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Michael Moore says Portland's is the largest occupation he's seen. He calls it the "seat of our new democracy."
Man. The largest occupation I've seen is in Moore's hoodie.
So much for the "occupation" of Schrunk Plaza in Portland: the feds told 'em to scram - or else.
Paleolithic cuisine seems to be a growing trend at present in the USA and in Europe. On its face, it seems fairly stupid, and destined for a short life-span. The premise is that they serve only food that would have been readily available to hunter gatherers around two million years ago (this might be a problem for some of the hyper-religious as well, as they believe that Earth is only around 6,000 years old).
Among the newest to pop up: Berlin's Sauvage restaurant - no cheese, bread or sugar to be found, there. The menu includes salads with olives, capers and pine nuts; gluten-free bread with nut-based butter or olive tapenades; smoked salmon with herb dressing; and other various meat and fish dishes.
They don't seem to have much actual understanding of the life beyond about 2,000 years ago, but the place will be popular until it isn't. Greeks and Romans found ways to harvest olives; paleolithics surely did not. They also didn't know about breads; mostly, they were scavengers, gatherers, and - if necessary - hunters. Hunting was a dangerous business, and generally a last resort. It's also doubtful that the cuts of meat looked anything like the photo.
Well, you know that we've got to Save The Planet™ by switching from bad, bad incandescent lights to clean, green LED lights. So a lot more white LED lamps are being dumped into the hopper. They use less energy, so they're better for the environment - at least, that's what the social engineers tell you.
Ah. But it's what they don't tell you that is so interesting: the standard configuration of white-light LEDs actually produces two narrowcast bands of wavelength; one yellow, the other blue. Most of your body perceives this as white. As it happens, however, some important parts of your body home right in on the blue.
Of course, most people know about the types of photosensitive cells that grow in our eyes - rods do their work in low-light conditions; to them everything is black or white. Cones do the heavy lifting when it comes to color perception, but require stronger intensities to function.
But in 2001, David Berson from Brown University established that the eyes of mammals contain a third type of cell for absorbing light.
"This has been a very exciting discovery in the whole world of chronobiology and vision research," said Jay Neitz, a professor of ophthalmology at the University of Washington in Seattle. "We always thought rods and cones were responsible for circadian rhythms and then we find there's a particular cell that [sends signals] to the superchiasmatic nucleus, the brain's central clock important for daily biological rhythms."
The recently discovered type of cell, called intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells, are much smaller in number than other light-sensitive cells -- approximately only one of them for every million cones. But they contain a key light-sensitive protein called melanopsin. When light strikes melanopsin, it can trigger the ganglion cells to send signals to the superchiasmatic nucleus, a small brain region that regulates the body's circadian rhythms.
And herein lies the rub: Epidemiological studies have linked circadian disruptions to health problems, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and obesity.
Now, this may turn out to be a minor issue, if in fact an issue at all. But Saving The Planet™ is essentially a political issue; it's mostly about posturing and tossing buzzwords like "sustainability" around (while, of course, developing more tools with which to limit your freedom).
It seems somewhat curious that while governments have developed rigorous standards for ingestibles and medications - the endless and expensive trials before new medications are "approved", the required labeling of every gram of fat and carbohydrate in a box of cereal - they just turn around and cut these things loose on a generally unsuspecting populace, despite the fact that the LEDs may exert significant detrimental effects upon both human and a wider range of animal species.
Washington, DC (October 26, 2011) – Today, National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed a motion for summary judgment in their federal lawsuit challenging the National Labor Relations Board's (NLRB) new union posting rules released recently.
The motion was filed this afternoon in conjunction with National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia.
This is excellent news; in the Obama administration, agencies such as the NLRB and the EPA have become increasingly strident in their support of unions while working hard to hamstring enterprise.
In today's environment, nobody in their right mind wants to be forced to join a union in order to hold a job. All the union bosses want is the ability to steal part of your paycheck every month, which gives them a big pot of cash to devote to electing Democrats while enriching themselves. Oh, you can tell them that you don't want your "dues" used for political purposes. They'll just tell you to take a hike.
Remember, "Occupiers": carbon dioxide causes man-made global warming, so breathe!
Watch out where the huskies go
Don't you eat that yellow snow!
Stay put!
And have fun!
Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr
The impetus underlying the Left's knee-jerk of fear and loathing of Herman Cain can be found in his handling of the floundering Godfather's Pizza chain:
"I spent the first 60 days of my time at Godfather's listening, to figure out what we needed to do," Cain says. "It wasn't complicated: get back to basics."
"Number one, we had too many products on the menu. We had gotten away from our core product. We had too many crusts. We had the original Godfather's pizza crust, we had the original Godfather's pizza, and then we had three imitations that looked like Pizza Hut, Domino's, and Little Caesar's. I got rid of the three imitations, and we got back to focus on the one we were good at."
The Left wants more crusts, and they're afraid that someone like Cain might not give them that. In all probability, they're correct. But it gets worse: not only is he successful in business, he also headed a branch of the Fed. He has demonstrable experience, acumen - and he's a black Republican.
So the race card, which the Left dearly loves to play, is vaporized. And while Obama received about 95% of the black vote in 08, his numbers among that base have plummeted. Meanwhile, Cain's successes underscore Obama's string of failures. He is the Nobama.
Further, the Obama administration has alienated large numbers of independent voters as well as minority blocks such as hispanics.
Herman Cain represents the most lethal threat to Leftists in the USA in decades.
It took more than a little doing, but after holding a sit-in in the Massachusetts House chambers and generally tying things up, a Republican Representative finally got an answer to a question he first posed back in May: How much did taxpayers cough up last year for free health care to illegal aliens?
A simple enough question, but given the answer, it's not surprising that the administration was so reluctant to give up the answer.
The answer to that question? $93 million.
That's in Massachusetts alone, and by Obama's count, there are 57 or 58 states. Anybody who thinks that we don't have a serious problem when it comes to illegals in this country simply hasn't been paying attention.
And it will care for you. Your tax dollars pay for this stuff, so let's take a look at what you're involuntarily purchasing:
It gets better; remember, you're paying for this:
Isn't the Portland Bureau of Sustainability's webteam just amazing?
Don't you just love the little gap-toothed kids? You almost expect them to start gnawing on trees and building dams.
Forget that organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad. The cooks at "Occupy Wall Street" have about had it: they're angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.
Next thing you know, the drummers'll quit, too.
Meanwhile, here in Portland, the selflessness is just overwhelming:
A woman so wanted to help out at Occupy Portland early this morning that she left her 11-year-old son at a Southeast Portland convenience store in the care of two strangers so she could go to the protest site and wash dishes, the Portland Police Bureau reported. Definitely a contender for Mother of the Year.
Graphic courtesy of KGW tv.
Image by Getty Images via @daylife
The Columbian, which used to be a Vancouver print publication, has long been cheering on the I-5 bridge/light rail project. Given that they're so out-of-touch with residents, it's no surprise that they had to drop the print business. But here's how they portray the latest bridge battle:
Then, there's Willamette Week, which maintains its weekly print presence while uncovering a number of problems with the bridge project. Their take goes like this:
These are two stories in local media that purport to cover the same issue: a decision by the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals (LUBA) regarding the light-rail project that is light-heartedly referred to as a replacement I-5 bridge (in poli-Speak, it's the "Columbia River Crossing" (CRC)). It's always nice to see unbiased, factual reportage.
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