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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.

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

29 December - News Picks

Northern Ireland government plans water crisis meeting

The Northern Ireland power-sharing government said Wednesday it will hold an emergency meeting to discuss a crisis that has left an estimated 40,000 people without water for as long as 10 days.

In Mexico, only one gun store but no dearth of violence

To go shopping for a gun in Mexico, customers must come to Mexico City - even if they live 1,300 miles away in Ciudad Juarez. To gain entry to the store, which is on a secure military base, customers must present valid identification, pass through a metal detector, yield to the security wand and surrender cellphones and cameras.
Ciudad Juárez at dusk looking west toward Misi...Image via WikipediaTo buy a gun, clients must submit references and prove that their income is honestly earned, that their record is free of criminal charges and that their military obligations, if any, have been fulfilled with honor. They are fingerprinted and photographed. Finally, if judged worthy of owning a small-caliber weapon to protect home and hearth, they are allowed to buy just one. And a box of bullets.
Mexico has some of the toughest gun-control laws in the world, a matter of pride for the nation's citizens. Yet Mexico is awash in weapons.

Indian Human Rights Activist Dr. Binayak Sen Sentenced to Life in Prison in Widely Criticized Ruling

The state has a dual role in the present situation. One is as the agency responsible for bringing abou
Free Binayak - MBW 4Image by Donald Macleod via Flickrt inequity and for providing certain services in this—across the country, but also as a guarantor of expropriation and of oppression in all kinds of situations. And which of these two aspects is to prevail is something that the people of every country have to decide for themselves through active engagement with these political issues.

A Palestinian boy and Israeli soldier in front...Image via Wikipedia

Israeli authorities deny Palestinian prisoners access to lawyers

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) and the Palestinian Prisoners' Club say detainees from the occupied West Bank are cut off from the rest of the world in Israeli detention facilities. The report also cited cases of "systematic violence" and torture.
Between 70% and 90% of the detainees in the years 2005 to 2007 were not allowed to meet a lawyer 
Detailed map of Israeli settlements on the Wes...Image via Wikipediaable to provide advice and assistance prior to signing a confession, say the organisations. The average time prisoners represented by the group were isolated from the outside world was 16.7 days. Irit Ballas, a lawyer and one of the report's authors, said the situation has remained the same for the past three years. "The information we receive from our lawyers tells us that the incommunicado detention has not decreased," he said.
In Israel, the legal period for detention in isolation is 48 hours for so-called regular violations and up to 21 days for "security" violations. In cases where military law applies, it can reach 90 days.
"All the detainees who testified reported grave negative consequences of being held incommunicado, emphasising the feelings of fear, helplessness, confusion and despair," says the 67-page report.
The document lists other forms of ill-treatment during the interrogation: "painful and prolonged shackling to a chair, painful cuffing of the hands, sleep deprivation, repeated threats to harm the detainee and his family, the conditioning of meeting an attorney with confession, giving of false information to the detainee and intentional deception of the detainee".

Russia's oligarchs on trial  
The ownership of large tracts of the Russian state by the oligarchs is a poisonous legacy of Yeltsin, but what can Putin realistically do about it (Khodorkovsky found guilty as protests flare up against Putin, 28 December)?

Putin's unsatisfactory but sensible strategy appears to be to tell the oligarchs that he knows where they live; that they can keep their toys, on condition that their assets are available to be used primarily inRussia's interests and that they do not use their ill-gotten gains to influence domestic politics. Mikhail Khodorkovsky is an object lessonpour encourager les autres, but he deserves scant sympathy, whatever the legal niceties are.

Linux password manager that also works under Windows / OS X



Global Warming.com

Climate Change Denial

Obama under pressure to deliver on climate

Passenger Outrage Rises as Winter Storm Snarls U.S. Travel

As many as 1.2 million airline customers may have been affected by almost 8,000 flight cancellations as the storm that hit three days ago closed major airports. Passengers were forced to try to make new plans, sometimes without being able to reach airlines by phone or online for help.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the three major airports in metropolitan New York, pointed the finger at the airlines after at least six international flights were stuck on the tarmac at Kennedy airport with passengers aboard because they had no gates to use.
Morning in AmericaImage by cjdavis via Flickr“It is an airline’s responsibility to make sure before they leave their point of origin to make sure that they have a gate assignment,” said Steve Coleman, a Port Authority spokesman. “These airlines did not. So they got to the airport and had no place to dock.”


Iran hangs man accused of passing military secrets to Israel



The Army's official history of the battle of Wanat - one of the most intensely scrutinized engagements of the Afghan war - largely absolves top commanders of the deaths of nine U.S. soldiers and instead blames the confusing and unpredictable nature of war.
An initial draft of the Wanat history, which was obtained by The Washington Post and other media outlets in the summer of 2009, placed the preponderance of blame for the losses on the higher-level battalion and brigade commanders who oversaw the mission, saying they failed to provide the proper resources to the unit in Wanat.
The final history, released in recent weeks, drops many of the earlier conclusions and instead focuses on failures of lower-level commanders.



Some Va. history texts filled with errors

"I absolutely could not believe the number of mistakes - wrong dates and wrong facts everywhere. How in the world did these books get approved?" said Ronald Heinemann, a former history professor at Hampden-Sydney College. He reviewed "Our Virginia: Past and Present."
In his recommendation to the state, Heinemann wrote, "This book should be withdrawn from the classroom immediately, or at least by the end of the year."


[A] bank's ability to block payments to a legal entity raises a troubling prospect. A handful of big banks could potentially bar any organization they disliked from the payments system, essentially cutting them off from the world economy.
( The USA customarily abuses the financial system via Sanctions and other chicanery against other countries )



Activist groups take full advantage of new media outlets to spread their message

The Internet has "become deeply integrated within all activism. It's not a distinctive, separate area. And it's become more inclusive," said Wes Boyd, a co-founder of the liberal online activist group MoveOn.org where Rucker once worked. "You can make these connections for much less money, and [the] technology helps strengthen and extend traditional networks."


Web will eat itself over WikiLeaks

This is the single most important story to hit the Internet ever. It dwarfs the Drudge Report's Monica Lewinsky scoop, the Twitter anti-Tehran uprising, and even the Pam Anderson sex video. Never before has a small band of whatever-you-want-to-call-thems taken on every major nation simultaneously, twisting them into knots. But thanks to the distributed nature of the Net, they have -- and I suspect they won't be the last


How to Set Up a Google Apps Account

With Google Apps, data and the applications themselves are served from Google's data centers. And since Google Apps is web-based, employees of many companies can be productive from anywhere, whether they're at their own desk, using a different computer, or on the go with a mobile device. This article explains how to connect a domain to the free edition of Google Apps so that you can ensure more functionality in your workplace.


Iraq Wants the U.S. Out



New Clues Uncover How 'Starvation Hormone' Works



Police Deaths Jump 37 Percent In 2010



CCPA features in The Globe and Mail's discussion on income inequality

National Office | Update
Projects & Initiatives: Growing Gap
In the last few weeks The Globe and Mail has been examining the problem of income inequality in Canada. Our own Senior Economist Armine Yalnizyan was the special guest in The Globe and Mail's online discussion about income inequality. Read that lively discussion here.
The Globe also looks at the link between income inequality, real estate prices and the creation of super wealthy enclaves. Read that story here.
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