another week closer to the eschaton…

before anything else, Oceans on brink of catastrophe – “marine life facing mass extinction ‘within one human generation'” it’s getting to the point where we might, actually, be better off encouraging mass extinction of every living thing on the planet and starting over, anyway…

word is that a deal to raise the debt-ceiling has been reached, so all of this may be for nothing, but i’m going to leave it in anyway, because i still blame the politicians for raising such a big stink about it… and despite the fact that a deal to raise the debt-ceiling has been reached, for the most part, the other stuff is still true anyway.

and besides, i’m too lazy to dig up new, non-related-to-the-debt-crisis links at 8:00 on a sunday evening… screw that.

Wall Street braces for US default – if this isn’t an indication that this country is ripe for a revolution, i don’t know what is… but in spite of everything, i think we’re not going to get a revolution, and we are going to default, and become a 3rd world has been within 50 years. Obama to Banks: We’re Not Defaulting – we’re already 99.75% of the way there. all that remains is for our “leaders” to pull the switch and send us all into oblivion. 😡

White House Now Conceals Plan to Cut Social Security – if there are cuts to medicare and SSI, people are gonna be pissed… but, i suppose the logic is that it’ll be the old, infirm and disabled people (in other words, the people who need it most) who will be pissed, and they’re not a threat to anyone. problem is, they’re also the people who have the least to lose by doing something the politicians might not like… 😐

True or False? Over 50% Do Not Pay Income Taxes – almost true… but people like me (infirm, disabled, senior citizens, etc.) make up a significant portion of those people…

Emergency Team Of 8th-Grade Civics Teachers Dispatched To Washington DC and Bachmann Says Unexplained Blackouts From Which She Wakes Up Covered In Blood Won’t Affect Ability To Lead – i’ll just put these here to see if anybody else notices…

The Political Theater and the Debt Ceiling Crisis: Are We Being Had? – “Whatever emerges from the debt ceiling impasse, it will not be in the interest of the American people.” 😮

The Cult That Is Destroying America and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) admits that he is an extortionist

Americans’ debt rage boils over – We’re not a bunch of knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing Neanderthals

Construction projects halt and nearly 4,000 workers furloughed in partial FAA shutdown – are we having fun yet? you know it’s only going to get worse when the government defaults, right?

TSA Reminds Us All Who The Real Terrorists Are – “the TSA now believes it has the authority to prevent people in public places from talking to each other.”

Angelina County jury finds man guilty of evading arrest after being mistaken for burglar in his own home – the nazis cops couldn’t persecute prosecute this guy for being a burglar, so they had to settle for something else… and, apparently, they didn’t take into account the fact that the guy has “the mind of a child”… 😐

California Marijuana Legalization Initiative Approved for Petitioning and, at EXACTLY the same time, Marijuana eradication raids under way in the Mendocino National Forest – this has got to be costing taxpayer money that could easily be spent on more worthwhile endeavours… 😐

and this is the reason things aren’t going to change any time soon, whatever they decide: Obama Says Drug Users Must Be Treated as Criminals, Obama says he’s not willing to end the drug war and Denied: DEA refuses to reclassify marijuana, claims it’s as dangerous as heroin – “there are no studies to prove the medicinal value of marijuana, and that the plant is basically as unsafe as heroin.” 😡

Wal-Mart Goes Nuclear Over Chicken Necks; Newlyweds Lose House; Husband Deported – former wal-mart employee is now suing wal-mart for loss of income, loss of personal property, lost profits, lost time and imprisonment, libel and slander, mental anguish, intentional infliction of emotional distress, false arrest, malicious prosecution, slander, negligence and conversion… and, although wal-mart is undoubtedly guilty of all those things, and probably a host of other things that aren’t mentioned, they will probably not be made to pay for any of it, because the former wal-mart employee’s husband isn’t (yet) a legal citizen of the united states. 😐

Opposing Free Contraceptives? Does the Christian Right Want to Lower the Abortion Rate or Not? – no, the “christianists” want everybody to convert to their brand of “christianity” and then everybody will magically be able to resist the pleasures of sin… isn’t it obvious?

Paypal will stop purchases from sites music industry identifies as infringing copyright – there are distinct advantages to being assumed innocent until proven guilty, but they don’t matter, because somebody, somewhere is losing money.

School Teacher Could Take HADOPI to Court Over False Disconnection – there are distinct advantages to being assumed innocent until proven guilty, and this guy is learning all about them…

Man Photographing Grandson In Park Deemed Suspicious By Police And Media – “the man also said that he did not run away, but simply walked away from a woman who had gotten very close to him and was yelling at him.”

Amazon cloud hosts nasty banking trojan – yet another in a host of reasons why it might be a good idea to resist cloud computing…

Part Human/Part Animal Hybrid Monsters Are Being Created By Scientists All Over The Planet – 😮

It’s official: IE users are dumb as a bag of hammers – 100,000 test subjects can’t be wrong…

Stop Hoping! Start Changing! – We can smash Pandora’s box and the hope that lives there in a day. But save the wood, as we are going to need to build something new.