempt to undermine efforts by the Obama administration to improve the nutritional value of public school lunches. The article revealed that part of the bill would protect the status of tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable.
In a supersize-obsessed country where supersize kids have exponentially grown in numbers, this is downright outrageous if it weren't so damn funny.
If I were an American parent, this would be a rant - but I'm not, so it's a rave. I know stupidly funny when I see it.
Maybe obesity is a laughing matter for American legislators after all?
As they say - only in America.
After all, they voted this one in as President for eight years:
Do you get my point?
I sure as hell didn't know that either. No wonder I always struggled in biology.
Yip, you read right. That ode to carbohydrate-heavy, high calorie eating fast food is, in fact, a vegetable. At least, that is according to United States legislators.
Move over you lowly celery and beetroot and lettuce, here comes the almighty PIZZA!
I heard about this funniest, most ridiculous news this morning on Russia Today - it was a report on how pizza has been declared a 'vegetable' for some time now in the United States, on the utterly spurious 'logic' that the tomato splattered on a pizza (which is from tomato concentrate anyway) thereby warrants a pizza being designated as a vegetable.
All of this has been primarily used to justify why American kids in public schools can be fed pizzas on the grounds that, being a 'vegetable', it will be nutritious and meet vegetable intake requirements mandated for kids in American public schools.
As reported at www.knowyourmeme.com:
"On November 14th, 2011, The Associated Press published an article about a spending bill put forth by House Republicans on the Appropriations Committee that would attempt to undermine efforts by the Obama administration to improve the nutritional value of public school lunches. The article revealed that part of the bill would protect the status of tomato paste on pizza as a vegetable.
The spending bill also would allow tomato paste on pizzas to be counted as a vegetable, as it is now. The department’s proposed guidelines would have attempted to prevent that. The changes had been requested by food companies that produce frozen pizzas, the salt industry and potato growers. Some conservatives in Congress have called the push for healthier foods an overreach, saying the government shouldn’t be telling children what to eat."It is estimated that the fast-food industry and frozen pizza-making giants like Con-Agra spent $5.6-billion lobbying Congress to ensure that their puppet whores (aka legislators) would know their place and vote to make pizza designated a vegetable.
In a supersize-obsessed country where supersize kids have exponentially grown in numbers, this is downright outrageous if it weren't so damn funny.
If I were an American parent, this would be a rant - but I'm not, so it's a rave. I know stupidly funny when I see it.
Maybe obesity is a laughing matter for American legislators after all?
As they say - only in America.
After all, they voted this one in as President for eight years:
Do you get my point?
RAVE: A Positive Anniversary - Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution
As this week saw a shameful anniversary like that of Guantanamo Bay, so it too saw an anniversary to be celebrated - Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution is one-year old.
It was the genesis of a year of street protests and People Power all over the world; the very germination of what became known as the Arab Spring.
However many disappointments may have occurred in the aftermath of the Jasmine Revolution, and however many doubts may yet exist on the outcome of this Revolution, it must still remain a momentous, gigantic occasion for which Tunisians must be justifiably proud.
As with all revolutions that topple terror, greed and corruption, and free a people from that, every one of us is ultimately indebted to those who fought for those freedoms.
Do you get my point?
It was the genesis of a year of street protests and People Power all over the world; the very germination of what became known as the Arab Spring.
However many disappointments may have occurred in the aftermath of the Jasmine Revolution, and however many doubts may yet exist on the outcome of this Revolution, it must still remain a momentous, gigantic occasion for which Tunisians must be justifiably proud.
As with all revolutions that topple terror, greed and corruption, and free a people from that, every one of us is ultimately indebted to those who fought for those freedoms.
Do you get my point?
RANT: A Shameful Anniversary - Guantanamo
This past week was the 10th anniversary of the 'detention centre' at Guantanamo Bay being operational as a key part of the United States' (futile, often heinous and too often illegal) 'war on terror.'
'Gitmo', as it has become known, is now synonymous with illegal capture, kidnap and rendition, indefinite detention without legal representation, formal charges or a trial, 'shock' techniques of torture, and too many other travesties of justice and human rights to list.
In years to come Guantanamo Bay will be known as the touchstone issue that the United States military-corporatist complex used to push the envelope of what was acceptable, even in times of war. It will be studied as that gentle push that was needed to plunge our collective psyche over the abyss into wars without end and the end of any true democracy.
Its legacy is many, many decades in the making.
Guantanamo Bay is an assault on the Geneva Conventions regarding war and the treatment of prisoners of war (even though many of the kidnapped inmates at Gitmo don't even classify as official prisoners of war according to Geneva).
