Here’s a cool new toy. A popular article on Forbes today details a new smart phone app called “Buycott,” which is catching the attention of shoppers who want to make sure their money spent on groceries and other basic products isn’t enriching corporations with bad records on social and environmental responsibility.

Chris Stewart, a Republican from Utah, was recently appointed Chair of the House subcommittee on Science.

This means that Congressman Stewart now has dominion over the EPA, climate change research, and “all activities related to climate.”

It’s been two and a half years since we first said Obama was trying to cut Social Security. Denial is no longer possible.

On April 6, all but one of the Republican members of the US House of Representatives rejected a Democratic amendment that would have put the chamber on record backing the widely held scientific view that global warming is occurring and humans are a major cause. The following day the GOP-led House voted 255 to 172 to strip the Environmental Protection Agency’s power to regulate greenhouse gases. It is remarkable that in 2011, a majority of Republicans in Congress reject the indisputable, scientific consensus that human activity is altering the climate.

Watching the MOTUs as their financial services universe shakes and shudders around them reminds me of the five stages of death and dying. There’s lots of denial and anger coming out of the MOTUs, and hints of bargaining, but little sign of depression and acceptance. But it’ll come . . .