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 and justice of many of our past and present policies.” It is clearer than ever that now is the time for radical change.

Look at what our current system has brought us and ask if it is time for a revolution?

Over 2.8 million people lost their homes in 2009 to foreclosure or bank repossessions – nearly 8000 each day – higher numbers than the last two years when millions of others also lost their homes.

At the same time, the government bailed out Bank of America, Citigroup, AIG, Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the auto industry and enacted the troubled asset (TARP) program with $1.7 trillion of our money.

Wall Street then awarded itself over $20 billion in bonuses in 2009 alone, an average bonus on top of pay of $123,000.

[Read more at the Huff Post]

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. Shumaker stands at the locked plant gate and, after a year without work, worries what’s next for him and his community. “The way things are going,” he says, “there’s not going to be anything here.”

[Read more at USA Today]

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 is soaring.

Dubai was once soaring, too. Global markets therefore, shuddered in November at the news that Dubai World, Dubai’s state investment firm and biggest corporate debtor, had asked for an extension on its $59 billion of obligations. Troubles in the booming emirate had been evident for some time, but stock investors were nonetheless caught unawares, apparently thinking a default would not occur.

They were obviously wrong. Global markets, for the time being, got past the shock, in part because the emirate is small. China, on the other hand, is not. Legendary short-seller James Chanos, who predicted the failures of Enron and Tyco, calls the country “Dubai times 1,000 – or worse.”

[Read more at The Christian Science Monitor]

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 as follows:

1) Australia is doing a favour to migrants by giving them the “Great Prize” of the citizenship lightly;

2) Minority Migrants are not appreciative of Australia citizenship;

3) Minority Migrants fail to respect “Mainstream Australian values”;

4) Minority Migrants has not done the right thing to Australia.

It puzzle me that throughout Tony Abbott speech, he failed to explain unambiguously the meaning of  “mainstream Australians” and “Australian Values”.

Are you “Mainstream” Australian?

Our First Australians (Indigenous peoples) called Australia Day (26 January) an “invasion day” and would like to “change the date of Australia Day to a date that includes all Australians,” this request has been rejected by Prime Minster Rudd in 2009 ( Northern News, 25 Jan 2009). The question here is, is the term “Mainstream Australians” includes our First Australians? If not, what is “Australian values”? Who represent “Mainstream Australians”? – Our First Australians or Prime Minister Rudd?

The reality is, all human being regardless of race, language, tradition or religion are individual with their own mind and values. Each of these values and beliefs are to be respected and accommodated in order to create a harmonise society. That is, people need to learn to agree to disagree!

Even members of the same family could have different opinions, beliefs and values in regards to the same subject matter. For example, contrary to Prime Minister Rudd 2009 position on the issue of Australia Day and racism in Australia,  his  nephew, Van Rudd marks this year (26 January) ‘Invasion Day’ with anti-racism protest. So, who represent “Mainstream Australians”? Our Prime Minister or his nephew?

According to a recent survey, most Australians believe that “high-income earners do not pay enough tax, and nearly all think low- and middle-income earners pay too much”. A quick search on the Internet will provide us numerous examples of rich people spending big money on accountants and legal experts to fight the Australian Tax Office in order to minimise their tax obligation to Australia. Just to name two examples:

(1) Our late Kerry Packer (Richest man in Australia): Packer tax case and The dark side of Kerry Packer; and

(2) Our famous “Crocodile Dundee” actor Paul Hogan: Paul Hogan loses bid to stop ATO examining US bank accounts and Paul Hogan on Nine Network Sixty Minutes, paid his ATO tax.

So, do these rich people represent “Mainstream Australians”, do their effort to minimise their tax obligation to Australia represent “Australian values”?

Australia has no value – the term “Mainstream Australians” is simply another form of racism

Like any human society, Australians as individuals have a variety of views and values on a variety of issues. For examples:

There are people who passionately want to retain the British’s Queen as our Queen (we called them Monarchists), there are also people who passionately want Australia to become a Republic to reflect the reality that modern Australia is made up of migrants from all over the world; In term of religions, there are believers (Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Christians, etc) and non-believers (Atheists, etc); Even among the Christian populations, there are history of conflict between Catholic and  Protestants; Politically, there are right wing, left wing; there are pro-gay and anti-gay; there are  pro-abortion and anti-abortion; there are criminal and police; there are very wealthy people and homeless;  there are emigration and immigration; there are ruling party and opposition party; the list of contradiction within the populations is simply too lengthy to be listed.

