In the News

Here is some stuff in the news today!

The FDA is phasing out "the non-medical use of antibiotics on farm animals in an effort to combat growing human resistance to the crucial drugs. The plan, announced Wednesday, would push livestock and poultry producers to limit their use of antibiotics to treating sick animals, and to stop using the drugs to promote faster growth." This is good news for us, if bad news for Big Pharma, since "Farms consume about 80% of the nation's antibiotics supply."

[Content Note: Domestic violence] George Zimmerman has gotten away with harming another person: "Prosecutors in Florida have dropped domestic violence charges against George Zimmerman after his girlfriend announced she would not co-operate with the investigation or testify against him." This fucking guy. Naturally, his girlfriend will now be viciously shamed for failing to assist prosecutors, despite the fact that she is probably terrified and has no reason to have any confidence he would be convicted.

[CN: Class warfare] A new report from the Alliance for a Just Society says that "a growing share of the country's jobs pay less than $15 an hour, replacing higher wage jobs. ...There were more than 51 million jobs paying less than $15 an hour last year. Someone making $15 an hour working 40 hours a week, 52 weeks a year will make $31,200, while experts say a two-income family with two kids needs $72,000 a year to be economically secure."

Maybe the universe is a hologram! I like this theory. Not quite as much as the theory that we're all basically inside a video game, though. That is definitely my favorite theory.

Secretary of State John Kerry celebrated his 70th birthday with his new dog friend, and it was very cute.

Oprah Winfrey talks about not regretting choosing not to parent, and I love the ways she says this so much: "If I had kids, my kids would hate me. They would have ended up on the equivalent of the Oprah show talking about me; because something [in my life] would have had to suffer and it would've probably been them." It's so honest and straightforward and witty all at the same time. And speaks to the truth that even a woman as powerful and successful and wealthy as Oprah really can't always "have it all," at least not necessarily the way she'd ideally want to have it.

"This Guy's Snow Art Is Friggin' Unbelievable." Pretty much.