Time for U.S. Revolution: Fifteen Reasons
From the Huffington Post:
It is time for a revolution. Government does not work for regular people. It appears to work quite well for big corporations, banks, insurance companies, military contractors, lobbyists, and for the rich and powerful. But it does not work for people.
The 1776 Declaration of Independence stated that when a long train of abuses by those in power evidence a design to reduce the rights of people to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is the peoples right, in fact their duty to engage in a revolution.
Martin Luther King, Jr., said forty three years ago next month that it was time for a radical revolution of values in the United States. He preached “a true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness…
New Ghost Towns: Industrial Communities Teeter on the Edge
From USA Today:
When Henry Kaiser arrived 55 years ago, this place was no place — “a rural problem area,” the government called it, so poor and isolated that the population had dropped 15% since 1940.That all changed after Kaiser, the industrialist who’d turned out ships and planes at a record pace in World War II, built the nation’s largest consolidated aluminum works here on the banks of the Ohio River.
The plant paid Tim Shumaker his first living wage, and he won the right to keep it two decades ago after his union was locked out for 19 months.
Today, that victory seems hollow. Shumaker, 49, has been laid off. Part of the vast aluminum complex is closed, and the rest is for sale — its orders down, its workforce reduced, its future uncertain.…
China: The World’s Next Great Economic Crash
From The Christian Science Monitor:
Has the global economy recovered? Forecasters say there will be an uptick this year of 2.4 percent, but they’re forgetting something. China could fail soon, and, if it does, the world’s most populous state will drag the rest of us down.
At this moment, a Chinese crisis seems like the last thing we should be worried about. After all, last year China overtook America as the planet’s largest car market and passed Germany as the biggest exporter.
On Thursday, Beijing announced that growth for the fourth quarter of 2009 was 10.7 percent and 8.7 percent for the entire year. Some analysts said the numbers were so strong that the country zoomed past Japan to become the world’s second-largest economy. Stock markets, property prices, you name it: Everything Chinese…
Politicians Fuel Racism – Are You “Mainstream” Australians?
[disinformation editor's note: the author's native language is not English and he makes numerous spelling and grammar errors. We chose to publish the article notwithstanding this and hope that readers will value the author's opinions nonetheless.]
Racism is a die hard issue in Australia. While the racism against Indians across the country over the last two years has yet to show any sign of winging down, the new opposition leader Tony Abbott begin the 2010 election year with Howard’s style racism on the issue of Immigration.
In his Australia Day speech, Tony Abbott urged minority leaders to “respect mainstream Australian values.” He stressed that “the great prize of Australian citizenship is insufficiently appreciated and given away too lightly”. The impression I had with the tone and content of Tony Abbott’s speech are…
Radiohead Raises More Than $500,000 for Haiti
I’ve noticed that Radiohead always ends up in the news for what I like to call “non-Metallica-like” reasons. They have a great relationship with their fans, and a terrible one with the record industry. If those aren’t enough reasons to like Radiohead, here’s one more:
From MSNBC:
Attendees bid online for tickets to show, some paying as much as $4,000.
Radiohead raised more than $500,000 for Haiti earthquake relief at a special weekend concert that attracted celebrities and die-hard fans.The band performed for more than two hours Sunday at the Henry Fonda Theatre. The star-studded crowd included Justin Timberlake, Jessica Biel, Charlize Theron, Anna Paquin and Daniel Craig.
Attendees bid online for tickets, with proceeds going to Oxfam International, a group that works with developing countries. Prices went as high as $4,000 for a…
Anthrax Outbreak Cases Reach 15
From BBC News:
A further case of anthrax has been confirmed in a drug user in Scotland bringing the total number of cases in this outbreak to 15.
The new case of the potential killer was confirmed to have taken place in the NHS Ayrshire and Arran area.
So far, the number of anthrax related deaths stands at seven with cases confirmed in six NHS boards.
Investigations are continuing into whether contaminated heroin or a cutting agent may be responsible.
Dr Colin Ramsay, consultant epidemiologist at Health Protection Scotland, said: “Heroin users all across Scotland need to be aware of the risk that their supply may be contaminated.
Hoofed animals
“They should seek medical advice urgently if they experience signs of infection such as redness and swelling of an infection site or high fever.
“I would urge all…
US Intervention Could Strengthen Qaeda: Yemen
From The Raw Story:
US military intervention in Yemen to help fight Al-Qaeda militants could backfire and strengthen the jihadists believed behind the botched attack on a US airliner, a top Yemeni official said Thursday.”Any intervention or direct (military) action by the United States could strengthen the Al-Qaeda network and not weaken it,” deputy prime minister for defence and security affairs Rashed Al-Aleemi told a press conference.
