Image via WikipediaThe Remaining Light - A CCPA documentary film about how we care for seniors
an often invisible part of Canada's health care system -- the community-based services that provide care to seniors as they age and die. The film features the stories of seniors and their families, and explores themes of dignity, preventing illness and social isolation, and keeping health care costs under control as the boomer generation ages.
Australians hit by Cyclone Yasi warned to stay away from deadly giant birds
Australians trying to rebuild in the wake of Cyclone Yasi have been warned to stay away from cassowaries – huge flightless birds with claws that can disembowel a human – on the hunt for food after their habitat was destroyed by the storm.
In the worlds of the Surveillance and National Security State, the powers of the state have become largely privatized. There is very little separation between government power and corporate power. Those who wield the latter intrinsically wield the former. The revolving door between the highest levels of government and corporate offices rotates so fast and continuously that it has basically flown off its track and no longer provides even the minimal barrier it once did. It's not merely that corporate power is unrestrained; it's worse than that: corporations actively exploit the power of the state to further entrench and enhance their power.
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2011/02/12/obama-makes-yemen-imprison-journalist-for-exposing-us-war-crimes/
WL Central also reviewed a report on January 19 of a Yemeni journalist jailed after alleging US involvement in missile attack. Abdul Ilah Shayi had accused the US of being involved in an attack on the community of al-Ma’jalah in the Abyan area, southern Yemen, which took place on 17 December 2009 and killed 55 people, including 14 women and 21 children. Shayi had written articles accusing the US government of involvement and had been interviewed by Al Jazeera. He was sentenced on January 18 to five years in prison by the Specialized Criminal Court in the capital Sana’a, for his purported links to al-Qa’ida. His acquaintance, Abdul Kareem al-Shami, was jailed for two years on similar charges. He “appears to have been targeted for his work uncovering information on US complicity in attacks in the country,” Amnesty International has said.
Image via WikipediaAs Yemen Times reports, President Saleh issued a decree of pardon to Shayi, as part of the concessions he was offering to protesters. But on February 2, according to a statement from the White House, US President Barack Obama expressed his ‘concern’ over the proposed release and the promised release has since been ignored.Hamoud Hazza’a from the Committee to Protect Journalists said if Shayi is not released soon it will confirm that “the Yemeni government has no power in the country and they are only a follower of the US. We only want to make sure they release him, although the way he was arrested was wrong, the trial was wrong and the way he is being pardoned is also wrong.” The fact that the US president can cancel a Yemen judge’s verdict shows that the judicial system in Yemen is not independent and that the US president controls everything, according to Hazza’a. “The US and the NGO’s supported by the US are taking a negative stand against Shaye’ as he exposed what happened in Al-Ma’jala.” (ht2 @GDAEman)\\
White House to Iran: Allow opposition demonstrations there
Opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi* and Mehdi Karroub, both candidates in that election, wanted to stage a rally Monday in support of uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt. But the regime quickly put a damper on the permit request, calling the rallies "riots by seditionists.""By announcing that they will not allow opposition protests, the Iranian government has declared illegal for Iranians what it claimed was noble for Egyptians," National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said in a statement released by the White House on Saturday."We call on the government of Iran to allow the Iranian people the universal right to peacefully assemble, demonstrate and communicate that’s being exercised in Cairo," he said.*Mousavi was prime minister from 1981 to 1989, overseeing the suppression of left-wing movements and presiding over the slaughter of hundreds of thousands in the devastating war with Iraq.Mousavi’s 2009 presidential campaign and the subsequent protests were ba
Algeria shuts down internet and Facebook as protest mounts
Internet providers were shut down and Facebook accounts deleted across Algeria on Saturday as thousands of pro-democracy demonstrators were arrested in violent street demonstrations.
It was the government attack on the internet which was of particular significance to those calling for an end to President Abdelaziz Boutifleka's repressive regime.
Protesters mobilising through the internet were largely credited with bringing about revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia.
"The government doesn't want us forming crowds through the internet," said Rachid Salem, of Co-ordination for Democratic Change in Algeria
Egypt: Hosni Mubarak used last 18 days in power to secure his fortune
Hosni Mubarak used the 18 days it took for protesters to topple him to shift his vast wealth into untraceable accounts overseas, Western intelligence sources have said.
