Love street performers, this is 10 min. of the best ever, let'r rip, stand back from this computer and shake like a soft boiled egg.

What? Charity receipts are down?

In Kansas where I am imprisoned under the uber Catholic Pope Brownback, local charities are falling flat this Christmas season.  Cutting taxes on the rich, eliminating them on most businesses and farms, was to lead to great wealth for all of us.  Then there was cutting hell out of state government aid programs to the poor, kids, handicap, old, this too would lead to great wealth for all.  Trickle down at last has it's day in the sun.
Turns out the farmer and the franchise owner took his tax saving to the bank, he didn't hire more people.  And it turns out the poor give a lot to charity.  I worked a charity table once at a WallMart, almost every thing we got came from black and brown people and white people that looked like they would be eligible for the very charity we collected for.  Well dressed people walked right past.  Sure they write big checks once in a while, but the most comes in a hand full of change or a $5 bill from people who know what it would mean to get it themselves.  But as income disparity grows and 4 out of 6 in Kansasippi public* schools are poor, the poor don't even have enough to feel good about sharing through charity, so charities are short.
Enjoy.
*private and religious schools are thick as fleas on a rat now, we now have segregation of the poor into the public schools, and thats fair game for more cuts when you get low scores in a whole school full of hard-knock kids.

I'd do it again in a transplanted heart-beat

 

3 church groups working to slow pollution and warming

Pope Francis is is working on an official papal encyclical tackling the environment and humanity’s relationship to it.  He has already said if we destroy nature nature will destroy us.  Now, a group of Bishops, from every continent, have issued a letter in Lima Peru at the climate talks, calling on every government in the world to end fossil fuel use.  It also says the global economic systems are incompatible with long-term ecological sustainability.
Not a catholic, but I wish them well with this, it's about time the biggest Christian Church gets in the middle of this, only could it please be even more forceful and right away.  There are a lot of obident followers, I hope, I pray, they will get behind this immediately in the church, their local government, at their dinner tables.  
FYI, drag your church screaming into joining one of these groups, or you can do it on your own:
http://www.interfaithpowerandlight.org/ a coalition of churches and religions.
http://www.creationcare.org/ this is the evangelical environmental network, and they are growing and pressuring politicians and local governments, below is from their recent letter sent in support of EPA rules.

As pro-life Christians, we urge the EPA to protect life and God's creation by reducing carbon pollution and toxic emissions from existing coal burning power plants. We ask the EPA to provide maximum flexibility to states as to how they will cut emissions, including options such as a pollution fee that could cut other taxes. It is time for our leaders to act for the sake of our children's health, the most vulnerable among us, and His beautiful creation.

after WWII we hanged people that tortured

Some of you know Ron, aka Sarge aka One Angry Zebra, he penned some interesting information and point of view I include here that I agree with.

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While some may still claim that the heinous and barbaric acts committed by the CIA with their so called, "Enhanced Interrogation Program", saved lives; the report seems to debunk that. Do you realize that in 1945 we hanged a Japanese general in Manila for using "water torture" on allied prisoners of war? What happened to us after 9/11 to become like the North Vietnamese who tortured Jeremiah Denton, James Stockwell, Robinson Risner, and yes, John McCain among countless others one of special interest being 1Lt Lance Scott Sijan, USAF, who was awarded the CMH posthumously for gallantry will prisoner of war.

It is common knowledge that the whole CIA rendition program was to accomplish two things; establish a credible link between Saddam Hussein and the events of 9/11 to justify invading Iraq. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11 has been reported to have been water- boarded over a hundred times. Why? Because, he and Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, and others were constantly, in sometimes a pathetic way, try to convince We The People that was true. KSM, never gave GW what he wanted because he couldn't; it was a lie....

Folks, we trashed the Geneva Convention and by our actions shamed America. Can  you even imagine how those still alive that suffered torture by our enemies view this? Think about the Japanese Battan Death March, the German Stalags, The Hanoi Hilton, the crew of the USS Pueblo; we as Americans were enraged by the way those evil men treated our people!  We should share that same rage against those that shamed America before the world with their barbaric conduct and demand punishment for all of those involved. It is time to do what is right!

Cops choking black men to death is legal

I don't know how much of this the minorities can take.  Literally hundreds of white cops have killed black men, kids, women, Mexicans, PuertoRicans the last few years, and not one (that I am aware of) was found guilty, and only a handfull ever went to trial.

Today the policeman we all saw walk up to a black New York man, choke him while the man begged that he couldn't breath, choked him until the man died right there in that couple minute video, that cop too will not even have to face a trial.  Frankly I think the civil rights movement has to swing back into action again to correct this,  just coasting along will not change anything.

Elected GOP officials are obliged to scorn this data.

The hottest year's global average are ranked by their record breaking position on the left.  The little chart of over 150 years indicates the total climb is about 1°C, or in excess of 2°F.  Oh is that so much?  Add 2° to your body temp, or your kids, next time you get a fever, add 2°F onto that.  Willing to take that risk?  Plants and animals cannot live in these warmer conditions in the same way or in the same numbers as they do now  
Don't get confused by the chart, the high temps are on the left.All honors and credits to Met.

Refreshing isn't exactly the right term

Setting in the snow Miss Indoor Health soon learns her polka-dot bikini is very absorbent.

best food pyramid, double it.

The food pyramid on the left is nutritional, those things you should consume in high volumes are backgrounded in green.  Those things that cause obesity, cholesterol, heart attacks, cancer, diabetes, erectile dysfunction, nerve damage and so on near the peak of the pyramid should be eaten in small amounts, or not at all.
The pyramid at the right counts the ecological impact of each item through things such as the amount of water and acreage and consumables (feed, chemicals, meds) used to produce, fuel to deliver it, energy  to harvest, butcher, package, cool or freeze, and finally to cook it.  Again the green background items are the winners, the safest for the earths resources and environment.
Wow, many of the same items that are good for us are good for the environment.  Excuse me, I'm headed to the kitchen for an orange.

The benefits of fossil fuel

That's a 2013 train wreck and explosion, tank cars full of North Dakota shale oil.  This scene is happening now every few days somewhere in the US with our aging gas pipes, oil pipelines, trains, gas stations, refineries, tank farms.  We had a truck blow up with a load of gas on a bridge, they had to do major work on the bridge, the heat damaged so much of the concrete.  Then in Hutchinson Kansas a few years ago underground salt caverns were pumped full of natural gas for storage, it found a way to the surface and got into an old mainstreet brick two story building and blew the shit out of it and burned for weeks.

Wind farm and solar farm disasters never go beyond the single unit affected.  Towns don't burn, people aren't evacuated.   So far a dangerous spill of wind and sunshine hasn't been reported.