“Our position is clear; we will fight and chase the Al-Qaeda group depending on Yemeni forces and security agencies (alone),” he said.
Aleemi however said that Yemen needs the United States to help in training Yemeni counter-terrorism units.
“Since Al-Qaeda is a global organisation that threatens international stability, all countries in the world, headed by the United States, must cooperate to confront them,” he said.
[Read more at…
Who’s Getting Rich From the Naked Full-Body Scanner Boom?
From Alternet:
The TSA has a dismal record of enriching private corporations with failed technologies. Will the “digital strip search” device just bring more of the same?
Scan, baby, scan. That’s the mantra among politicians at all levels in the wake of the thwarted terrorist attack aboard a Detroit-bound passenger jet. According to conventional wisdom, the would-be “underwear bomber” could have been stopped by airport security if he’d been put through a full-body scanner, which would have revealed the cache of explosives attached to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s groin.
Within days or even hours of the bombing attempt, everyone was talking about so-called whole-body imaging as the magic bullet that could stop this type of attack. In announcing hearings by the Senate Homeland Security Commitee, Joe Lieberman approached the use of scanners as a foregone conclusion, saying one of the…
The Geek Freaks
From Slate:
Why Jaron Lanier rants against what the Web has become.
Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not a Gadget has one of the more sobering prefaces to be found in recent books. “It’s early in the twenty-first century, and that means that these words will mostly be read by nonpersons,” it begins. The words will be “minced into anatomized search engine keywords,” then “copied millions of times by some algorithm somewhere designed to send an advertisement,” and then, in a final insult, “scanned, rehashed, and misrepresented by crowds of quick and sloppy readers.” Lanier’s conclusion: “Real human eyes will read these words in only a tiny minority of the cases.” My conclusion: Is that really such a bad thing?
Lanier is best known as a pioneer of virtual reality and an early star of…
Chicago Cop Tasered Unconscious Diabetic 11 Times
From The Raw Story:
Police officers from two Chicago suburbs are being sued after one of them allegedly Tasered a man having a diabetic seizure because the diabetic involuntarily hit the officer while being taken to an ambulance.Prospero Lassi, a 40-year-old employee of Southwest Airlines, filed the lawsuit (PDF) with a federal court in Chicago last week, following an April 9, 2009, incident in which Lassi was taken to hospital following a violent diabetic seizure — and being Tasered 11 times while unconscious.
That day, Lassi’s roommate found the man on the floor of his apartment having a seizure and foaming at the mouth, according to the statement filed with the court. The roommate called 911 for help, and police officers from the Brookfield and LaGrange Park police departments arrived to help with…
Body Part Theft: Truth vs. Myth
From LiveScience.com:
Earlier this year a Swedish journalist claimed that soldiers and doctors at the L. Greenberg Institute for Forensic Medicine in Tel Aviv, Israel, killed Palestinians for their organs.
The Israeli government originally dismissed the accusations as vicious anti-Semitic rumors, but was forced to acknowledge that there was some truth to the claims when an American anthropologist released an interview she had conducted in 2000 with the former head of Israel’s main forensic institute, Dr. Jehuda Hiss.
In that interview, Hiss stated that body parts including corneas, arteries, and bones were taken from dead bodies — Israeli, Palestinian, and others — without consent during the 1990s and transplanted into wounded soldiers. The Israeli military then admitted the procedures had been done but stated that the practice had ended 10 years ago.
Global phenomenon
International organ…
Report: UN-Backed Congo Troops Killing Civilians
From Yahoo News:
JOHANNESBURG – A U.N.-backed Congolese military operation to oust rebels from eastern Congo has caused more civilian casualties than damage to rebels, with more than 1,400 people deliberately killed over a nine-month period, human rights groups said Monday.
Human Rights Watch said it had documented “vicious and widespread” attacks against civilians by soldiers and rebels between January and September. Soldiers being fed and supplied with ammunition by the United Nations have killed civilians, gang-raped girls and cut the heads off some young men they accuse of being rebels or supporting the enemy, groups said.
“For every rebel combatant disarmed, one civilian has been killed, seven women and girls have been raped, six houses have been burned and destroyed and 900 people have been forced to flee their homes,” British-based organization Oxfam said.
Human Rights Watch said…
Military Agency Studying Space Garbage Service
From Spaceflight Now:
The Pentagon’s research and development division is studying concepts to remove dangerous space debris from orbit, an endeavor long dismissed as too costly but potentially feasible with technology advancements.
