The things that matter.

The things that matter in society and in the world. we give our thoughts with the hope that those thoughts stir your thoughts. We encourage debate, and will respond to any and all questions. Please feel free to speak your mind, and don't forget to follow us on twitter @projectnowgroup, Join the Discussion!

[breakingnews]

Hundreds stranded as flood crisis hits Australia’s Queensland

BBC News: Rescuers are trying to reach hundreds of people stranded in the city of Bundaberg by rising waters and there are fears homes could be washed away by fast-moving waters.

Three people have already died in the Queensland flooding, after a cyclone brought heavy rain.

Photo: Floodwaters race across the Oxenford - Tamborine road on Australia’s Gold Coast on Jan. 28, 2013 as severe floods swept through two states (Brett Faulkner / AFP - Getty Images)

[newsweekscience]

Manti Te’o has told family and friends that the woman who was the voice of his fictitious girlfriend “Lennay Kekua” called him in December and said she had to fake her own death months earlier to elude drug dealers, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser has learned.

WHAT IS GOING ON ANYMORE. (via newsweek)

[newsflick-blog]

Algeria: In Amenas gas field attack - interactive

Military operation still ongoing. Accommodation block ‘now secured’ , insurgents still at large in industrial area of the plant.

Follow this story in more details on the Guardian’s live blog

[freshphotons]

What’s In Your Food by Laura P.

[projectnowthought-blog]

Sodium Acid Phosphate is my fav <3

[msnbc]

Forty years after Roe v. Wade, the decision itself is intact, but in wide swaths of the country, safe, legal abortion looks more like a privilege than a right.  Some 87% of U.S. counties lack a single abortion provider. As state legislators devise new ways to restrict women’s access, and physicians eschew the procedure to avoid threats and intimidation, the prospects for reproductive freedom can start to look bleak.  But technology may yet hold a trump card. 

[projectnowthought-blog]

The Myanmar government has announced a unilateral cease-fire with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) in the area around the town of Lajayang.

[truthbehindsyria]

Jan 16, 2013

PROVINCES, (SANA)– The Sweida branch of the National Union of Syrian Students on Wednesday held a solidarity stand in honor of the souls of the martyrs of science and in condemnation of the terrorist act which targeted Aleppo University.

Head of the Union’s Sweida branch,...

[takepart]

Photo of the Day:  A member of the Free Syrian Army, holds his wife as his comrades fire their weapons to commemorate their wedding ceremony in Aleppo.

More on this here.

[projectnowthought-blog]

I wonder what will happen to them among the chaos, its really impossible to imagine looking on from the outside in. But it is a pleasure seeing some attempt of normalcy. 

[aviscogitations-deactivated2015]

Tell me again how Gaza is a concentration camp? Assholes.

[projectnowthought-blog]

I know right, it’s almost like paradise!

[thisisfusion]

Anonymous Shuts Down Government Sites in Mexico, Argentina

By ALBERT SABATÉ

Members of hacker activist group Anonymous took down government websites in Mexico and Argentina in two seemingly uncoordinated actions.

Anonymous Mexico attacked websites on Wednesday for Mexico’s Department of Defense and Navy posting text from a manifesto for the Zapatista National Liberation Army.

Read More

[projectnowthought-blog]

"In the nearly two years since the start of the Syrian Civil War, the international community has steadfastly refused to directly intervene—despite reports of atrocities ranging from horrific detainee abuse to indiscriminate airstrikes and shelling against civilians."

I don't know the validity of this but this does concern me.

[projectnowthought-blog]

I know I just posted this, but I think I should add the proper title because this is kind of a big deal. For the past 20 years the United States has viewed Somalia as an lawless region, and has not recognized any form of government. That ended today. President Hassan Sheikh's regime is now recognized by the state, and Somalia is recognized by the United States as its own sovereign nation. 

[statedept]

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton delivers remarks with President of Somalia Hassan Sheikh Mohamud at the U.S. Department of State in Washington, D.C. on January 17, 2013. A text transcript can be found at http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2013/01/202998.htm.

[projectnowthought-blog]

What is so sacred about health care? <\b> My question is simply that, what is so sacred about health care? Especially when it comes to government operated healthcare systems. Why is it that health care must be privatized? Last time I checked fire departments, police departments, and military, are all operated by the government. And last I checked they all are pretty good at what they do (perhaps a little too good about those last two but that's a different story.) So why is it the government would be too inefficient to run hospitals? I know the answer is irrelevant, but I feel the question is hardly asked. The government can do a lot of really hard things really successfully, but they never get credit for that. How can the private sector be good at helping sick people get better if the private sector is driven by the profit motive? Because here's the thing about the private sector if more people get better, and less people get sick (you know point of a health care system) then their customer base would shrink and then the industry would level out and growth would be hard to come by. Let's take cancer for example, wouldn't it be bad for business if it was cured? The government wouldn't have to worry about what's good or bad for business it could invest tax dollars on finding a real cure, without worrying about if the research is profitable. And for prescription drugs? It would be heavily regulated, so groups like the NECC, the people who were responsible for the meningitis outbreak last summer, wouldn't be able to use the same place as a recycling plant. I'm sure it wouldn't be a perfect system, but the current system does not work and we are paying more for less than any other country in the industrialized world. So why is the government evil, when the private sector has been driving up health care costs for the last 50 years.

[theonion]

[projectnowthought-blog]

This is so believable it's funny

[usatoday]

[projectnowthought-blog]

This is really ridiculous to me. We have so many children in foster homes and orphanages, children who need adopting. What's wrong with American children?

[projectnowthought-blog]

This is disgusting. Is professionalism dead? Politics has always been dirty throughout American history, but this is stoning not mudslinging. This advertisement wrongly paints POTUS as an hypocritical elitist coward, because his stance on gun safety in schools. The ad claims that the president is a hypocrite because he protects his kids with armed guards, but advocates gun safety zones in schools. First of Secret Service protection is assigned to the first family by the United State Congress. Why? Because as Marin Sheen says in a scene in The West Wing if militants from another country kidnap the presidents daughter, then they now have leverage over the President of the United States. So now he is probably given a choice, comply to their demands that most likely threaten the national security, or his daughters life. If it's my daughter I know what I would choose. Second, Secret Service isn't a hired gun, it's a huge security apparatus that consists of digital surveillance, on the ground eyes within a mile, maybe more, of the person their protecting. It works, and is effective, but very expensive. If the government won't spend money on a failing education system, then why would it spend billions to keep it safe? It's okay that they're failing our children, as long as we get to keep our guns right?