Color Film of Chicago made in 1945

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Sarah Palin CPAC 2014

A friend bailed on the speech, making the very plausible case that Palin is simply another political celebrity freakshow, like Donald Trump. I can see the point there but, with Palin, and watching the hysterical reception her puerile screed received, there is something more serious going on. She is the living representation of the infantilization of American politics, a poisonous Grimm Sister telling toxic fairy tales to audiences drunk on fear, and hate and nonsense. She respects no standards but her own. She is in perpetual tantrum, railing against her betters, which is practically everyone, and volunteering for the job of avatar to the country’s reckless vandal of a political Id. It was the address of a malignant child delivered to an audience of malignant children. If you applauded, you’re an idiot and I feel sorry for you.

via Sarah Palin CPAC 2014 – CPAC Bonus Saturday — The Princess In Excelsis – Esquire.

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Whole Foods: America’s Temple of Pseudoscience

At times, the Whole Foods selection slips from the pseudoscientific into the quasi-religious. It’s not just the Ezekiel 4:9 bread its recipe drawn from the eponymous Bible verse, or Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, or Vitamineral Earth’s “Sacred Healing Food.” It’s also, at least for Jewish shoppers, the taboos that have grown up around the company’s Organic Integrity effort, all of which sound eerily like kosher law. There’s a sign in the Durham store suggesting that shoppers bag their organic and conventional fruit separately—lest one rub off on the other—and grind their organic coffees at home—because the Whole Foods grinders process conventional coffee, too, and so might transfer some non-organic dust. “This slicer used for cutting both CONVENTIONAL and ORGANIC breads” warns a sign above the Durham location’s bread slicer. Synagogue kitchens are the only other places in which I’ve seen signs implying that level of food-separation purity.

via Whole Foods: America’s Temple of Pseudoscience – The Daily Beast.

Still, we let it off the hook. Why? Two reasons come to mind. The first is that Whole Foods is a for-profit business, while the Creation Museum is the manifestation of an explicitly religious and political movement. For some reason, there’s a special stream of American rage directed at ideological attacks on science that seems to evaporate when the offender is a for-profit corporation.

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UK spy agency tapped into 1.8 million Yahoo Web cam chats

Of course, there are a few problems here. First of which, one could also search this system for anyone and everyone they wanted to blackmail or destroy. Got a political opponent who’s being difficult? See if you can find a Web chat between him and his mistress.

via UK spy agency tapped into 1.8 million Yahoo Web cam chats.

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Why is the U.S. Olympic Committee Tax Exempt?

And USOC paid its senior staff handsomely. A dozen of its top executives made $250,000 or more in 2012, and its CEO, Scott Blackmun, received $965,000. After all that, it still had nearly $100 million in surplus revenue.

To be fair, USOC isn’t the only sports behemoth to enjoy tax-exempt status. The National Football League, the National Hockey League, the Professional Golfers Association, and other big-bucks professional sports leagues are also tax-exempt–though under a different code subsection than USOC. Last year, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) introduced a bill to take away the tax-exemption for the pro outfits. It has gone nowhere.

via TaxVox » Blog Archive » Why is the U.S. Olympic Committee Tax Exempt?.

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