Vegan My Way

Jun 12

[video]

May 21

BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Statoil are being investigated for price-fixing oil. Executives may face jail! -

The Prime Minister David Cameron says PETROL executives should be JAILED.

The London offices of BP and Shell have been raided by the European commission who’s said its officers carried out “unannounced inspections” at several offices of BP and Shell in London, the Netherlands and Norway to investigate claims they may have “colluded in reporting distorted prices to a PRA to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products”.

The government has also launched an investigation into potential rigging of the oil market because the price oil traders pay for oil is linked to a number of benchmark indices, the best known of which is Brent Crude.

The commission said the alleged price collusion, which may have been going on since 2002, could have had a “huge impact” on the price of petrol at the pumps “potentially harming final consumers”.

Now oil price fixing investigation have extended to trading houses Glencore, who’s merged with Xstrata, Vitol, Gunvor and Mercuria.

An EC spokesman said: “Even small distortions of assessed prices may have a huge impact on the prices of crude oil, refined oil products and biofuels purchases purchases and sales, potentially harming final consumers.”

Caroline Flint MP, Labour’s Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary: “The allegations that have been made about these three oil companies – BP, Royal Dutch Shell and Statoil, as well as the price reporting agency Platts, are extremely concerning.

The whistleblower gave Halfon a statement in which he said the price of oil was being deliberately distorted: ‘I trade the oil market on a daily basis and every day the price is manipulated,’ he said. ‘There is ample oil in the system to satisfy demand at the moment. Profiteering seems to be the only objective.’

BP and Shell declined to comment other than to acknowledge that they were under investigation and that they are co-operating with the relevant authorities.

May 18

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May 08

“There have been 694 proposed abortion restriction provisions in the first three months of 2013 alone.” —

Guttmacher Institute, via ThinkProgress (via actualfactsaboutabortion)

(via truth-has-a-liberal-bias)

fuckyeahfeminists:

rhrealitycheck:

Cost Of Birth Control Higher In Some Low-Income Neighborhoods Than In Wealthy Ones

Researchers focused on the price of seven commonly-used contraceptives — including various forms of the pill as well as transvaginal options like the ring. They cross-referenced the price information across various counties with median household incomes from the 2010 census.

Nearly every prescription contraceptive was more expensive in low-income zip codes, the researchers found.

In most cases, price differed by just a few dollars. For two of the contraceptives, the cost was significantly less in the wealthiest zip codes.

Researchers said they don’t know the reason for the price discrepancies. Certain neighborhoods may not have a large, chain pharmacy that offers lower prices and runs specials, Zite speculated.

“There is other research that has shown that a lot of needs for health, like fruits and vegetables, are more expensive in lower-income neighborhoods,” Zite added.

uh oh is this going to start another fight that healthy food isn’t actually expensive and poor people just dont try hard enough to eat well because “duh my family eats sooo many veggies with little money, so everyone is able to do it!”

[video]

May 04

(Republican) Eric Cantor to propose ending overtime pay for hourly workers -

In Eric Cantor’s February 2013 speech, he said he wanted to propose Federal Law that would end overtime pay for hourly workers.  Currently, the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, mandates that certain workers get paid “time + 1/2″ for overtime work.  Eric Cantor wants to eliminate that law.

Cantor says its a policy that would allow workers to convert overtime compensation into time off. “I gave a talk today about helping people and about finally focusing on legislation that has understandable benefits right away,” He explained that it would help parents who wanted to go on a field trip or attend a teacher conference.

The GOP tried to do the same thing in 2003 in House Bill: HR 1119 “Family Time Flexibility Act”

(Source: aka14kgold, via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)

May 03

Five Reasons Why Meat-Eating Cannot Be Considered a ‘Personal Choice’ -

itsasecrettoeverybody:

Of all the convoluted rationalizations for eating meat in an age when eating meat is not at all necessary for our survival or health, many people today are borrowing a popular slogan I like to call “the personal choice self deception.” It goes something like this: “My decision to eat meat is a personal choice.” And it is usually followed by a statement sympathetic to their vegan and vegetarian friends, acknowledging that they too are making personal choices that are right for them. Sounds great on the surface, but it’s what lurks beyond the surface that I find deeply disturbing for five key reasons.

1. Eating is a communal, multi-cultural activity until the vegan sits down at the table

First, let’s take a closer look at what personal means in the context of the highly social human activity of eating. Personal food choices had never been discussed at the dinner table until a growing number of vegans and vegetarians — by their very presence at the table — question the legitimacy of eating animals. A person who tells you that their meat eating is a personal choice is really telling you “stay away.” They don’t want you to question their highly-coveted moral beliefs or perhaps they object to exposing their unexamined moral quandary over how one can justify using and killing animals for food in an age when it is completely unnecessary. In other words, They have made this issue personal precisely in response to you making it public.

2. There is no free choice without awareness

The irony is that while meat eaters defend their choice to eat meat as a personal one, they will nonetheless go to great lengths to defend it publicly when confronted with a vegan or vegetarian. Like some apologetic white liberals who defend themselves by defiantly exclaiming to a new black acquaintance, “But I have black friends too!”, some meat eaters will go to great lengths to explain how intimately they understand veganism since they have vegan friends, have already heard and evaluated their reasons for going vegan and respect them dearly.

