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Thomas Paine

To argue with a person who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

8 December - News Notes

Political Blog NetworkImage by p373 via FlickrHomelessnessImage by Todd Huffman via FlickrOAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 13: An Occupy Wall Stre...Image by Getty Images via @daylifeOAKLAND, CA - OCTOBER 13: Porsche Miller cook...Image by Getty Images via @daylifeEnglish: Homeless man sleeping at the bus stop...Image via WikipediaEnglish: Textbook erratic. This erratic featur...Image via WikipediaGalego: Estatua diante do estadio de Austin, T...Image via WikipediaEnglish: The Beijing Botanical GardenImage via WikipediaEnglishfamilytreeImage via WikipediaMontage of languages. Prototype header for the...Image via WikipediaHubSpot Leads Automatically Get Social Media I...Image by HubSpot via FlickrEnglish: Map showing the location of Attawapis...Image via WikipediaAttawapiskat First Nation Band OfficeImage via WikipediaEnglish: Attawapiskat First Nation with logoImage via WikipediaEnglish: Attawapiskat First Nation of Communit...Image via WikipediaSocial Media OutpostsImage by the tartanpodcast via FlickrXinhua News AgencyImage by xiaming via FlickrHarold Innis argues that the need to pay for c...Image via WikipediaEnglish: I amImage via WikipediaLakehead Univerity campus in the SummerImage via WikipediaP199's photo with adjusted colors.Image via WikipediaCanada - ON - Attawapiskat First Nation Police...Image by conner395 via FlickrThe Science North main buildingImage via WikipediaXinhuaImage by wwward0 via FlickrEnglish: The lake in the Chaoyang Park in BeijingImage via Wikipedia
Advice For Democratic Candidates From A Recovering Republican Operative

The Wisdom of the Smart Crowd

Who Are the ‘Most-Read’ Authors?

Pakistan: NATO supply routes are still closed as thousands party at border

  1. Crisis in Attawapiskat

    A First Nations community in Northern Ontario is in a state of emergency.

Total Eclipse of the Moon 

Dec 10 starting at 445 PST

global visibility map.  

Chinese state TV unveils global expansion plan

CCTV to increase overseas staff tenfold by 2016 as English-language services spearhead Beijing's soft power push

Countries that take the dominant position in cultural development and own strong cultural soft power are the ones that gain the initiative in fierce international competition," argued an essay in Chinese journal Leadership Decision-Making Information last month.

Beijing has created almost 300 Confucius institutes around the world, teaching Chinese language and culture, and spent a reported £4bn on expanding state media. It has created a new English language newspaper, Russian and Arabic TV channels and a 24-hour English news station run by the Xinhua state news agency.
In a sign of how far the Chinese media reaches, you can buy the European edition of the English-language China Daily in a Sheffield and read Xinhua's Kenyan "mobile newspaper" on your phone in Nairobi.
In Boston, China Radio International has claimed the frequency previously owned by WILD-AM – "home for classic soul and R&B" – to the surprise of listeners.

Social Media as Public Diplomacy
America’s national security depends on smart policies supported by effective and agile engagement to foster understanding of our government's policies, countering misinformation, developing partnerships, and most importantly, encouraging and empowering others to realize that the government's fight is their fight as well. This is where public diplomacy, engaging directly and indirectly with people around the globe, proves necessary.
While America created the Internet, Facebook, and Twitter, the appreciation of the tactical and strategic values of social media lags far behind our adversaries' practices.
In this age of mass information and precision-guided media, everyone from political candidates to terrorists must instantly and continuously interact with and influence audiences in order to be relevant and competitive. Ignoring the utility of social media is tantamount to surrendering the high ground in the enduring battle to influence minds around the world.
Social media breaks through geographical, cultural and even linguistic barriers, democratizing the access to, and distribution of information. The instant exchange of news and opinions among people today means that operations conducted in one place likely have an impact elsewhere. It can either be through sympathetic action (e.g. a terrorist strike by supporters who have only a cyber-connection to the perceived “wronged” party) or through a shift of the battlefield (e.g. a terrorist strike in the homeland or an allied city).
Through social media, international influence is as easy as a few clicks of a mouse.
 
mountainrunner US launches 'virtual' embassy for Iran http://t.co/qLxtLsCi and Tehran blocks it http://t.co/MV8lYrTG

mountainrunner RT @MiriamElder: Russian absurdity, protest edition. The revolution will be (re)tweeted, by Medvedev: http://t.co/2g9yNhy6

Public Diplomacy is that "form of international Political Advocacy in which the civilians of one country use legitimate means to reach out to the civilians of another country in order to gain popular support for negotiations occurring through diplomatic channels."[1]



Putin says US encouraged Russia protesters 

America: your public diplomacy “wears combat boots”

2,012 For 2012: Progressives Launch Project To Recruit Local Candidates, Combat Conservative Dominance 

The Texas State Board of Education became embroiled in national controversy when its efforts to adjust the state's social studies curriculum and textbooks gained widespread notice. The conservative majority on the board, which wielded enormous influence over what the state's children would learn and essentially had the power to rewrite the nation's history, wanted more references to Christianity and conservative figures and fewer mentions of civil rights leaders and liberals.

