1. 22 Oct


    gifwich: LIVE GIFFING THE FINAL PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: WE HAVE LAUNCH It’s happening! Check out Gifwich for Tumblr’s live animated GIF coverage of the debate-season finale between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, this time with extra spicy foreign policy favor. Wrapping up the cycle on the GIF art team are Topherchris, Bobby Finger, Lacey Micallef, Mr. GIF, and Dianna McDougall. And please do be so kind as to submit your own debate-themed animated GIFs for posting. For a special added politainment bonus, observe the Livestream video that is actually from inside Livestream itself, where Tumblr has invaded and set up shop with bloggers and pizza for tonight’s event. Lots of extra special features planned for the video feed tonight, we assure you. Otherwise, absorb extra commentary from Tumblr’s official Election blog and our friends over at the Guardian liveblog. Let’s throw down. ROUND 3! FIGHT!!

    gifwich:

    LIVE GIFFING THE FINAL PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE: WE HAVE LAUNCH

    It’s happening! Check out Gifwich for Tumblr’s live animated GIF coverage of the debate-season finale between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, this time with extra spicy foreign policy favor. Wrapping up the cycle on the GIF art team are Topherchris, Bobby Finger, Lacey Micallef, Mr. GIF, and Dianna McDougall. And please do be so kind as to submit your own debate-themed animated GIFs for posting.

    For a special added politainment bonus, observe the Livestream video that is actually from inside Livestream itself, where Tumblr has invaded and set up shop with bloggers and pizza for tonight’s event. Lots of extra special features planned for the video feed tonight, we assure you. Otherwise, absorb extra commentary from Tumblr’s official Election blog and our friends over at the Guardian liveblog. Let’s throw down.

    ROUND 3! FIGHT!!

     

  2. 26 Jan



    Our growth is generally dependent upon our ability to obtain new contracts to develop and manage new correctional and detention facilities… . The demand for our facilities and services could be adversely affected by the relaxation of enforcement efforts, leniency in conviction and sentencing practices or through the decriminalization of certain activities that are currently proscribed by our criminal laws. For instance, any changes with respect to drugs and controlled substances or illegal immigration could affect the number of persons arrested, convicted, and sentenced, thereby potentially reducing demand for correctional facilities to house them.
    — 

    Corrections Corporation of America, the largest private prison operator in America, statement to stockholders, 2005.

    In other words: ending the Drug War and eliminating federal mandatory minimum sentences is bad for business.  Adam Gopnik notes that CCA “spends millions lobbying legislators.”  presumably, inter alia, to keep harsh sentencing laws on the books.

    source

    (via letterstomycountry)

    Private prison industry? What private prison industry?

    (via excitablehonky)

    Hahahaha this society is a joke.

    (via humanformat)

    (via the-sexpat-life)

     

  3. 21 Jan


    demons:

    What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over. I expect that the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.

    But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, This was their finest hour.

    Prime Minister Winston Churchill, 18 June 1940

    (via monkeybrainsandbanana-deactivat)

     

  4. 16 Aug



    The More You Know

    While going through several history pages on Wikipedia I ended up at the Spanish-American War of 1898. I don’t really know why I ended up there.

    What I found out was how the United States managed to fund this four month war: by passing an excise tax on long-distance phone services. It worked, because only the wealthy could afford a phone and the ability to call long-distance. While the tax was originally 1 cent per call, it grew to 3% of people’s communication bills… in 1914, already sixteen years after the short war ended. Maybe it seemed like a way to finance the impending doom of WW1?

    The tax was finally repealed in 2006, 108 years after the Spanish-American War. Just a year before in January of 2005, a bill was sent through the House of Representative to extend the tax through all new digital communications services. What the hell.

     

  5. 11 Aug



    melancholicbeauty:

    russellblog.: people of the USA I beg you

    ngffrussell:

    do not vote for Mitt Romney, Michele Bachmann, Rick Santorum, or Tim Pawlenty

    all four of them have signed a pledge to create a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage among other things intended to strip LGBT americans of many rights they now enjoy

    this is completely insane and has…

    As a general rule of thumb, just don’t vote for Republicans. 

    ^

    (Source: anitivoni, via melancholicbeauty-deactivated20)

     

  6. 9 Aug


    melancholicbeauty: logicallypositive: A chart showing the population density of prisoners in various countries. Notice the one red country on the entire chart: the USA 5% of the world population, 25% of the world’s prison population. Home of the Free, Land of the Brave?  There are so many people in Russia that are in prison for such stupid reasons… such as people from an opposition party or from non-profit organisations that are later declared to be either “hackers” or “thieves”. The US, though, doesn’t have the excuse of a lack of freedom of speech.

    melancholicbeauty:

    logicallypositive:

    A chart showing the population density of prisoners in various countries. Notice the one red country on the entire chart: the USA

    5% of the world population, 25% of the world’s prison population. Home of the Free, Land of the Brave? 

    There are so many people in Russia that are in prison for such stupid reasons… such as people from an opposition party or from non-profit organisations that are later declared to be either “hackers” or “thieves”. The US, though, doesn’t have the excuse of a lack of freedom of speech.

    (Source: rigatonideology, via melancholicbeauty-deactivated20)

     

  7. 17 Jul


    2011 Women’s FIFA World Cup Champions - Japan.

    2011 Women’s FIFA World Cup Champions - Japan.

     

  8. 14 Jul



    China has said that it hopes the U.S. would be in favour of such responsible policies as raising the U.S. debt ceiling. If the U.S. end up doing that, it’s just further indication that the United States is no longer a superpower and has no business poking around in other countries’ business.

     

  9. 8 Jul


    dennisl09:

    Sometimes you read/see a news story that just embodies and clarifies an entire subject. It can summarize an entire Political Science class in one article. For example,  Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff  recently took her first state visit outside Latin America. But it wasn’t like the last 100 Brazilian Presidents, who all made the trek to Washington. No, she went to Beijing, where she signed 13 new trade and cooperation deals. The most significant was China’s purchase of 35 commercial airliners from the Brazilian manufacturer Embraer. I wonder how Boeing or Airbus felt about that? Trade between Brazil and China has increased 500% in the past 6 years, and this year Brazil’s leading trade partner will be China. 
     All of this points to further evidence that the USA’s reign as the undisputed champion of the world’s economy is coming to an end. Hard to say exactly when the decline started, although it did seem we were doing well in the 90’s.  The invasion of Iraq and pouring billions or trillions of dollars into Iraq accelerated the decline. Kind of like the result when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, just 6 years before the Soviet Union began to collapse. Oh wait. We also invaded Afghanistan…..

    (via hitrecordjoe)