Budweiser For Beards

Via press release from Budweiser:

Budweiser is asking adult men across America to help save one million gallons of water by not shaving in the days and weeks leading up to World Environment Day (June 5). As part of Budweiser's ongoing commitment to water conservation, the Grow One. Save a Million. program allows consumers to get involved and save roughly 5 gallons of water for each shave they skip. Consumers 21 years of age and older can visit Budweiser's Facebook page to make a pledge and share the program with Facebook friends. Participants can commit to a range of options, from a few days to multiple weeks. Ladies can get involved by recruiting male friends or family members. The page also features a daily tracker of the gallons saved to date.

David Barton On Earth Day

"Are you kidding me, Earth Day in the schools? We've got to save the Earth? I mean, that's like a tick trying to save a whole heard of cattle. I mean, ticks go along for the ride, they don't manage the cattle, they don't tell them where to go. And that's our arrogance in thinking that we can do something to save the planet and control where the planet goes. You know, we're just along for the ride and we're insignificant peons on this thing." - Dominionist David Barton, who says that environmentalism is "anti-Biblical."

Tweet Of The Day - Chris Barron

Homocons and wingnuts are amusing themselves today by tweeting all the ways they're going to hurt the environment in observance of pinko communist Earth Day.

Koch Brothers-Backed House GOP Works To Abolish EPA Rules On Climate Change

The House Energy and Commerce Committee, which is now chaired and dominated by Republicans funded by the oil industry Koch Brothers, is working to abolish EPA rules designed to reduce climate change. (More billions for the Kochs!) Despite daylong expert scientific testimony, GOP committee members repeatedly denounced the evidence and declared that Democrats want to destroy the nation's energy supply. That prompted Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) to deliver one of the best responses you'll like hear in something as normally dry-as-dust as an energy meeting.

Yeah, I had to look up Schrödinger's Cat too. Shortly after Markey's speech, the bill was advanced to the full House by a voice vote.

NEW YORK CITY: Lawmaker Introduces Bill To Tax Plastic Bags At 25 Cents

New York state Assemblyman Micah Kellner has introduced a bill that would impose a 25 cent tax on every plastic bag issued by New York City retailers. Every year the city sends 5.2 billion plastic bags to the landfill.

"I want to make it a faux pas to be seen on the street with a plastic bag," said Kellner, a Manhattan Democrat. "While we may use plastic bags for a couple of minutes to bring home our groceries, they stay in the environment for thousands of years." Kellner is sponsoring a bill, introduced late last month, that would impose a 25-cent tax on every plastic bag used to carry groceries or other store merchandise in New York City. The same bill would incentivize the use of reusable shopping bags -- made of canvas or thicker, sometimes recycled plastic -- by allowing grocers to give them to consumers if they leave a quarter as a deposit. After a year, the unclaimed quarters would be swept to City Hall's coffers. A tax break would be offered to cover "a majority" of the cost of reusable bags, which cost over $1 on the low end, more if you want hemp or recycled cotton.

Unsurprisingly, plastic bag manufacturers are opposed to Kellner's bill, with one industry spokesman saying, "By that math, he's taxing a family $3.75 every time they go to the grocery store -- money they could use to buy milk for their children." Kellner, the state's only openly bisexual legislator, can often be found outside of Upper East Side stores where he hands out reusable bags with his name on them. "I'm the Justin Bieber of tote bags," he says.

2000 Vs 2010: What Has Changed

Nearly a billion more people in just ten years and almost twice as many endangered species. Embiggen for a better look.

(Source)

Incoming House GOP Head Of Climate Change Committee Paid By Big Oil Not To Do Anything About Climage Change

Quote Of The Day - Sarah Palin

"Conservationists write me these nasty letters because I support an industry like this," the former vice presidential candidate said, after taking a chainsaw to an Evergreen Timber tree. "They write me these nasty letters using their pretty little pencils on their pretty little stationery not realizing. Where do you think your pencil and your piece of paper came from, people? It came from a tree that was harvested." - Sarah Palin, on last night's episode of her reality show.

Tweet Of The Day - Sarah Palin

Mama Grizzly is very touchy about the criticism of tonight episode of her reality show in which she goes hunting for caribou. Today Palin hosts wingnut hunting advocate Ted Nugent on a pre-show podcast.

Red Honey In Red Hook

Beekeepers in Red Hook, Brooklyn say their hives are producing Red Dye #40-laden honey because their bees have been dive-bombing a nearby maraschino cherry factory.