( Background

Texas Textbooks - NYTimes.com - Economics and Politics by Paul ...

 

krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/18/texas-textbooks
Guess who's writing our textbooks? ... Oh, boy. Paul Samuelson famously declared, “I don’t care who writes a nation’s laws — or crafts its ... 

Texas OKs school textbook changes - US news - Life - msnbc.com

 

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37271857/ns/us_news-life
AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas State Board of Education adopted a social studies and history curriculum Friday that amends or waters down the teaching of the ...
 
Texas Textbook Adoption: An Historical Analysis
 

www.texscience.org/files/textbook-adoption.htm
TEXAS TEXTBOOK ADOPTION An Historical Analysis. by Steven Schafersman President, Texas Citizens for Science www.texscience.org Austin, Texas July 9, 2003 

Open source textbooks a "threat" to Texas education? | opensource.com
 

opensource.com/education/10/1/open-source-textbooks-threat-texas...
Texas has never been afraid of bold education initiatives, and the passage of Texas House Bill 2488 in June 2009 was definitely bold. The bill, "Relating to open ...
 
A Fight over Texas Textbooks | American Vision (from page 3)
 

americanvision.org/1434/fight-over-texas-textbooks
For nearly 40 years, Texas has been fighting yearly battles over textbooks for the simple reason that the choices Texas makes, the nation makes.  

Education, Democracy, and Justice: Texas, Textbooks, and the ...
 

education-democracy-justice.blogspot.com/2011/01/texas-textbooks...
Hi All, We're going to start out with a bang this week on the blog and talk about Texas, textbooks, and the politics of the curriculum. Most of you have ... )
Yoni Goldstein

Why Is Ontario Funding Catholic Schools?

Yoni Goldstein, 12/ 8/11
Writer
There is absolutely nothing to like about the Ontario government's funding of Catholic schools. Not one thing. It is, quite frankly, a stupid and wholly unfair policy, a relic so far out of touch with the present day the fact that it has lasted this long is preposterous.
Read Post |

To State Dept., WikiLeaks or Not, Secrets Are Secrets

Asked in April by the American Civil Liberties Union under the Freedom of Information Act for copies of 23 cables on Guantánamo, rendition and other matters, the State Department responded as if the confidential documents were still confidential.
Twelve of the cables “must be withheld in full” because they are classified as secret or contain important information, Alex Galovich, of the department’s Office of Information Programs and Services, wrote to the A.C.L.U. on Oct. 21. The other 11, he concluded, “may be released with excisions.”
Ben Wizner, litigation director for the A.C.L.U.’s national security project, said the group’s request for documents that were already public was “mischievous” but also had a serious point: forcing the government officially to acknowledge counterterrorism actions that it has often hidden behind a cloak of classification.
“In part the request was to expose the absurdity of the U.S. secrecy regime,”

Rupert Murdoch Lobbies Congress To Restrict Internet 

The Secret History Of America The Greatest Conspiracy On Earth
 
Do you believe in a GRAND CONSPIRACY ? Do you believe Oswald acted alone ? Do you believe that government is corrupt ? If so, then to what DEGREE ? That may depend on how willing you are to open your eyes and mind to SEE. Why is it that the more things change, the more they stay the same ? Why doesn't society ever seem to grow up ? Most people grow up thinking that the world is very big and we believe the world exists the way it does today because this is the direction humanity has taken and chosen.
7 Deadly Myths Now Manipulating Your Mind
 
The "Big Lie" has many facets. Each is particularly devious and deceptive. We may think we "get" what's going on but we may be making more daily assumptive conclusions than we think. Here's a quick cross section of the lying "methodology" being foisted upon us which I think we need to keep pounding on to keep the truth-ray machine squarely on the damned ephemeral "predator in the shrubs" crawling around our lives.
 

 

The Real History of 'Corporate Personhood': Meet the Man to Blame for Corporations Having More Rights Than You

The real history of today's excessive corporate power starts with a tobacco lawyer appointed to the Supreme Court. 

