Category — Rants & raves

The label on Aquafina water bottles will soon be changed to spell out that the drink comes from the same source as tap water.

A group called Corporate Accountability International has been pressuring bottled water sellers to curb what it calls misleading marketing practices.

Aquafina, from Pepsi, is the single biggest bottled water brand, and its bottles are now labeled “P.W.S.” The new labels will spell out “public water source.”

Surprised? They’re now after Coca Cola.

A total of 71% of Americans say they disapprove of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.

Among all Americans, 25% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 71% disapprove.

When it comes to Bush’s handling of the economy, 23% approve and 73% disapprove.

This is the highest level of disapproval and lowest level of approval for the Bush presidency recorded in monthly surveys by the American Research Group.

More than half the whales killed by Japanese whalers in the Antarctic last summer were pregnant females, the Humane Society International said today.

The group said that of the 505 Antarctic minke whales killed, 262 of them were pregnant females, while one of the three giant fin whales killed was also pregnant.

The findings came from a review of Japanese reports from their most recent 2006-07 whale hunt in Antarctic waters and were released ahead of the resumption of a Federal Court case the HSI is taking against Japanese whaling company Kyodo Senpaku Kaisha Ltd.

“These are gruesome statistics that the Japanese government dresses up as science”, HSI spokeswoman Nicola Beynon said in a statement.

US forces have fired so many bullets in Iraq and Afghanistan — an estimated 250,000 for every insurgent killed — that American ammunition-makers cannot keep up with demand. As a result the US is having to import supplies from Israel.

A government report says that US forces are now using 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition a year. The total has more than doubled in five years.

Paul Begala, writing in The Huffington Post captures the ’soul’ [if he has one] of George W Bush. As he says, Bush is …

Tough enough to execute Karla Fay Tucker — and then laugh about it.

Tough enough to sign a death warrant for a man whose lawyer slept through the trial — and then snicker when asked about it in a debate.

Even tough enough to execute a great-grandmother who murdered her husband — after he abused her. A friend of mine at the time asked Bush to commute her sentence, telling him, “Betty Lou ain’t a threat to no one she ain’t married to.” No dice.

Mr Bush is tough enough to invade a country that was no risk to America, causing tens of thousands of civilian deaths and shedding precious American blood in the process.

Tough enough to sanction torture. Tough enough to order an American citizen arrested and held without trial.

But if you’re rich and right-wing and Republican, George is a real softie. As George W. Bush demonstrated in giving Scooter Libby a Get Out of Jail Free Card, he is only compassionate to conservatives.

According to National Geographic, soon there will be no “road less traveled” to take.

As of 1995 only 17 percent of Earth’s land remained free of direct human influence, as seen in this map of the vast networks of shipping lanes and roads that crisscross the planet.

In the rush to stock food supplies, keep safe from predators and natural disasters, and improve trade and commerce, people have domesticated entire landscapes and ecosystems — often to their detriment, a new study says.

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Sea levels will rise by several metres by the end of the century due to rapidly increasing greenhouse gas concentrations according to research from a group of esteemed international scientists.

Led by James Hansen from NASA’s Goddard Institute, the group warns that the Earth is ‘perilously’ close to entering a new era of dangerous runaway climate change.
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Hi guys, thought I’d share some holiday snaps from my recent trip to Brazil. Very friendly folks they were … GWB

This fan was obviously trying to entice me … Better not let Laura see it.

No quite sure why they asked me for a specimen, but they all wanted a sniff …

This looks like another one of their crazy festivals celebrating some dictator from the past. Funny looking moustache he has though.

Got a few shots like this. The cops look like they were trying to practice their golf strokes. They need to follow through a bit more because look where the ball ended up in the top right …