Mr. Selig, who owns the restaurant chain Rice and raises the bees as a hobby, was disappointed that an entire season that should have been devoted to honey yielded instead a red concoction that tasted metallic and then overly sweet. He and Ms. Mayo also fear that the bees’ feasting on the stuff could have unforeseeable health effects on the hives. But Mr. Selig said there was something extraordinary, too, about those corn-syrup-happy bees that came flying back this summer. “When the sun is a bit down, they glow red in the evenings,” he said. “They were slightly fluorescent. And it was beautiful.”

The real point of this post, of course, is "Hello, hot beekeeper!"

Christianist Groups Join Forces: Don't Believe Lies Of The Environmentalists

"Environmentalism is deadly to the gospel of Jesus Christ."

(Via - Right Wing Watch)

Italy's Garbage Crisis Worsens

Garbage hasn't been collected for weeks in Naples and blame is being directed towards Italy's prime minister.

The rotting garbage piled up on the streets of Naples has become an enduring symbol to Italians of the many problems facing Silvio Berlusconi’s crumbling conservative government. The prime minister came to power as a “Mr. Fix It” less than three years ago vowing to clean up a mess that his centre-left predecessor had failed to sort out, and often cites the clearing of Naples’ streets as one of his biggest successes. He even held his first cabinet meeting there, promising a break with past administrations that had failed to solve the chronic rubbish problem in Campania—the poor, southern region of which Naples is the capital. Halfway into his term, facing the prospect of early elections due to the implosion of his centre-right coalition and a string of sex and graft scandals, Berlusconi is seeing Naples’ trash back on the front pages of newspapers and TV bulletins. “Naples garbage? It’s just like two years ago,” read the headline of the daily La Stampa on Tuesday.

Berlusconi is probably too busy chasing underage girls and making homophobic remarks. Check out these astounding photos of poor Naples.

GOP Rep. John Shimkus: Don't Worry, God Will Take Care Of Global Warming

And this guy wants to be the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. How terrifying is that?

Tip It, Kathleen

Self-serve wine fill-up stations have arrived in France's supermarkets. BYOB.

The Oil Is Leaking Again

After a few days of seeming success, the capping attempt appears to be failing.

The federal government Monday allowed BP to keep the cap shut tight on its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well for another day despite news the well is leaking at the top and something is seeping from the sea floor nearby. The Obama administration's point man for the spill, retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, said early Monday that the company promised to watch closely for signs of new leaks around the mile-deep well, which has stopped gushing oil into the water since the experimental cap was closed Thursday. Late Sunday, Allen said something was detected seeping near the broken oil well and demanded in a sharply worded letter that BP step up monitoring of the ocean floor. Allen didn't say what was seeping. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday afternoon the seepage was about two miles from the well head. He also said the well head is leaking.

And some improvement in water quality was already being seen. Heavy sigh.

Photo Of The Day - Mark Foley

The ostensible purpose of this post is to pimp my beloved Father Tony's South Florida Gay News profile of the good Mark Foley, who is a Fort Lauderdale park ranger and environmentalist and should not be confused with disgraced former Rep. Mark Foley, who also lives in South Florida. But to be truthful, I just wanted to post this photo of my favorite bartender at the Ramrod, where Mark moonlights on weekends.

The Oil Spill After One Year?

A simulation by the University of Hawaii.

The Talking Feds

I have a feeling the Talking Heads didn't approve this, but you've got to admit it's well done.

Concerned Women Are Concerned About How Immorality Caused The Oil Spill

The pesky Gulf oil spill wasn't caused by a Republican deregulated oil industry free to pursue profits over safety. According to the Concerned Women for America, it was caused by immoral government employees who were surfing for porn instead of doing their jobs.

President Reagan reduced government regulations that were choking the life out of business in our nation. He certainly didn’t lift all regulations so that federal workers could be paid to surf pornography and take gifts from those they were regulating. Given these recent examples of moral license leading to costly burdens on the American taxpayer, fiscal conservatives should rethink their ideas about giving up on the social issues that we at Concerned Women for America, and our half a million members, care about.

(Via - Right Wing Watch)

Log Cabin Condoms

Log Cabin Republicans gave these out at Twin Cites Pride, telling the Advocate: "This one was such a no-brainer. With all the national attention with BP and the Gulf of Mexico and the suspension of any deep-water drilling, and Sarah Palin saying those words, it was like the planets coming into conjunction. What a great way to be in the spirit of pride."