Powell titled his 1971 memo to the Chamber of Commerce “Attack on American Free Enterprise System.” He explained, “No thoughtful person can question that the American economic system is under broad attack.” In response, corporations must organize and fund a drive to achieve political power through “united action.” Powell emphasized the need for a sustained, multiyear corporate campaign to use an “activist-minded Supreme Court” to shape “social, economic and political change” to the advantage of corporations.
Powell continued:
But independent and uncoordinated activity by individual corporations, as important as this is, will not be sufficient. Strength lies in organization, in careful long-range planning and implementation, in consistency of action over an indefinite period of years, in the scale of financing available only through joint effort, and in the political power available only through united action and national organizations.
The roots of Citizens United lie in Powell’s 1971 strategy to use “activist” Supreme Court judges to create corporate rights. “Under our constitutional system,” Powell told the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “especially with an activist-minded Supreme Court, the judiciary may be the most important instrument for social, economic and political change.”

The entire United States is now a war zone: S.1867 passes the Senate with massive support

the White House’s official statement doesn’t even say that they will veto the bill. In fact, it says, “the President’s senior advisers [will] recommend a veto.” ....Dave Kopel reported that, “it was the Obama administration which told Congress to remove the language in the original bill which exempted American citizens and lawful residents from the detention power”.

The population of tent cities tripled in The US
 
Americans are Eagles led by Vultures. most Americans are just a paycheck or two from the street.This is One tent city out of THOUSANDS all around the nation... Yet there are only thousands because they bulldoze them as fast as they rebuild them. Also they are solving nothing. "Give a man a fish he eats for a day, teach a man to fish he eats for a lifetime" as an old saying goes. NO ONE has offered even slightly nor proposed... A permanent solution to solve this problem that is growing RAPIDLY. oh.. OK... I get it know.
 
Detroit to go Broke Within 4 Month
 
As Detroit Budget Crisis Deepens, Is State Takeover Nearing? Detroit is deep in trouble ,Now Detroit needs a bailout because unions are destroying the town... it will go bankrupt very soon. The problem is principle. How about a 'bailout' to the taxpayer? How about that money to go something useful like education or health care for the troops instead of to giant, mismanaged corporations? And you know what happens when you give free money to a corp--the execs pocket it.

The Panic Hour: Panic on K street arrests (raw footage)

 
What can save the euro?
Growth is needed in order to save the euro, not sermons and homilies, says Nobel Prize-winning economist.
Even some of the ostensibly "responsible" members of the eurozone are facing higher interest rates. Economists on both sides of the Atlantic are now discussing not just whether the euro will survive, but how to ensure that its demise causes the least turmoil possible. It is increasingly evident that Europe's political leaders, for all their commitment to the euro's survival, do not have a good grasp of what is required to make the single currency work.
 

The Identity of Beast by William Cooper

 
 

Domestic drones on the rise

What are the technological advantages and privacy concerns as drones become cheaper and more accessible? 
Farmers in Japan already use small drones to spray crops with pesticides. Also, Japanese safety inspectors have used them to monitor radiation at the crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant.
( $100 radio controlled helicopters with videocam are available right now...at the liquidator`s ! 
Who will use them for news first  )

Richard (RJ) Eskow

The "Banker Gangs" Are Still on the Loose, and the Justice Department Still Won't Come Clean

Richard (RJ) Eskow, 12/ 8/11
Consultant, writer and Senior Fellow, Campaign for America's Future
The country deserves action to stop Wall Street crime. If it takes a new team at the Justice Department to make that happen, then the country deserves that too.
Read Post |

ECB Shows the Bazooka, Targeting Liquidity

( Sounds like the lender confidence problem with `poisoned assets`has not been shown to be bad enough to be taken seriously. Would you lend money to deadbeats regardless of interest rates  )


 Old methods for new drugs
The target-based approach is analogous to looking for one's keys in the dark: If they are under a streetlight, they'll be easy to find. Many hoped that the molecular revolution would amount to more streetlights for drug discovery. Unfortunately, it appears that this new light, in most cases, is too dim to illuminate the molecular details of the dynamic human biological machine with sufficient specificity to rationalise the design of new medicines.
The random phenotypic process, though less efficient, will ultimately identify medicines that are effective and work to repair disease. The target-based approach, on the other hand, creates only the illusion of greater efficiency; in reality, its promise has been undermined by its inattention to the MMOA.

Are Marketing Departments Blocking Environmental Progress?



Agriculture will help Gulf
 
www.theadvertiser.com
 
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced that USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is launching an innovative water and wildlife conservation effort along the Gulf Coast of the United States. This action is part of the Obama Administration's efforts through its Gulf Coast Ecosyste...
 
"Orange Scab-Like Disease" found in Gulf State citrus with cause still unidentified since discovered in December 2010, and the quarantine issues surrounding it... Corexit? Gases? Chemicals? If it's doing it to fruits, killing dolphins and pelicans... imagine what it's doing to US.
FDACS DPI Tri-ology January - February 2011: Plant Pathology Section
 
www.freshfromflorida.com
 
Elsinoe australis (sweet orange scab-like disease) on Citrus reticulata (tangerine) Photograph from DPI Plant Pathology database (P2010-42790; 15 December 2010.)
 
USDA Confirms New Citrus Disease in Florida
 
www.aphis.usda.gov
 
Correction: (The sixth paragraph is corrected to show a list of subtropical regions of the world where citrus black spot occurs).
 
 

BP demands massive forensic examination of Halliburton computer systems
 
www.pcadvisor.co.uk
 
BP has demanded that a court allow a huge forensic examination of Halliburton's IT systems, over accusations that the US cementing contractor is hiding evidence into the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.



US warns of bioweapon threat from gene assembly

 

New York Should Become the First State to Ban Fracking | Center for Media and Democracy
 
www.prwatch.org
 
Adelaide Park Gomer, president of the Park Foundation based in Ithaca, New York, received the Advocacy Award from Common Cause for her work fighting fracking. Gomer is as a knowledgeable and passionate defender of independent media, environmental sustainability, and higher education, as well as of d...
From: TheAlexJonesChannel  | Dec 6, 2011  | 139,397 views
http://www.dailymotion.com/TheAlexJonesShow#videoId=xmrmga
 
see all
 
Favorites (1247)
 
 
Jon Stewart on Indefinite Detention: Destroying Our Way of Life Before Terrorists Can Do it for Us
 
www.alternet.org
 

Bright Light - secret CIA prison


On democracy: There’s nothing “left” about the Zionist left

Any democratic process must start by admitting two unbearable atrocities: first, the exclusiveness that Jews have over political power in a shared space, and second, the Judaizing system that uses state resources to maintain a brutal colonizing process.
Asking the Palestinians to accept the creation of a Jewish state back in the 1940s was unfair, insulting and even dehumanizing. It meant asking almost 40 percent of the population of this Jewish state to accept being underprivileged until the end of time. To accept living with fewer political rights than the ruling population, which in modern times means accepting being less “human” and less deserving of “human rights.” Moreover, it meant asking the “Palestinians” (who had superficially won the right to an independent state through the partition plan) to forgo all political, cultural and economic influence in a landscape to which they had been wholly linked.
Unfortunately, this is still the ruling discourse of the “peace process,” as it is understood in Israel and internationally.
Sterilising India
Does a local government effort aimed at curbing population growth serve to exclude men from the family planning process?

Should SSM Opponents Lose Their Children?

I think that as our understanding of what it means to be a parent evolves and our understanding of how damaging homophobia is evolves, we must consider the possibility that opponents of Same Sex Marriage are, by teaching their children homophobia, abusing them, and ought to have their children taken from them.
I’m going to lay out some of the best arguments for taking the children of SSM opponents from them and placing them in foster homes, or, preferably, with SSM proponents.
  1. When We Have A Civil Discussion Of Marriage Equality, It Will Hurt
  2. Marriage Equality Opponents on Civil Unions, Then and Now
  3. Same-sex marriage, civil unions, and country-club bigotry
  4. Same-Sex Marriage is needed to protect children
  5. Two Questions for Same-Sex Marriage Opponents

Need a Pardon? Donate to a Congressman. Being White Also Helps

Mr. Bush’s well-meaning reform itself needs reforming.

( `well meaning`being presumptive - and unsupported by facts )


ClustrMaps Shortlisted for Edublogs 'Best Free Web Tool'
Voting closes 13 Dec 2011: story/voting link

ColorZilla for Firefox


Draft from Nov 16

Taylor Marsh
REPORT: Occupy Crackdowns Aided by Feds – Homeland Security
Our democratic republic isn't what it used to be

( That must be 'de-mock-ratic republic' of fantasyland. Kent State, Domino Theory and the Cold War didn't have much of  an educational impact on punditry.  Spying on the public is much more pervasive now there is no believable physical hazard from other nations, however.  Hazard from 'corporate persons' is another matter entirely.)


Detainees: Working For $1 A Day, Using Phone for $5 A Minute

The money machine is just too perfect.

10 Things Your Bladder Says About Your Health

BPA Effect on Female Attraction to Men

Nearly 1 in 3 U.S. Children Poor, Census Says

Thursday, 17 Nov 2011 15:45 PM
* Some 15.7 million children below federal poverty line * 2 million in poverty in California, followed by Texas * Missis . . .

Fed Edges China as Top Owner of US Debt

Thursday, 17 Nov 2011 15:42 PM
The federal government now owns the biggest slice of the national debt, edging ahead of China, as the debt hit a record  . . .

Chamber Raises Concerns on GOP Overseas Tax Plan

Thursday, 17 Nov 2011 15:41 PM
(Updates with Chamber comments starting in third paragraph.Nov. 17 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce raised co . . .


Read more on Newsmax.com: ‘Aftershock’ Book Predicts Economic Disaster Amid Controversy
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!



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