It is like the Chinese philosophy of “Ying and Yang”, only through mutual respect and inclusion where harmony could be achieved.

Therefore, the term “mainstream” Australians is simply another form of racism representing a section of the population trying to control and assimilate all others. It is divisive and meaningless as I believe that, no body could possibly provide a flawless definition on the term “mainstream Australians”.

Migration to and from Australia is a two way traffics

The movement of people across the world is an ancient issue not exclusively Australia. There are many reasons for people to move from places to places within a country or from countries to countries. People move around for all kind of reasons. For examples,

Escape from wars such the displacement caused by the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003; Escape from prosecution such as the Nazi Holocaust; Escape from natural disaster such as Earth Quake (Haiti), Tsunami (Samoa), flood (Katrina in America), famine, the spread of disease and so on.

There are also migration against one will, for examples, the First fleet to Australia and the African slavery during the colonial era.

People also move from country to country for economic reasons (career and business opportunities); family reasons (following the new career posting of a love one and marriage); personal reasons (education, the love for travel, the love for certain culture or living environment, weather condition or humanitarian effort, etc).

According to the ABS (latest update: 7 April 2006), under the heading: Population Growth: Leaving Australia, states that: “Over the past five years, the number of Australian-born people leaving Australia permanently has doubled.”, “interest in emigration has shifted to its impact on the composition of the workforce. The recent higher levels of emigration are causing concern that skill shortages are being created or exacerbated in some fields.”

In fact, the number of Australian leaving Australia permanently each year is by the ten of thousands for a variety of reasons. According to ABS, “for Australian-born persons, emigration is more likely to be a result of increasing internationalisation of labour markets and increasing global demand for skilled workers. In contrast, overseas-born emigrants often leave permanently to return to their former country of birth because of feelings of homesickness or insecurity. Older emigrants often depart after they retire from the workforce, while widowhood and divorce can also motivate departures among the overseas born.”

Therefore, the issue of immigration and emigration is a two way traffics. We should use a normal heart to respect the desire of a fellow human being to seek a better life elsewhere through migration in the form of employment, marriage or refugee.

The shifting of wealth and economic power from West to East in the 21st Century

If history is of any indication, the rise and fall of a civilisation is an inevitable process. The Roman Empire did not last forever; the Crusader was unable to hold on to Jerusalem; Spain was unable to prevent the rise of Britain; and Britain was unable to prevent the independent and rise of America. The 2008 Wall Street Financial Tsunami resulted in the decline in the number of migrants from Mexico to USA (New York Times,  14 May 2009).

21st Century may be a century shifting away from the West, the following news headlines may provide some insight  into the trend of the new world order within the next few decades:

1) China Will Continue to Drive the Global Economic Recovery in 2010 (Money Morning, 3 Dec 2009)

2) China Playing Important Role in Steadying World Economy, Zoellick Says (World Bank, 2 Sept 2009)

3) Australia Economy to ride a second wave of China stimulation (The Australian, 4 Dec 2009)

4) China Outrunning the Global Recovery and Still Looking Ahead (Money Morning, 22 Jan 2010)

5) Growth in China continues to influence East Asia’s economic recovery, two new World Bank reports say (World Bank, 3 Nov 2009)

The attractiveness of Western countries in the form of wages, social welfare, political stability may also be in the process of declining in the 21st century if the western politicians unable to manage the current crisis effectively. For examples:

1) America’s decade of dread (Washington Post, 16 Dec 2009)

2) A Rising Anti-Government Tide (Washington Post, 22 May 2009)

3) Obama Orders 1 Million US Troops To “Prepare For Civil War” (Pakalert Press, 30 Nov 2009)

4) Paulson Was Behind Bailout Martial Law Threat (Prison Planet, 20 Nov 2008)

