Life After Shopping
Entirely logically, the Rev. Billy Talen of the Church of Life After Shopping has endorsed today's Buy Nothing Day, suggesting people stop shopping and start giving. Video from his interview on "Democracy Now" here.
"We can't just be full of cheap stuff everywhere made in sweat shops thousands of miles away with fossil fuel everywhere, plastics everywhere, and credit cards and everybody in debt. We can't continue that. So we're looking for an alternative."
Buy Nothing Day 2009

There's only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on Planet Earth: we have to consume less.
So this November 27 (November 28 in Europe and overseas), we're calling for a Wildcat General Strike. We're asking tens of millions of people around the world to bring the capitalist consumption machine to a grinding - if only momentary - halt.
The Dark Web
From the U.K.'s Guardian, a look at the deep, weird, hidden world of Freenet, home to perhaps 500 times more questionable untraceable websites than reside in Google. The murky darknet offers child pornography to crime syndicate connections to pirate copies of everything, "Horny Kate" to "The Terrorist's Handbook" to "Arson Around With Auntie" for animal rights activists.
"The vastness of the deep web completely took my breath away." – Michael Bergman
Teach Your Children Well
Ten middle school students in Naples, Florida were suspended after celebrating "Kick A Jew Day," wherein they hassled or kicked Jewish kids. School officials said they will devote the first 20 minutes of each day to teaching respect. They may need longer. Most surreal moment of the news video: the grandfather - white, with a black grandchild, yet - saying so what, who cares, no biggie.
"These are not new issues for us here," said Rabbi James Perman. "These 10 kids did not invent anti-Semitism."
Bank Policy Inequitable, Unconscionable, Vexatious and Opprobrious, and Happy Thanksgiving to You
Happy Thanksgiving to Greg Horoski and his wife Diane from Suffolk Judge Jeffrey Spinner, who wiped out $525,000 in mortgage payments demanded by a California bank whose actions Spinner blasted as "harsh, repugnant, shocking and repulsive." Horoski said negotiating with the bankers at OneWest, which got an $814.2 million federal bailout but have been ruthlessly foreclosing on people, was "like dealing with organized crime."
About That Doing Unto Others Thing...
Oh my Allah. Now right-wingers are up in vociferously-defended arms because Best Buy's vast and stuff-packed Thanksgiving flyer included a little-bitty ad wishing Muslims "Happy Eid al-Adha," a holiday that 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide mark by giving to charity. Dear hate-and-fear-filled, so-called Christian folks: 'Tis the season of understanding, even for those of us who aren't you. Try, please.
"It makes perfect business sense to acknowledge and celebrate a holiday that one out of four people celebrate." - Ahmed Rehab, spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.


















