March 8, 2012

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Battle of Big Ideas

New Firewall!

March 8, 2012

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Sweet Spot

Eric’s newest post puts me in mind of years of such work; each essay a little vacation you can take again and again. Good writers are like vacation tour guides; when they take you someplace beautiful you go willingly and always want to return.

‘Shelter’ reminded me of what I call the sweet spot out back. Whatever the season, whether it’s cloyingly humid or briskly clean and clear, the sun comes through the trees exactly right in that spot first thing in the morning. Being a morning person means sometimes I’m able to watch the sun rise and glean the heat from the first rays to hit that spot. It’s like a little miracle, every morning.

March 7, 2012

5 Comments

First Crinum

I know; there’s a ‘first Crinum Lily’ post every Spring. I can’t help myself. And like everything else in my yard, these are early by roughly a month.

Click to embiggen.

The Plumeria are catching up…

Of course I have to squeeze in another gratuitous shot of the Badger.

March 7, 2012

6 Comments

Electoral College

Bill Whittle explains the Electoral College, why it’s under fire and why we need it.

Heck, I just enjoy listening to him.

March 6, 2012

7 Comments

‘Ordinary Business Operations’

File this under things you wish you didn’t know…

Obama agency rules Pepsi use of cells derived from aborted fetus ‘ordinary business’

 
LARGO, FL, March 5, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Pepsi Company, which is set to release the new product Pepsi Next in the coming weeks, is facing a more robust boycott as pro-life activists protest the company use of cells derived from an aborted fetus in flavor-enhancing research. But Pepsi has succeeded, with help from the Obama Administration, in keeping its controversial operations from consideration by its shareholders.

In a decision delivered Feb 28th, President Obama’s Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) ruled that PepsiCo’s use of cells derived from aborted fetal remains in their research and development agreement with Senomyx to produce flavor enhancers falls under “ordinary business operations.”

The letter signed by Attorney Brian Pitko of the SEC Office of Chief Counsel was sent in response to a 36-page document submitted by PepsiCo attorneys in January, 2012. In that filing, PepsiCo pleaded with the SEC to reject the Shareholder’s Resolution filed in October 2011 that the company “adopt a corporate policy that recognizes human rights and employs ethical standards which do not involve using the remains of aborted human beings in both private and collaborative research and development agreements.”

PepsiCo lead attorney George A. Schieren noted that the resolution should be excluded because it “deals with matters related to the company’s ordinary business operations” and that “certain tasks are so fundamental to run a company on a day-to-day basis that they could not be subject to stockholder oversight.”

I was assured that Coke does it as well.

The story is about the Obama administration’s stamp of approval on such heinous actions, but as I did not know this was happening, to me it’s about the shock.

ALSO see: Morally Tainted: Products Made Possible by the Killing of Innocent Human Life at The National Catholic Register.

Senomyx uses the cell line HEK 293 to test chemicals as possible flavor enhancers. Cell line HEK 293 was derived from the kidney tissue of a boy aborted in the 1970s. HEK stands for “Human Embryonic Kidney.” The HEK 293 line was subsequently genetically engineered with viral DNA and is now available for sale from a common chemical-supply company called SigmaAldrich. Senomyx is reported to have contracts with giants like PepsiCo, Kraft and Nestle to test flavor enhancers for their products.

Basically the large companies like Pepsi, Kraft and Nestle do not personally use aborted fetal tissue themselves, they all contract with research labs like Senomyx that do. Does that make it better? Not really.

 

March 6, 2012

8 Comments

Did I push the wrong button?

I know you can come up with a better caption!

March 6, 2012

2 Comments

PETA is a Lie

 
Known for their shock ads and protests, PETA is a front for domestic terrorists. Their claim to fame, the ‘ethical treatment of animals’ is a lie.

 

The nonprofit Center for Consumer Freedom last week reported that PETA slaughtered fully 95 percent of the stray dogs and cats it “rescued” in 2011.

And that’s par for the cat-killing course: Overall, PETA has killed more than 90 percent of the animals it’s taken in since 2005.

Bottom line: The organization that claims its members would “rather go naked than wear fur” prefers to kill dogs and cats rather than find homes for them.

Yes, making the effort to find homes for stray pets takes time — of which PETA apparently has precious little.

In 2010, the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services discovered that fully 84 percent of the strays taken in by PETA were killed within 24 hours.

No wonder: The report concluded that PETA’s headquarters “does not contain sufficient animal enclosures to routinely house the number of animals annually reported as taken into custody.”

So, off they go to the gas chamber.

No surprise, though, that the organization is much more adept at fund-raising than it is at finding homes for kittens and puppies.

PETA’s annual budget is $37 million, “most,” it claims, coming from tax-deductible contributions from 2 million members.

But that is also considerably supplemented by foundation support: PETA has received some $18.7 million over the last three years from organizations like game-show host Bob Barker’s DJ&T Foundation.
NYPost

From ActivistCash, which has a lengthy page on the organization:

PETA collected almost $29 million in donations in 2004 alone, but few donors understand exactly where their money is going. During the past ten years, PETA has spent four times as much on criminals and their legal defense than it has on shelters, spay-neuter programs, and other efforts that actually help animals.

PETA is directly tied to domestic terrorists ALF and ELF, proudly proclaiming their funding. Oh, there is plenty of information on the net for anyone who looks.

Yet people are duped into donating. Unbelievable.

March 6, 2012

4 Comments

Brinicle

“Icy finger of death”

 

There’s a naturally occurring phenomenon beneath the Arctic shelf called a brine icicle or ‘brinicle’ that occurs when super cold brine trickles down and the surrounding sea water surrounds it with a layer of ice.

FoxNews

Wild!

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