Joe. My. God.: About That Renegade Republican….
La Frontera Times: Another Immigrant Dies In ICE Detention From Poor Medical Care
Flip Flopping Joy: Treating: Communities vs. Individuals
Bitch: Apply for the Bitch Youth Leadership Council (Deadline Dec. 1)
NY Mag: Another kind of AIDS crisis
Jezebel: The Problem with Fashion’s Obsession with Death
Slate: What ever happened to the Amazon rainforest? Did we save it?
Dr. Aafia Siddiqui: The Story of the Brown Box
I Blame the Mother: Learning to be a mother not possible for the learning-disabled
Feministing: Notes from a bitch…reading is fundamental…
Flip Flopping Joy: being hungry: the places that scare you
Racialicious: NPR sort of hates “black music”
Evil Slutopia: Think before you pink this October
Shakesville: Seven Scenes, for a Reason
US News: Sally Ride: Astronaut urges girls to pursue science
Tex[t]-Mex: The fruit of Lou Dobb’s hate-filled spleen: Mario Vera
Rage Against the Man-chine: Too drunk to drive? Then you’re too drunk to deserve pity for having been raped, you dumb whore.
China Hush: Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China
FWD/Forward: Ableist Word Profile: Intelligence
New America Media: A stranger in his homeland
Womanist Musings: Spike Lee speaks the truth on Tyler Perry
via NY Times
MEXICO CITY (AP) — Teenagers use them to sneak beer into concerts. Morning commuters sip juice from them. Vendors save on containers by slopping everything from salads to bulk shampoo into them.
This smog-choked metropolis of 20 million has a red hot love affair with the plastic bag, and it’s about to take on a shade of green. The government is banning stores from packing up goods in free, non-biodegradable bags as its latest environmental endeavor after adding bike lanes, low-emissions buses and an ambitious recycling program.
Major retailers already are responding, though the law passed in March and signed in August gives them a year to comply. [...]
Mexico City joins San Francisco, New Delhi and a growing number of cities around the world restricting use of plastic bags, which the U.N. says are among the most pervasive types of ocean litter. Just producing the petroleum-based bags pumps tons of carbon emissions into the air.
I have a ton of stuff that I’ve been wanting to write about, but just haven’t had the time to do it (I will be sooooo happy after I turn in my grades/rosters tomorrow!). Here are some quick hits:
Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More
“And more,” meaning Mexicans and brown people. I’ve only three words: wtf?!
Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor. [...]
“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued…The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence. [...]
I was pretty peeved when Michael Chertoff pulled section 102 of the Real ID act out of his ass in order to waive federal environmental laws in April, which would push past his opposition and allow him to do whatever the hell he wants (in this case, take away people’s land to build the border wall). I’m horrified that the wall is going to cut through the wildlife corridor and cut off endangered species from mating routes (and their food/water sources). Obviously, Chertoff doesn’t give a shit, even though ecologists and scientists are telling him that building the wall there is plain stupid.
What I didn’t realize was that Chertoff waived 36 federal laws. Thirty six:
