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What's that word they use for a society where the group of those with money and power are above the law? Oh, that's right: Oligarchy! While this regulatory capture continued, how many of us filled up our homes with these toxic products? Via Think Progress: Large manufacturers and chemical producers have lobbied ferociously to stop the National Institutes of Health from classifying formaldehyde as a carcinogen. A wide body of research has linked the chemical to cancer, but industrial polluters have stymied regulators from action. Last year, the New Yorker's Jane Mayer reported that billionaire David Koch, whose company Georgia Pacific (a subsidiary of Koch Industries) is one of the country's top producers of formaldehyde, was appointed to the NIH cancer board at a time when the NIH delayed action on the chemical. The news was met with protests from environmental groups. Faced with mounting pressure from Greenpeace and the scientific community, Koch offered an early resignation from the board in October. Yesterday, the NIH finally handed down a report officially classifying formaldehyde as a carcinogen: Government scientists listed formaldehyde as a carcinogen, and said it is found in worrisome quantities in plywood, particle board, mortuaries and hair salons. They also said that styrene, which is used in boats, bathtubs and in disposable foam plastic cups and plates, may cause cancer but is generally found in such low levels in consumer products that risks are low. Frequent and intense exposures in manufacturing plants are far more worrisome than the intermittent contact that most consumers have, but government scientists said that consumers should still avoid contact with formaldehyde and styrene along with six other chemicals that were added Friday to the government's official Report on Carcinogens. Its release was delayed for years because of intense lobbying from the chemical industry, which disputed its findings. An investigation by ProPublica found th

A desperate inquire into for a 20-month-old Bronx baby former happily Tuesday night when the infant was found with a troubled 13-year-old aunt who snatched her, cops said.

Sinaloa Mexico cartel: Pilot found his calling smuggling cocaine

One of the most fascinating things to come out of the current We Are 99%/Occupy Wall Street protests is the We Are 99% Tumblr.  At the site, people hold up signs that explain their current circumstances, and it tells the story of a whole range of Americans struggling in the Lesser Depression.  It is highly recommended. DATA The site features pictures of individuals holding their signs, and occasionally the tumblr reproduces the text of the signs themselves underneath the image as html text.  Sometimes the text under the image is blank, sometimes it is a different message, but often it is the sign itself. In order to get a slightly better empirical handle on this important tumblr, I created a script designed to read all of the pages and parse out the html text on the site.  It doesn't read the images (can anyone in the audience automate calls to an OCR?), just the html text.  After collecting all the text on all the pages, the code then goes through it to try to find interesting points. It's a fun exercise, pointing out things I wouldn't have seen otherwise.  For instance, I found this adorable little rascal, pictured below, mucking up the algorithm, as the first version of the code assumed all the ages would have two digits.  I found that he, and the sign his mom made for him as a confessional to her son, hit me a ton harder than any of the more direct signs of despair in this economy:

The soldier in a now-famous WikiLeaks video, who found a rocket launcher at the scene of a controversial 2007 Apache helicopter attack, in Baghdad, said in a radio interview this week that he did not believe an ambush was imminent. The video shows 12 men, including two Reuters newsmen, standing on a street corner before being fired upon by the Apache's 30mm cannon, resulting in what appears to be an unprovoked massacre.

We need to get to the root of the issue of budgets-we're facing a revenue crisis. There is simply not enough money in our cities and states to support the investments needed to rebuild the American middle class. The good news is this: we know where the money is.   And though politicians might tell you differently, it's not in Grandma's pension. It's not in the homes of families fighting off foreclosure. And it's not in the pockets of American schoolchildren or schoolteachers. It's on Wall Street.     

Islam is an Abrahamic religion, monotheistic, founded in the seventh century in the Arab peninsula, the territory of modern Saudi Arabia, by the prophet Muhammad and based on religious text known as the Qur'an. Over time a large spread on a territory that stretches across Europe, Asia and North Africa. Religious center is in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. Most people do not know the exact rules imposed by Islam, but have formed an opinion based on rumors heard. Unfortunately, most of them are wrong, so this is why you have to learn tajweed.