5) Medicare and Social Security are in terrible shape. Unfortunately, private-sector health and pension plans are doing even worse (Slate, 27 May 2009)

6) Budget scenario bleak for Montgomery schools (Washington Post, 9 Dec 2009)

7) Foreclosures Force Ex-Homeowners to Turn to Shelters (New York Time, 18 Oct 2009)

California’s Zigzag on Welfare Rules Worries Experts (New York Time, 6 Oct 2009)

9) Poverty rates increase in 31 US states, says Census Bureau (The Australian, 29 Sept 2009)

10) Breadline USA: Why People Are Going Hungry in the Land of Plenty (Alternet, 4 July 2009)

Australia is also facing a series of new and accumulated problem throughout the country in the 21st century (For examples, the currently hotly debated issue of aging population; the record level of national and individual debts; the lack of hospital funding; years of water mismanagement with dying rivers; Global warming with disastrous weather pattern such as the threat of flood, bush fire, sand storm; the threat to the survival of the Great Barrier Reef and a series of social imbalance in the form of the number of homeless and housing affordability etc. All these required finance, technology and human resources to overcome. Can Australia cope with these challenges with on-going racism against migrants (an important contributor to the economy) fuelled by politicians?

Australia may be a lucky country due to its natural resources, and was blessed by the wave of China economic dynamic and strong demand for its resources (Iron Ore, natural gas etc) over the last decade, if our politicians continue to stir racism against migrants and countries in the Asia Pacific region, the middle east and Africa, I am afraid,  Australia will eventually pay the price from the racism and political myopia of its right wing politicians. The recent drastic reduction of Indian student enrolment to Australia universities is just an example deserve policy maker attention. (Brisbane Times, 7 Jan 2010 – Indian student numbers plummet).

The reality is, most Western countries including Australia after decades of restless spending will have to cut back their social welfare program in order to cope with the declining economy and rising national debt as a result of their recent borrowing to stimulate their economy. While China, after 30 years of economic reform with accumulated wealth and foundation to push its economy upwards, it is in the process of extending its social welfare program to its citizens. For examples:

1) A quick look at 60 years of China’s development (World Bank, 8 Oct 2009)

2) A decision to increase the amount of pension for retirees (Hong Kong Media – Ifeng in Chinese language, 20 Nov 2008)

3) A decision to speed up its investment in the poorer Western region (Hong Kong Media – Ifeng in Chinese language, 16 Oct 2009)

4)  Strategies to improve infrastructure in rural areas,  the development of health, culture, environmental ecology and housing security (Hong Kong Media – Ifeng in Chinese language,  20 Nov 2008)

5) Education: 700,000 impoverished students receive subsidy (Global Time, 20 Aug 2009)

6)  Every Chinese Village To Get Health Clinic (CBS News, 8 April 2009)

7) China plan to resolve 7.47 million low income urban families housing problem within 3 years (Hong Kong media – Ifeng in Chinese language, 2 Jun 2009)

From poor areas to poor people: China’s evolving poverty reduction agenda (World Bank)

What will Australia born emigrants feel if the new country they called home begin to treat them like Tony Abbott?

The anticipated shift in the economic powerhouse from the West to the East will inevitably results in the increasing flow of migrants from the West to the East for better life style, business and career opportunities in the decades to come. I wonder, what will Australia born emigrants feel if their new country they called home begin to behave like Tony Abbott and former Prime Minister John Howard?

Australia Media love to put migrants on the TV screen each and every year telling the world that Australia is the best country! Australia is not a racist country! Are we?

Let’s respect each other as a fellow human being. We are all equal. Aren’t we!

Related articles on Racism in Australia:

Let’s not deny the evidence that Australia has a problem with racism—General Cosgrove is right….

Evidences of Australia Media Fueling Racism against Minorities

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 pair of tickets. The closing minimum bid was $475.

[Read more at MSNBC]

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 drug users to stop using heroin immediately and contact local drug services for support.”

[Read more at BBC News]

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 The Raw Story]

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 “big, urgent questions that we are holding this hearing to answer” was “Why isn’t whole-body-scanning technology that can detect explosives in wider use?” Former Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff told the Washington Post, “You’ve got to find some way of detecting things in parts of the body that aren’t easy to get at. It’s either pat downs or imaging, or otherwise hoping that bad guys haven’t figured it out, and I guess bad guys have figured it out.”

