Tuesday 31 July 2012
Monday 30 July 2012
Sunday 29 July 2012
{Political_Views} SYRIA'S WMD? « Eric Margolis
We do the dirty work and a new USA is born. UNITED SAUDI ARABIA
http://ericmargolis.com/2012/07/syrias-wmd/
Saturday 28 July 2012
{Political_Views} Fw: NATION OF CHANGE | U.S. Gun Laws: Guilty by Reason of Insanity
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Annie-Rose Strasser, News Report: "Denver Health Medical Center and University of Colorado Hospital haven't said what they'll do, but the hospitals are Colorado's top safety net hospitals in a state where 14 percent of residents are uninsured. Money donated from concerned citizens and the studio that released the movie The Dark Knight Rises has already totaled $2 million, the AP reported today. But that's a drop in the bucket for victims who will leave the hospital with lifelong injuries and special needs." 
Christopher Petrella, Op-Ed: "Social geographer, David Harvey, is famous for having noted that economic crises often 'reveal the rationality of fundamentally irrational systems.' For Harvey, a crisis discloses the 'irrational rationalizers' of our contradictory capitalist arrangement. Philanthro-capitalism, or the popular practice of applying business strategies to social challenges, represents the very core of this contradiction." 
Irfan Ahmed, News Report: "At a time when spiraling input costs and perennial shortages of irrigation water are breaking countless farmers' backs, a small village community on the outskirts of Lahore appears to have been spared. The village of Hudiara, situated close to the Wagah border, falls in the way of a natural storm water channel called the Hudiara Drain, which originates in Batala in India's Gurdaspur District and flows for nearly 55 kilometres before entering Pakistan." 
Joe Conason, Op-Ed: "In the wake of yet another well-armed madman killing and maiming innocent Americans, we are again rediscovering the malign influence of the NRA (correctly described by Alan Berlow as the criminals' lobby). But the political salience of the Aurora tragedy extends beyond the usually sterile argument over gun control. Among the casualties there happens to be a young family whose plight illustrates another hotly debated national disgrace: the absence of universal health coverage." 
Paul Abowd, News Report: "The RGA Right Direction PAC is a Washington, D.C.-based super PAC, registered with federal regulators to make independent expenditures supporting or opposing candidates. So what is it doing giving $1 million directly to the Republican running for governor of Indiana? The donation to Mike Pence, the largest to his campaign, appears to be a way around state laws limiting corporate contributions to candidates." 
Amy Goodman, Video Interview: "Britain has launched its biggest peacetime security operation ever ahead of the opening of the Summer Olympics. Nearly 20,000 armed forces personnel are now providing security — almost double the number of British troops currently serving in Afghanistan. The Olympic Games are estimated to cost British taxpayers a staggering $17 billion. At the same time, Brits near the Olympic Park have been subjected to sweeping censorship laws enacted by their government at the behest of the International Olympic Committee." 
Amy Goodman, Op-Ed: "James Holmes, the alleged shooter in the massacre in Aurora, Colo., reportedly amassed his huge arsenal with relative ease. Some of these weapons were illegal as recently as eight years ago. Legislation now before Congress would once again make illegal, if not the guns themselves, at least the high-capacity magazines that allow bullets to be fired rapidly without stopping to reload." 
Michael Beckel, News Report: "New Jersey-based Jet Set Sports is among the sponsors of the U.S. Olympic team. It could also be described as a corporate sponsor of Republican Mitt Romney's candidacy. It's a sponsorship that comes with some unwelcome baggage for Romney. Jet Set's founder was a major player in the scandal that surrounded the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympic games — a mess that Romney has been credited with cleaning up." 
Special Coverage: "As we enter Day 312 of the Occupy movements the protests have spread not only across the country but all over the globe. Thousands of activists have descended on Wall Street these past weeks as part of the #OccupyWallStreet protest organized by several action groups. What follows is a live video stream and live Twitter feed of this event." 
Richard Conlin, Op-Ed: "The results of the SEI study provided us with solid information that there is at least one pathway to carbon neutrality that is clearly within our technical capabilities. There are many other possible pathways that were not examined, of course, and there is also a wide array of potential pathways that are not currently feasible but that could emerge as technologies evolve. And, while this report verified technical capability, it did not look at political feasibility—which may make all the difference as we actually try to implement specific strategies to maximize implementation." 
Richard (RJ) Eskow, Op-Ed: "It was a dream come true for the austerity crowd when Great Britain's conservative/'centrist' coalition government took power in 2010. And for commentators like Slate's Anne Appelbaum it was that kind of dream. Her celebratory column reflected the orgiastic glee with which the new government's austerity plans were greeted, reveling in admiring (yes, admiring) phrases like these: 'Vicious cuts.' 'Savage cuts.' 'Swingeing (sic) cuts.' 'Axe-wielders.'" {Political_Views} BREAKING: Aurora copycat apprehended with 20 guns
Why are we so violent? It's because of the ease that one can get a weapon of any sort and the ammo to go with it. In other countries like England, Germany, France, Japan and more you do not see gun stores or gun shows. Nor are their pawn shops where one can purchases a pawned gun. They have just as many violent films and TV programs as well as video games. What they do not have is the attitude that the solution to any problem or argument is via the use of a gun.