The study is called Catcher’s Mitt and will explore technically and economically feasible ways to rid Earth orbit of space junk that threatens active space missions, including the International Space Station and valuable satellites.The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Department of Defense’s technology development arm, is leading the Catcher’s Mitt study.
The analysis was the subject of a conference sponsored by DARPA and NASA this week in Washington. Nearly 300 participants and approximately 60 speakers attended the event.
Representatives from NASA, the European Space Agency, Russia, Japan and industry were at the first-of-a-kind conference, according to DARPA.
[Read more at Spaceflight Now]
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Report: U.S. Fears Public Scrutiny Would Scuttle IP Treaty Talks
From Wired:
The proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, or ACTA, has been shrouded in secrecy, and the Bush and the Obama administrations have declared it unsuitable for public debate because divulging its contents could harm America’s “national security.”
A few recent leaks have showed that the unfinished agreement, which is being negotiated largely between the European Union and the United States, is likely to benefit the content industry. At the same time, it might pave the way for international guidelines that could lead to consumers losing their internet accounts if they are believed to be digital copyright scofflaws.
But we now know that the real reason for secrecy, the one suspected all along, was that the United States does not think it could reach an accord with Europe and the nearly dozen other nations…
If Global Warming Is Real, Why Are There Still Monkeys?
From Mutterhals at Black Sun Gazette
For a long time I hemmed and hawed about whether or not climate change/global warming/whatever the PR guys will be calling it tomorrow was indeed a man-made phenomenon. Then I realized, it’s not that I don’t believe that it is, I just don’t care. Consider this one of the many drawbacks of lifelong nihilism, i.e. terminal indifference.
Despite my aloofness towards environmental issues, I certainly wouldn’t deny that man is having a very real impact on the planet in which we live, and one effect is the gradual change in temperature. On this much we can agree.
Some Toy Drives Check Immigration Status
From The Houston Chronicle:
They don’t claim to know who’s been naughty or nice, but some Houston charities are asking whether children are in the country legally before giving them toys.
In a year when more families than ever have asked for help, several programs providing Christmas gifts for needy children require at least one member of the household to be a U.S. citizen. Others ask for proof of income or rely on churches and schools to suggest recipients.
The Salvation Army and a charity affiliated with the Houston Fire Department are among those that consider immigration status, asking for birth certificates or Social Security cards for the children.
The point isn’t to punish the children but to ensure that their parents are either citizens, legal immigrants or working to become legal residents, said…
The Swiss Ban Makes Me Shudder
From The Guardian:
I can’t help imagining how I would feel if the attitudes reflected in the minaret vote were directed at my own community.
It’s a crude reaction but it’s the first one I had on hearing that the Swiss had voted to ban the building of minarets on mosques – the same reaction I have to the increasingly-frequent stories like it: how would I feel if this were not about them, but us? How, in other words, would I react if this latest attack were not on Muslims but on Jews?
It’s crude because no two situations are ever exactly the same, and Muslims and Jews have different histories – in Switzerland and everywhere else. But it’s useful, allowing the testing of any proposition against an almost instinctive yardstick of decency.
So how would…
What Kind of Country Arrests Innocent People to Boost its DNA Database?
From The Daily Mail:
Throughout the 12 years since New Labour began its assault upon our civil liberties, the response to those of us who publicly vented our dismay was straightforward: ‘If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear.’
So, by that logic, we were invited to embrace the ugly stacks of CCTV cameras that crawled across our High Streets and which, surprise, surprise, did nothing to reduce general levels of crime and lawlessness.
By the same token, we were encouraged to say ‘Amen’ to the multi-billion-pound ID cards scheme, or ‘entitlement cards’ as Tony Blair’s old flatmate Lord Falconer used soothingly to call them when he was a minister in the Home Office.
This gigantic New Labour bung to foreign-owned IT companies is now discredited, though still being ‘rolled out’…
How Science is Shackled by Intellectual Property
From The Guardian:
Ownership rights pose a real danger to scientific progress for the public good.
The idea of ownership is ubiquitous. Title deeds establish and protect ownership of our houses, while security of property is as important to the proprietors of Tesco and Sainsbury’s as it is to their customers. However, there is a profound problem when it comes to so-called intellectual property (IP) – which requires a strong lead from government, and for which independent advice has never been more urgently required. The David Nutt affair has illustrated very well the importance of objective analysis of complex social issues.
The myth is that IP rights are as important as our rights in castles, cars and corn oil. IP is supposedly intended to encourage inventors and the investment needed to bring their products to…