Since the alternative is being groped by airport screeners, the scanners might sound pretty good. The Transportation Security Administration has claimed that the images “are friendly enough to post in a preschool,” though the pictures themselves tell another story, and numerous organizations have opposed them as a gross invasion of privacy. Beyond privacy issues, however, are questions about whether these machines really work — and about who stands to benefit most from their use. When it comes to high-tech screening methods, the TSA has a dismal record of enriching private corporations with failed technologies, and there are signs that the latest miracle device may just bring more of the same.

[Read more at Alternet]

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 Wired magazine. He was the guy with the dreadlocks and the giant V.R. goggles perched on his forehead, the epitome of the hippie-shaman-guru strain in tech culture. In what may have been a high point, Lanier’s V.R. glove was used to power the graphics in a Grateful Dead video. Lanier lost his company in the early ’90s in a then-legendary flameout, and he has been working in the seams of academia and Silicon Valley ever since. He’s the barefoot guy in the conference room, ever creative, childlike.

You Are Not a Gadget is basically a collection of his Internet columns and postings, bound, set into type, and called a “manifesto.” Over the years, Lanier has become a skeptic of that amorphous thing called Web 2.0. He directs most of his ire toward the “anonymous blog comments, vapid video pranks, and lightweight mashups” that flit through our browsers and Twitter feeds. But he’s also critical of bigger Internet landmarks, such as Wikipedia, the open-source software Linux, and the “hive mind” in general.

[Read more at Slate]

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 the situation.

As police officers were helping the paramedics move Lassi to an ambulance, Lassi — still in the midst of the seizure and described as “unresponsive” — involuntarily smacked one of the officers with his arm.

“Reacting to Mr. Lassi’s involuntary movement, one or more of the [officers] pushed Mr. Lassi to the ground, forcibly restraining him there,” the complaint states. “[LaGrange Park Officer Darren] Pedota then withdrew his Taser, an electroshock weapon that uses electrical current to disrupt a person’s control over his muscles, and electrocuted Mr. Lassi eleven times.

[Read more at The Raw Story]

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 theft has made news before. Last year an Indian doctor, Amit Kumar, was arrested in Nepal, accused of being the leader of a “kidney theft ring” that supposedly took up to 500 kidneys from unwilling donors over the past nine years. Rumors circulated that Indian peasants were forced to give up their organs at gunpoint, though the accusations remain unproven and Kumar has not been tried nor convicted.

[Read more at LiveScience.com]

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 it documented the killings of 732 civilians between January and September by the Congolese army and troops from neighboring Rwanda fighting alongside it. In the same period, it counted 701 civilians killed by the rebels they are fighting.

[Read more at Yahoo News]

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]

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 the proposal came under public scrutiny.

[Read more at Wired]

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.

Full Article at Black Sun Gazette

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 Lorugene Young, whose Outreach Program Inc. is one of three groups that distribute toys collected by firefighters.

“It’s not our desire to turn anyone down,” she said. “Those kids are not responsible if they are here illegally. It is the parents’ responsibility.”

The idea of a charity turning away children because of decisions made by their parents unsettled some immigration activists.

[Read more at The Houston Chronicle]

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 I react if the Swiss voted to restrict the way synagogues are built? With horror, of course. Indeed, the mere hint of such a proposal in the heart of Europe – given the blood-soaked history of the 20th century – would send a shudder down the collective spine. That reaction alone would tell me that, on this proposal, there was only one decent place to be – against it.

Or take Jack Straw’s campaign against the niqab in 2006. He and his supporters made what they hoped was a subtle, nuanced case against women wearing the full veil, but my first thought was much simpler. What if a government minister told ultra-orthodox Jewish men that, in their full beards, it was hard to tell them apart, or that he disliked the custom that commands ultra-orthodox Jewish women to cut off their hair, covering their heads with either a wig or a hat? No matter how subtle or nuanced his reasons, I would feel that this was, at best, an act of bullying directed at a vulnerable minority or, at worst, the first step towards something much more menacing.

