As some of you know, one of my partner’s friends works for the Obama campaign. Tonight, we caught up with him and found out some interesting stuff.

Turns out that, while Obama is gallivanting abroad, the poor schmucks working the phones are quite aware of the fact that the country is split down the middle. They know that the Hillary supporters are still angry and won’t vote for the Precious. They know that Obama and McCain are tied, and that’s not because McCain is so good, but because Americans are starting to see through Obama’s bullshit. Like all people, Americans hate being taken for granted which means that Obama acting like he was already crowned is not helping himself at all.

This poor schmuck told us that all of them poor peons wish that Obama would quit acting like a star and come back to campaigning and debating. That the people they call for money are starting to ask uncomfortable questions. That the donations are no longer enough for Obama’s magical adventures abroad. That his response about the Georgia situation was lame and that McCain won a lot of points there.

That they are afraid, and everyone except for those at the very top of the campaign know that the emperor is butt naked. Only nobody has the guts to say it.

Pink shoes

This is a pink boot shaped money box I would SO wear those fucking boots 😀

The ruined remains of Chernobyl have become a source of several
environmental mysteries. Rapid adaptation of rodents, the swift return of nature
and now extremely happy fungi that seem to be feeding on waste
radiation.

According to the research of some folks at the Albert Einstein College of
Medicine, Cryptococcus neoformans is converting radiation into fuel. This could
mean that fungus is the solution to two of our greatest environmental problems,
lack of fuel and too much radioactive waste.

All we need to do is surround our nuclear waste with this radiation-eating
fungus and then harvest it every once in a while to produce some kind of
bio-fuel. I doubt we have enough radioactive waste to feed enough fungus to run
America’s automobile fleet, but that’s hardly something to complain about. It
looks like melanin (the same melanin found in human skin) plays the roll of
chlorophyl in this ‘radiosynthesis.’ After taking in the radio waves, the
melanin starts off a reaction that allows the fungus to grow.

The scientists speculate that the fungus could be used for bio-fuel farms in
high-altitude areas with low-light and high-radiation. Or they could be food for
astronauts on long-haul, nuclear-powered missions. In any case, now we know that
life will continue even if the light of the sun disappeared, because fungi in
Chernobyl will continue to eat left-over radiation for centuries. And isn’t that
just the beginning of a wonderful sci-fi novel

.

Hat tip

http://www.ecogeek.org/content/view/677/

I probably don’t need to explain why this is incredible. The question that follows is:

“yeah, but are they sentient?”

ON a serious note, please consider the idea of mushrooms that eat nuclear waste. Petrol dependency? What petrol dependency?

Have you ever asked yourselves how come, when Breast cancer is such a fashionable condition, there is no cure for the fucking thing yet? All that awareness and fundraising and nothing to show for it.

Well, yeah, you can do stuff about it. Surgery that will leave you with horrible scars, chemotherapy that will make you lose your hair ( not always, I am of the 0.001% that didn’t), cover your body in pustules, make you throw up everything you eat, plus water, plus your own stomach’s lining.

That is my experience , only got so far, and I was considered “lucky”.

If you are lucky after about 2 years of the above you might be declared cancer free. But you know what? That is temporary. It might come back. In 80% of the cases it does. You will need more surgery, again chemo, more scars and so on.

Do you know why?

Because nobody is actively looking for a cure. All this awareness bullshit is exactly that, bullshit, because once you have it, that’s that.

Finding a cure for cancer is a long and painful process. It requires research, research facilities, trained personnel, time and money. Who’s gonna put it into it?

Pharma?

Now why would they do that?

It’s not a profitable thing to do for them. Allow me to explain:

Let’s say Pfizer goes and develops a cure for cancer. It would take them, say an average of 5 years( average research period ). During these 5 years, they have to pay for qualified staff, lab space, lab time, animal test subjects ( if you start going PETA on me, ask yourself when did you last take an antibiotic and STFU). They have to put these expenses into their yearly reports and explain to the idiotic bureaucrats why do they waste the shareholders’ money.

But let us assume that they do. Let us assume that after 5 years of fighting bureaucrats, PETA, etc, they finish the product. Now it’s going to pay off for them, right?

Umm, no. First, the whole process, which Pfizer had already tested to hell and back, has to be tested again by the government authority in charge of this. This takes an average of 5 years. And if you get sick in these 5 years and die… well tough luck. The government will take its sweet time. Does it need a 5 years testing time? Not necessarily, since most of these companies have to present large amounts of research and testing evidence when asking for a patent.

But, 5 years. Now let’s assume that we are still alive at the end of the 5 years. The company has gotten all of the approvals and can start marketing the cancer cure. Now, the company needs to get its money back, right?

After all, it’s a COMPANY. Its purpose is to make MONEY and keep its shareholders happy. Which means that CancerCure XYZ is going to cost hundreds of USD per month. If your ensurance company covers it, good for you. Chances are it won’t. Which means that you’d have to either pay for yourself, or hope. Hope doesn’t cure you btw.

Do I need to go further?

Plus, why in the hell would any pharma look for a cancer cure? IF cancer is cureable, who’s gonna buy chemo drugs? anti sickness drugs? skin care ointments?

So until someone who’s not in for the money and who doesn’t profit from people being sick as long as possible gets into the research business… ain’t gonna happen.

Let me make this clear: I have no problem with anyone supporting Obama because of his policies. If what Obama says make sense to you, if you really believe that what he says and what he does work together, if universal health insurance that leaves millions of people out works for you, if corporate pandering is your thing, then go on with your bad self and vote for Obama, make a shrine of him in your house and tatoo his name across your forehead if you so desire, you have my blessing. I have no problem with anyone who is voting for Obama because they are aware of his policies and agree with them, down to supporting FISA and chipping away at reproductive rights.

However, if you are and/or consider yourself a progressive, then we are talking about a completely different standard. Do you know why? Because you are supposed to know better.
If you’re an Obama supporter and write a plaintive post about FISA legislation passing and the loss of privacy rights that this brings, and forget to mention that YOUR OWN FUCKING CANDIDATE voted for it after blabbering for months about what a bad things it is?
Then you, my friend, are a hypocrite, and need to go check your eyesight.

If you still support Obama after this, then you have forfeited the right to call yourself a progressive. You are supporting the guy who gave away your right to privacy. If you still support him, then you approve of his actions. Therefore, you are not a progressive.

If you are a feminist who knows what mysoginy is like and can call it out on anyone, yet you seem to turn a blind eye to Obama’s misogyny? Congratulations, you are not a feminist. By not calling him on it you have become an accomplice to said misogyny.
Call yourself whatever you desire, but you are not a feminist. You can be an Obamacan, a DemoRat, whatever you desire. But feminist you ain’t.

If you seriously think you can be a progressive and/or feminist and STILL support Obama, this is where cognitive dissonance comes into play.
What is cognitive dissonance? It’s the gymnastics our brain does when it has to reconcile our proffered principles with our actions. Basically it pretends to not acknowledge some things in order to not feel like a hypocrite.
Of course, just because you don’t WANT to call yourself a hypocrite doesn’t mean that you aren’t one. It just means you are not being honest with yourself.

If the same actions would have been committed by someone else, and you would have called them on it, or have called people on them in the past, but you refuse to do it now because it’s Barack Obama… then you are a hypocrite and an accomplice to his deeds.

This has been a public service anouncement.