 Police in Maryland have just foiled what they say "could have been another Aurora."1 Authorities found an arsenal of more than 20 weapons, including semi-automatic rifles, shotguns and handguns, plus more than 1,000 rounds of ammunition in the home of an individual who threatened to carry out a mass shooting at his workplace.2 This is second time in a week that police have apprehended an assailant planning to use a vast collection of weapons to murder innocent people. On Sunday, state troopers in Maine arrested a man who had multiple weapons including an AK-47 in his car. The suspect happened to be speeding.3 The police have done a heroic job in stopping these crimes before they happened, but make no mistake: the current system is not working. Our public safety can't rely on a suspect who is armed to the teeth making a mistake. We need a real plan to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Please join Mayors Against Illegal Guns in calling on the candidates for president to share their plan to stop the next mass shooting. Demand a Plan to End Gun Violence! We can't wait until the next tragedy to act. Thanks for speaking up, Mayors Against Illegal Guns [1] "Neil Trescott, Maryland mass shooting suspect, arrested," WJLA ABC 7 News, July 27, 2012 [2] "Planned Massacre Foiled By Maryland Cops," ABC News, July 27, 2012 [3] "Maine State Police: Man arrested says he carried gun into Batman movie showing," Boston Globe Metro Desk, July 23, 2012 You are receiving this email because you have expressed interest in the work of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org | Unsubscribe |
{Political_Views} Fw: NATION OF CHANGE/ The Nakedness of Their Greed
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George Lakey, Op-Ed: Campaigners can become obsessed by the "They," learning more and more about them and complaining bitterly about their machinations. Others focus on the slice next to the "They" that might include the police, and forget about the rest. That's a good recipe for defeat. When activists embrace their full power and dare to look at the whole picture, multiple opportunities for movement growth show up. 
Suzanne Merkelson, News Analysis: Sen. Tom Udall (D-N.M.) cited Citizens United and the DC Circuit Court of Appeals' decision on SpeechNow v. FEC as the two cases most directly responsible for the rise of super PACs. "But our campaign finance system was hardly a model of democracy before these opinions," he said. "We have been on this dangerous path for a long time. The Citizens United and SpeechNow decisions may have picked up the pace, but the court laid the groundwork many years ago." 
Peter G Cohen, Op-Ed: "Scientists tell us that climate change threatens civilization as we know it, and that the sooner we act, the better chance we have of preventing worst disasters. We must not pass on to our children a world of violent storms, destructive floods, advancing deserts, and life-threatening shortages of food and water. While the U.S. may be better able to withstand these threats than some less-developed nations, scientists say that recent climate disasters are only an introduction to what lies ahead, if we do not act." 
Steve Horn, News Analysis: The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is in the midst of hosting its 39th Annual Meeting this week in Salt Lake City, Utah. ALEC is appropriately described as an ideologically conservative, Republican Party-centric "corporate bill mill" by the Center for Media and Democracy, the overseer of the ALEC Exposed project. 98 percent of ALEC's funding comes from corporations, according to CMD**. 
Froma Harrop, Op-Ed: Last winter, the Journal reported on a new trend in living big: "trophy basements." Homebuyers demanding opulence now covet vast underground living spaces. (Badgers know all about underground living.) For example, an architect in Beverly Hills designed a 14,000-square-foot basement with a grand ballroom and 50-seat theater. Builders say that buyers of immense spaces seek room for such luxuries as collection galleries, shooting ranges and morning bars. 
Jay Walljasper, News Report: "People on bikes everywhere feel more safe and comfortable on busy streets with a physical barrier between them and motor vehicles. In some places it's a plastic post or line of parked cars. In others it's a curb, planter or slightly elevated bike lanes. But no matter what separates people on bikes from people in cars, the results are hefty increases in the number and variety of people bicycling." 
Lois Beckett, News Analysis: "Dark money groups are also quietly expanding their online advertising efforts, using sophisticated targeting tactics to send their ads to specific kinds of people. Online advertising companies have amassed vast quantities of information on what individual people read, watch, and do on the Internet. They collect this data using small files called cookies, which allows them to track Internet users as they move from site to site." 
Amy Goodman, Video Report: "I think Françoise put it best in pointing a finger at the enormous amount of work yet to be done and the importance of not resting on the laurels—there was far too much of that, many of us felt—but the need to recognize that you do have 33 or 34 million people who will have to be on treatment, you do have this two-and-a-half million children who are not being treated now and are between the ages of six and 15, you have hundreds of thousands of children still being born HIV-positive every year." 
Richard (RJ) Eskow, Op-Ed: The Republican proposal for taxable estates doesn't change life for ordinary households but, as the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities documents, rich kids inheriting their parents' money would receive an average $1.1 million in tax breaks - while parents working to support their children or put them through college would pay more. The GOP proposal is nothing less than an all-out assault on any but the wealthiest children, closing the door to every struggling generation's dream of a better life. 
Josh Israel, News Report: While this would appear to be a victory for disclosure, a review of the new electioneering communication reports filed since that time reveals that outside groups have stopped making these types of decisions entirely. Dark money groups like Crossroads GPS and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce that had previously spent heavily on electioneering communications have instead circumvented the ruling by running "independent expenditures" that are more explicitly for or against federal candidates and, ironically, do not require donor disclosure. 
Special Coverage: "As we enter Day 314 of the Occupy movements the protests have spread not only across the country but all over the globe. Thousands of activists have descended on Wall Street these past weeks as part of the #OccupyWallStreet protest organized by several action groups. What follows is a live video stream and live Twitter feed of this event."