They’ve considered being vegan carefully, they will assure you, and have concluded that it’s just not for them. But instead of arriving at some novel new understanding of why humans should eat meat, they simply revert back to the traditional arguments that are all pretty much centered around what social psychologist Melanie Joy calls the three N’s of justification: eating meat is normal, natural and necessary. (1) But their reasoning reveals the fact that they have sorely overlooked the big idea behind veganism which author Jenny Brown points out so eloquently in her book The Lucky Ones: “We can become prisoners of our earliest indoctrinations or we can choose to look critically at our assumptions and align our lives with our values. Choosing to live vegan is how we re able to do that best.” (2)

3. The choice has a victim and the victim is completely ignored

Let’s take a look at the issue from the animal victim’s perspective which has been completely denied by the meat eater’s unexamined assumption that animals have no interest or understanding of the value of their individual lives. Does the animal who is being bred, raised and slaughtered for someone’s food care if the person who is eating meat has given the prospect of becoming vegan any serious moral consideration? Of course not.

The notion that these conscious meat eaters think they have done their due diligence by examining the pros and cons of eating animals means nothing for those that value their lives as we do. The fact is the animals we raise for meat have at least as much of an interest in staying alive, avoiding pain and suffering and seeking pleasure as these meat eaters’ pets. As activist Twyla Francois so aptly puts it: “All animals have the same capacity for suffering, but how we see them differs and that determines what we’ll tolerate happening to them. In the western world, we feel it wrong to torture and eat cats and dogs, but perfectly acceptable to do the same to animals equally as sentient and capable of suffering. No being who prides himself on rationality can continue to support such behaviour.”

4. Many personal choices we make have dire consequence for ourselves and others

Now let’s take a closer look at the meaning of choice itself. The act of making a choice implies that the actor has free will and awareness of the options and their consequences. In the spirit of justice, we live in a society where our actions and choices are governed by what society deems acceptable. We can make a personal choice to maim, rape or kill someone, but these actions will have consequences that serve as a deterrent. It is generally accepted in a democratic society that we are free to do what we want as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else or infringe on the same rights and freedoms of others.

Yet, for the meat eater, the choice of eating animals is completely disconnected from this concept of justice since justice does NOT for them apply to other species, only to humans (how convenient). In other words, there are no visible, negative consequences to eating meat. The victims remain invisible and silent to those who eat them, and that is perhaps the greatest deception of all.

5. Atrocities are never personal

In reality, the choice to eat meat negates the very meaning of choice because the animal that had to be killed to procure the meat had no choice in the matter at all. And the notion of characterizing such a choice as a personal one is even more problematic since the choice required the taking of another’s life, not a personal sacrifice. Nothing could be more public than the taking of a sentient life that cares about his own life, particularly when the act is not necessary and therefore not morally defensible.

When 60 billion land animals and another approximate 60 billion marine animals are killed every year across the planet for “personal” food choices made by a single species that are based on palate pleasure alone, eating meat ceases to be a matter of personal choice; (4) it becomes a social justice movement to protect the rights of animals. To deny animals the right to live their lives according to their own interests is wrong and to attempt to defend our choice to eat them as a personal one is delusional.

See Seven Reasons Why Man Has NOT Evolved to Eat Meat

Vegan Starter Kit

Apr 29

altnonfic:

Feb 28, 2013 - By wearing different colored hats, over 2,600 employees at Genentech (in San Francisco) celebrated the 60th anniversary of the discovery of DNA, which (according to some) occurred in England on Feb 28, 1953, but knowledge of a hypercomplex macromolecule in the nucleus dates back to the 1800s, and perhaps even earlier. 

(via bunnybundy)

Apr 17

[video]

Apr 02

Mar 27

thepoliticalfreakshow:

Key Quotes From Day 1 of Same-Sex Marriage Supreme Court Proceedings

Day 1: State Ballot Initiative (Proposition 8) [Hollingsworth v. Perry]

The Supreme Court heard arguments Tuesday in the first of two gay marriage cases it is considering this week. Below are some notable quotes from members of the high court at today’s hearing:

MORE: Full audio and transcript of Tuesday’s arguments

Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy

“There’s substance to the point that sociological information is new. We have five years of information to weigh against 2,000 years of history or more.”

Associate Justice Elena Kagan

“Suppose a state said that, Because we think that the focus of marriage really should be on procreation, we are not going to give marriage licenses anymore to any couple where both people are over the age of 55. Would that be constitutional?”

Associate Justice Samuel Alito

“You want us to step in and render a decision based on an assessment of the effects of this institution which is newer than cellphones or the Internet? I mean we — we are not — we do not have the ability to see the future.”

Chief Justice John Roberts attends an event at Rice University in Houston on Oct. 17, 2012.(Photo: Cody Duty, AP)

Chief Justice John Roberts

“I’m not sure that it’s right to view this as excluding a particular group. When the institution of marriage developed historically, people didn’t get around and say, ‘Let’s have this institution, but let’s keep out homosexuals.’ The institution developed to serve purposes that, by their nature, didn’t include homosexual couples.”

Associate Justice Antonin Scalia

“When did it become unconstitutional to exclude homosexual couples from marriage? 1791? 1868, when the 14th Amendment was adopted?”

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor

“Outside of the marriage context, can you think of any other rational basis, reason, for a state using sexual orientation as a factor in denying homosexuals benefits or imposing burdens on them? Is there any other rational decision-making that the government could make? Denying them a job, not granting them benefits of some sort, any other decision?”

(via reagan-was-a-horrible-president)

it's not a party until I make a boy cry: Safety Tips for Men -

manhating-babyeater:

dignified-and-old:

inothernews:

If you want to know what kind of vile, repulsive people are out there, then go read this New York Post story about a New York City emergency medical technician who talks a lot of racist, anti-Semitic, sexist shit — and what pathetically happens when he gets called on the mat by said newspaper.

Hahahahah omg cry forever and may it always be splashed across the pages of a major newspaper (even a terrible one like the Post)

“It comes less than a week after The Post exposed the vile racist and anti-Semitic tweets posted by Fire Commissioner Sal Cassano’s own EMT son. Joseph Cassano, 23, who quit the next day.” omg it took me so long to realize this was a different guy