[Read more at The Guardian]

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’ as a voluntary scheme in Manchester to save the Government’s face.

[Read more at The Daily Mail]

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 the clinic and marketplace. In reality, patents often suppress invention rather than promote it: drugs are “evergreened” when patents are on the verge of running out – companies buy up the patents of potential rivals in order to prevent them being turned into products. Moreover, the prices charged, especially for pharmaceuticals, are often grossly in excess of those required to cover costs and make reasonable profits.

[Read more at The Guardian]

The ice chunk, measuring some 2,300 feet long with an estimated depth of more than 1,000 feet, caused a stir when it was sighted by experts based on Australia’s remote Macquarie Island.

“I’ve never seen anything like it – we looked out to the horizon and just saw this huge floating island of ice,” said fur seal biologist Dean Miller.

Neal Young, an Australian Antarctic Division glaciologist, said the flat-topped slab could break into dozens of smaller icebergs as it moves in the direction of New Zealand, causing a possible shipping hazard.

“It’s rare to make a sighting like this – it’s certainly impressive-looking,” he said.

He said the iceberg had probably split from a major Antarctic ice shelf nine years ago, and said more could be expected in the area if global warming continues.

“If the current trends in global warming were to continue I would anticipate seeing more icebergs and the large ice shelves breaking up,” he added.

But Professor Jonathan Bamber, from Bristol University, said icebergs the size of Wales can break off the Antarctic and it is too early to say if it is caused by climate change.

Illness linked to electromagnetic radiation exposure include many cancers, neurological conditions, ADD, sleep disorders, depression, autism, cognitive problems, cardiovascular irregularities, hormone disruption, immune system disorders, metabolism changes, stress, fertility impairment, increased blood brain barrier permeability, mineral disruption, DNA damage and much, much more.

Multimedia Presentation on Wireless Health Hazards from ElectromagneticHealth.Org.

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

Members of Free Art and Technology (FAT), OpenFrameworks, the Graffiti Research Lab, and The Ebeling Group communities have teamed-up with a legendary LA graffiti writer, publisher and activist, named Tony Quan, aka TEMPTONE. Tony was diagnosed with ALS in 2003, a disease which has left him almost completely physically paralyzed… except for his eyes. This international team is working together to create a low-cost, open source eye-tracking system that will allow ALS patients to draw using just their eyes. The long-term goal is to create a professional/social network of software developers, hardware hackers, urban projection artists and ALS patients from around the world who are using local materials and open source research to creatively connect and make eye art.

This week the team behind the EyeWriter project released all the Source code, free software, DIY instructions, and eye tags by Tempt1 to the public at eyewriter.org

A federal judge ruled Monday that a lawsuit can move forward against the Patent and Trademark Office and the research company that was awarded exclusive rights to human genes known to detect early signs of breast and ovarian cancer.The first-of-its-kind lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Public Patent Foundation at the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law claims that the patents violate free speech by restricting research.

U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet of New York, in ruling that the case may proceed to trial, noted that the litigation might open the door to challenges of a host of other patented genes. About one-fifth of the human genome is covered under patent applications and claims.

[Read more at Wired]

From the World Socialist Web Site

There are growing signs of a major shift in world currency alignments. Since March, the US dollar has steadily declined, depreciating by 13.3 percent on a trade-weighted basis. Last week the decline accelerated, driving gold prices to record levels and prompting a number of Asian central banks to intervene on currency markets to slow the dollar’s fall.

Rather than warning of the implications of this erosion in the value of the world’s major trading and reserve currency, prominent financial publications and economic commentators are arguing that the trend should be welcomed and the long-term value of the dollar should be allowed to fall further.

Read more at the World Socialist Web Site

What’s the big deal? Birds, who are carriers of influenza, are being exposed to the waterborne Tamiflu residues and might develop and spread drug-resistant trains of seasonal and avian flu.

If scientists’ measurements are right, concentrations of Tamiflu in natural bodies of water are now “high enough to lead to antiviral resistance in waterfowl.” And, Tamiflu contamination will only rise in the coming winter months, as seasonal and swine flu hit the population.

Will Tamiflu sow the seeds of the next great pandemic?