The candidate for the elections from the Republic Party Mitt Romney says that the afghan war should be considered but the decision depends upon the congress and the defense ministry and the future of Afghanistan is based on it. There are also progressive development between America, Afghanistan and the Taliban and there is always a hope for the best. The residents of America are also against the afghan war. According to a survey it was found that only 27 percent people back the afghan war and almost 66 percent people are against this. So it is also a factor of the reduction of the support of the war.

almost certainly under-stated conclusion that it has "found that since Obama took office three years ago, between 282 and 535 civilians have been credibly reported as killed including more than 60 children." And targeting rescuers and funeral attendees of your victims is quite the opposite of keeping the drone program on a "very tight leash." 

When Congress is unable to agree on how to implement a law or program, it leaves an opening for the President to take over, in the form of an Executive Order. I wanted to look back and see how past Presidents have used Executive Orders. This is what I found:

When Congress is unable to agree on how to implement a law or program, it leaves an opening for the President to take over, in the form of an Executive Order. I wanted to look back and see how past Presidents have used Executive Orders. This is what I found:

My dad emailed this article to me. The Koch brothers lied about solar energy raising energy expenses for their own agenda. I told my dad "Sounds like capitalists compelled to do evil by the were-wolf hunger of capital. Know what I mean?" The article's own abstract: On July 11, Georgia's Public Service Commission will determine if Georgia Power, run by Southern Company, will have to acquiesce to local government demands to add 525-megawatts (MW) of solar power, despite already agreeing to acquire 270MW of solar. In the controversial debate, billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch have pressured regulators to reject the plan. But ahead of the vote, the Associated Press found the billionaires' group, Americans For Prosperity, has used misleading data to tip the debate. The billionaires claimed that new solar mandates would raise energy bills by 40%. But an analysis shows that even if solar power is more expensive than conventional energy, the amount demanded is equal to only 1% of Georgia Power's electric fleet. As a result, it's highly unlikely that adding more solar will impact electricity rates so significantly.

Even though biologically, there are no 'races', just human beings, the classification system which racializes different groups and pegs us according to skin color, has a history dating back to antiquity. Racism is a systemic phenomenon that permeates our values, beliefs, attitudes and behaviors. We know a great deal about the economics and politics of oppression, while the psychology and history of oppression is neglected. That is why I write about race. I don't write about race to disparage whites or to pour salt on old wounds. Throughout history, there have always been whites who fought shoulder to shoulder with Blacks at great risk and sacrifice to themselves, driven by a sense of humanity, principal and true belief that all men really are created equal and I honor them. I write about race because it shaped our founding and is the heartbeat of this nation.

"To many people, the "war on drugs" sounds like a metaphor, like the "war on poverty". It is not. It is being fought with tanks and sub-machine guns and hand grenades, funded in part by your taxes, and it has killed 28,000 people under the current Mexican President alone. The death toll in Tijuana - one of the front lines of this war - is now higher than in Baghdad. Yesterday, another pile of 72 mutilated corpses was found near San Fernando - an event that no longer shocks the country."

"The figures on Muslim rape of Western women in Europe are astounding. In Denmark and Norway, between 65% and 70% of all rapes are committed by Muslims, who as yet still less than 5% of the population. One local judge in Norway actually exonerated one rapist by accepting his defense that the victim's dress was taken by him to mean that she was egging him on. Her dress was nothing special to Norwegians, but the judge found it to be unbearably provocative to this poor Muslim immigrant. A curious argument, is it not? Even if she had been dressed a la Gisele Bundchen doing a shoot for Victoria's Secret -- and she of course was not -- rape is not an acceptable response."

Economics was founded by moral philosophers, and links between the two disciplines remain strong. So why won't economists make judgments on the gap between rich and poor?