The military rulers that took over when Mubarak stepped down Friday, said they will run the country for six months, or until presidential and parliament elections can be held.
The military leaders said they were forming a committee to amend the constitution and set the rules for popular referendum to endorse the amendments.
Both the lower and upper houses of parliament are being dissolved. The last parliamentary elections in November and December were heavily rigged by the ruling party, virtually shutting out any opposition representation.
What the Turkish Military is Thinking
Claire Berlinski, Ed. · Feb. 12 at 7:42am
Flownover asked me for my opinion about what the Turkish military is thinking today. I expect he meant, "What they're thinking about Egypt," but I have to imagine their minds are on more immediate matters: The courts have just issued orders to lock up 162 of their officers:
A Turkish court ruled Friday that 133 current and former military officers must be jailed pending the outcome of their trial on charges of plotting to overthrow the government and issued warrants for the arrests of 29 other officers, Anatolia news agency reported.
Thousands demand reforms in Algeria; 400 arrested
Heavily outnumbered by riot police, thousands of Algerians defied government warnings and dodged barricades to rally in their capital Saturday, demanding democratic reforms a day after mass protests toppled Egypt’s autocratic ruler.Protesters chanting “No to the police state!” and brandishing signs that read “Give us back our Algeria” clashed with baton-wielding police in helmets and visors. Organizers said more than 400 people were briefly detained, but aside from some jostling between police and protesters no violence was reported.
The opposition said demonstrators’ bold defiance of a long-standing ban on public protests in Algiers marked a turning point.
“This demonstration is a success because it’s been 10 years that people haven’t been able to march in Algiers and there’s a sort of psychological barrier,” said Ali Rachedi, the former head of the Front of Socialist Forces party. “The fear is gone.”
Organizers said as many as 26,000 riot police were deployed to try to quash Saturday’s rally, but that an estimated 10,000 people succeeded in jostling, squeezing and jumping over the barricades and gathering in the city center before the protest was broken up. Officials put turnout at the rally at 1,500.
Algeria has long been ruled by a repressive government and beset by widespread poverty and high unemployment — factors that helped foment popular uprisings that ousted leaders of two other North African nations in the past month.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/02/12/algeria-braces-for-pro-democracy-protest/#ixzz1DraZlxj4
Pakistan issues arrest warrant for Musharraf in assassination of Bhutto
Why I Flattened Three Afghan Villages
When the day began for Lt. Col. David Flynn on Oct. 6, Taliban insurgents were using three southern Afghanistan hamlets as bomb factories. By the time the next day ended, Tarok Kolache, Khosrow Sofla and Lower Babur had been eradicated from the valley where they once stood.
Flynn had ordered tens of thousands of pounds of bombs to rain down on the villages. Tarok Kolache was completely flattened, and there wasn’t much left of the other two.
Flynn says that he had little choice but to take the extreme step. The Taliban had rigged bombs all through the compounds in the villages, and placed tons of explosives in the vegetated fields nearby.
Efforts at clearing the villages of homemade bombs during the previous three months had failed. The fighters had evicted the villagers from their land, telling them, “you can’t get to the fields this year,” in preparation for the U.S. troop surge. Few residents still retained hope that they’d ever get to move back home.an analyst close to Gen. David Petraeus, Paula Broadwell, blogged earlier this month about the destruction of Tarok Kolache with 49,200 lbs. of rockets and bombs.
Flynn discloses that it wasn’t just Tarok Kolache that got hit: Khosrow Sofla and Lower Babur, located nearby in the Arghandab River Valley, were pounded nearly as badly. Several buildings in Khosrow Sofla are still standing, Flynn says, but Lower Babur is “closer to Tarok Kolache, though not completely eliminated.”
Now, the villages are being rebuilt, a process that’s just begun and which probably won’t be finished by the time Flynn’s battalion completes its tour in the spring. It remains to be seen whether Afghans will remember Flynn for taking the villages back from the Taliban — or completing the process of their destruction.
( Except - he didn't take them back - so it's nonsense to suggest he did.