It is an assault on American democracy and, more importantly, an assault on all humanity.
Shame on the United States for this shameful anniversary.
CLOSE GITMO NOW!
Do you get my point?
'Gitmo', as it has become known, is now synonymous with illegal capture, kidnap and rendition, indefinite detention without legal representation, formal charges or a trial, 'shock' techniques of torture, and too many other travesties of justice and human rights to list.
In years to come Guantanamo Bay will be known as the touchstone issue that the United States military-corporatist complex used to push the envelope of what was acceptable, even in times of war. It will be studied as that gentle push that was needed to plunge our collective psyche over the abyss into wars without end and the end of any true democracy.
Its legacy is many, many decades in the making.
Guantanamo Bay is an assault on the Geneva Conventions regarding war and the treatment of prisoners of war (even though many of the kidnapped inmates at Gitmo don't even classify as official prisoners of war according to Geneva).
It is an assault on American democracy and, more importantly, an assault on all humanity.
Shame on the United States for this shameful anniversary.
CLOSE GITMO NOW!
Do you get my point?
Sunday, January 8, 2012
2012 - Looking Forward
Here is a mix of
things that I look forward to (or really hope happen) in 2012 (in no particular order):
* NO WAR IN IRAN!
OK, this is quite possibly my biggest wish for the world in 2012. The United States and its cohorts (lapdogs) must stop being global bully. The world simply cannot afford this war
* The alternative
media going from strength to strength
* A 'two-tier', more corporatist Internet being stopped in its tracks! NO!
* Ditto in Afghanistan
* Palestine getting more recognition by the international community
* Israel being less of the apartheid bully state it loves to be
* Less conspicuous consumption, less greed - the planet can't take it (I can't take it)
* Less religious fanaticism of all stripes - religious lunacy remains one of the biggest cancers in the world
* NO WAR IN IRAN!
OK, this is quite possibly my biggest wish for the world in 2012. The United States and its cohorts (lapdogs) must stop being global bully. The world simply cannot afford this war
* More of Max Keiser and
Stacy Herbert weaving their magic against the financial terrorists on
the Keiser Report and all over the alternative media
* Wikileaks
getting back to its deserved prominence of 2010 - we need them
* Julian Assange beating his extradition to Sweden/ not being found guilty for the trumped up charges against him in that country
* A 'two-tier', more corporatist Internet being stopped in its tracks! NO!
* Greece declaring bankruptcy and exiting the Euro - hooray to the drachma!
* Sarkozy losing the French Presidential election - the diabolical Merkozy grip on the EU must cease
* Syria not going the way of Libya
* A weakened military and truer democracy in Egypt
* The continuation and growth of the Arab Spring
* Less madness in Iraq
* Less madness in Iraq
* Ditto in Afghanistan
* Palestine getting more recognition by the international community
* Israel being less of the apartheid bully state it loves to be
* The continuation and growth of Occupy Wall Street and every other 'Occupy' movement around the world
* Michael
Schumacher winning races again in Formula 1 and proving why he's the
best ever - go Michael!
* Ferrari winning races and doing a lot better this F1 season - Forza!
* More meaningful and practical international dialogue on climate change
* Less environmental disasters, wherever and however possible
* Less environmental disasters, wherever and however possible
* More medical
breakthroughs, especially in stem cell research
* Less conspicuous consumption, less greed - the planet can't take it (I can't take it)
* Less religious fanaticism of all stripes - religious lunacy remains one of the biggest cancers in the world
* More social and political
unrest and upheaval in China - it needs it, we need
it
* Less stupidity, bad
grammar and bad manners, thank you very
much!
Those are some of my bigger wishes for 2012.
Oh, and the American Presidential election? Who the hell cares...
Resolutions for 2012
It’s a week into the new year, and only now am I committing to writing down what I wish to accomplish in 2012. It hasn’t been lethargy that has postponed this written resolution, but rather a sense that 2012 will be a revamped and amped continuation of what I should have accomplished in 2011, a year that flew past and in which I achieved far too little.
My few (and doable,
please note) resolutions for 2011 include:
·
Keep investing in my future – and I know what
that means
·
Develop, develop, develop - ditto
·
Re-edit my book Victor Andrew Cake
·
Stop taking things so damn seriously, especially
at work – simply not worth it
·
Stop biting my damn nails! A bad habit more than 30 years in the chewing...
·
Do enough to ensure I get back to a comfortable 32
inch waist – I will NOT give in to a
34 inch waist, damn it!
·
Eat even more vegetables and fruit than ever
·
Drink less coffee, especially with milk – I drank
too much of the damn stuff last year
Eight is a good number. That should do for now.
I must make this a good year for me.
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