Community is not infrastructure - though one depends on the other. What sort of impression would it make on you if trigger-happy foreigners speaking a language you didn't understand 'took over' and wrecked your place in your land ?
Tolerance and trust isn't your first reaction either ? How about fear and the corollary hate ? )
Republicans begin repeal process of Medical Marijuana
Montana is set to repeal as soon as tomorrow while other states are posed for the same or regulate it out of existence. As we have learned in the first month of Republican control, it is imperative to our economy, to our very survival to stop women from having abortions and to put pot smokers back in jail where they belong. As Jesus said, "Blessed are the jailers, for they watch over the poor."
South Carolina May Adopt Own Currency
outh Carolinians have spent much of the last two years asserting various forms of independence from the federal government and attempting to block different federal laws. Now a state senator from the Palmetto State has decided it's time for South Carolina to create its own currency.
State Sen. Lee Bright (R-Roebuck) says that federal spending and increased monetary intervention by the Fed have placed the entire US Federal Reserve system on a path to monetary collapse. And when the crash comes, state residents will need to rely on the stable South Carolina currency to weather the storm.
"If folks lose faith in the dollar, we need to have some kind of backup," Bright told Stephen Largen of theSpartanburg Herald-Journal on Friday.
Bright's proposed legislation states that "many widely recognized experts predict the inevitable destruction of the Federal Reserve System's currency through hyperinflation in the foreseeable future; and ...
The legislation calls for the creation of a joint legislative subcommittee which would study the "the need, means, and schedule for establishing such an alternative currency."
Blue America Welcomes Carol Moseley Braun, Candidate For Mayor Of Chicago
When Ambassador Braun left the Illinois House of Representatives, where she had been Assistant Majority Leader and an effective champion of progressive causes she was dubbed "the conscience of the House".
With the withdrawal of state Senator James Meeks and Congressman Danny Davis from the mayor's race-- both have endorsed her-- Carol became the consensus candidate with an actual shot at beating the Big Business-backed Emanuel. Despite Emanuel's very focused disinformation campaign with the corporate media, to Carol and to Chicago reformers with the ability to see past that, this election is a referendum on inclusiveness and transparency in Chicago politics and on what Markos would clearly see as outsiders crashing some of the highest, most forbidding gates in political America.
Scientology-- Joke's-On-You-Cult Or Dangerous Criminal Conspiracy?
Scientology postulates that every person is a Thetan—an immortal spiritual being that lives through countless lifetimes.
Hubbard’s writings offer a “technology” of spiritual advancement and self-betterment that provides “the means to attain true spiritual freedom and immortality.”
Although the U.S., where there are around 25,000 believers, buys into it as a tax-exempt "religion," the cult is simply treated as another money-grubbing cult preying on the weak-minded in most of the world, including the U.K., France, Canada, Belgium, Israel, Mexico and Germany.
( I'm old enough to remember articles where science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard - who wrote hysterically funny space operas about aliens with wild mores - was reported to have said that he had written a satirical idealized modern religion as a spoof...and initially couldn't believe people took it seriously ! )
Regimes Of Systemic Rape Helps Prison Officials Keep Control-- "Keeps 'Em Out Of Our Hair"
When a criminal is found guilty and consigned to a real prison-- not a Club Fed where they put politicians and wealthy corporate types like Mike Carona or Duke Cunningham-- society is also consigning them to a special kind of hell that is rarely discussed in polite company.
Rape in prison is rampant-- the estimate from the Bureau of Justice Statistics was that 88,500 adults were sexually abused in prison last year; the Justice Department says it's 200,000-- and as much a part of the system as anything else-- another tool for a sociopathic internal gulag force which takes delight in its own virulent, uncontrollable homophobia. They claim they can't clean up the rape regimes in prison because it would be too expensive.
Rape and coercion have long been regarded as an inevitable part of prison life, particularly among the most targeted populations-- inmates who are young and slight of stature, effeminate or gay, the mentally ill and first-timers. Yet the national commission established by PREA found that a number of fixable problems, from poor staff training and inadequate screening of vulnerable inmates to overcrowding and an almost complete lack of prosecution of perpetrators, could and should be addressed to reduce the rate of assault.
The Civil Wars: A Chance Meeting, An Internet Sensation
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