What are you doing on Tax Day?

Join in the work of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee including WRL members across the country in organizing against taxpayer dollars spent for war and militarism!

The numbers are staggering: Over $1 trillion spent so far on the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan since October 2001. Nearly half of each tax dollar going to the Pentagon and military contractors. Cities and states are closing schools, cutting services, furloughing staff. Thousands of civilians and soldiers killed with no evidence that the world is safer.

Get out on (or before) tax day to protest the obscene and increasing military budget. See the action list below, but if there's not an action in your area, order some flyers (list at the bottom) and head out to a busy corner to leaflet for an hour.

Events are April 15 unless otherwise noted.
List is in development. Email your action to be added to this list.

For more information, go to the NWTRCC website.

http://www.warresisters.org/node/984

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How Stanislav Grof Helped Launch the Dawn of a New Psychedelic Research Era

By Alexander Zaitchik

The world of medicine may finally be ready to catch back up with psychedelic pioneers, whose work was rejected a half-century ago.

Next week, the brightest lights of the psychedelic cognoscenti will gather in San Jose, California. Leaving swirls of tracer visions in their wakes, they will converge from around the world at an incongruously bland Holiday Inn, 50 miles south of the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood that once served as the pulsing capital of Psychedelistan. There, several hundred turned-on and tuned-in doctors, psychologists, artists and laypeople will participate in the annual conference of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS). For four days, they will explore -- through workshops and lectures, nothing more -- the widening gamut of clinical inquiry into the uses of the psychedelic experience, a global resurgence of which has led to hopeful talk of a "psychedelic revival."

After decades of psychedelic deep freeze, such talk is finally more than just wishful thinking. A skim of the conference agenda offers a tantalizing glimpse into the newly bubbling world of clinical psychedelic research. UCLA Medical professor Charles Grob will speak about his work using psilocybin to treat anxiety in late-stage cancer patients. Psychologist Allan Ajaya will share findings from his research in LSD-assisted myofascial pain therapy. Other speakers will address possible psychedelic-based cures for alcoholism, addiction, depression, migraines, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Each will represent a different corner in a promising field newly awakened. From North America to the Middle East, recent years have seen a rising interest into the medicinal possibilities of MDMA, LSD, DMT, and other drugs now shaking off decades of government-imposed clinical hibernation.

http://www.alternet.org/vision/146393

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Why The Animal Critic Gives The Panda An F

The Animal Review: The Genius, Mediocrity, and Breathtaking Stupidity That Is Nature

By Jacob Lentz and Steve Nash
Hardcover, 144 pages
Bloomsbury USA: $12
Read An Excerpt

 

April 11, 2010

For too long, Jacob Lentz thinks, certain animals have gotten by on good looks and charm, while more impressive species are ignored by children and stuffed-animal manufacturers.

A couple of years ago, Lentz and friend Steve Nash set out to right this wrong. They began a blog called Animal Review.

It's exactly what the name implies: reviews of critters, not unlike reviews of cars or new gadgets, complete with letter grades. The ladybug gets an A-. The bald eagle gets a C+.

Their blog has now become a book, also titled The Animal Review. Lentz tells NPR's Linda Wertheimer that being a good animal critic is "more of an art than a science."

"It takes at least two years of blogging to really get good at this," he says. "I can't expect laypeople to just start judging animals accurately. It's probably best left to me and Steve."

Part of that professional skill involves knowing which animals not to tick off. "I'm not going to be the one who gives the king cobra a B+," Lentz says. "And I have no interest in upsetting a great white shark. I only have good things to say about those animals.

"If they're listening, I just want to tell them that I think they're amazing. And whatever they want to do is great," he continues. "There's a ton to recommend them to anyone, whether they're planning to kill you or not."

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iStockphoto.com

Panda: F

"Pandas have absolutely no interest in reproducing. They rarely mate," Lentz says. That goes against the raison d'etre of a species. "We spend all this money flying these animals around the world, trying to convince them to mate, and we could spend it on a lot of other stuff.

"Second of all, they eat bamboo. They're not supposed to eat bamboo. Their bodies are not adapted to digest cellulose, but they hang in there with the bamboo. But the result of that is that they have to eat a ton of bamboo," he says. "They don't have a lot of energy to do things, like to mate.

"That could be Nature kind of hinting around the fact that they should collectively shuffle off this mortal coil."

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iStockphoto.com

Octopus: A

"We gave the octopus an A because it would make a great superhero. They're supersmart, they can solve puzzles, they can remember things.

"They can change their bodies, so they can slip through tiny crevices," Lentz adds, "and they shoot ink. There's all sorts of cool stuff with the octopus that doesn't get talked about enough — because we're spending all our time talking about pandas."

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iStockphoto.com

King Cobra: A+

"The king cobra, largest venomous snake, makes nests. It's the only snake known to make nests, and good for them. I mean, great. I think that's amazing. They can inject enough venom to kill an elephant. You have to respect that."

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=125773728

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How Journalists are Using Social Media for Real Results

The Real Results series is supported by Gist, an online service that helps you build stronger relationships. By connecting your inbox to the web, you get business-critical information about key people and companies. See how it works here.

Journalists are, by nature, crafty folk who are wonderfully adept at stalking — I mean, finding sources and relevant information for various and sundry stories. Well, the advent of social media has made the process of reporting all the more nuanced, and has served as a vital channel for everything from finding leads to contacting sources to sharing and furthering one's brand.

Still, as the Internet continues to expand, it can be difficult to pick and choose which tools are right for you as a journalist — it can be daunting to litter one's desktop with Twitter applications, social networks, location-based tools and blogs. At times, it's tempting to throw one's laptop into the sea and return to the days of notepads and typewriters.

Still, if one can manage to circumvent the information overload and pick and choose which tools are most effective for which purposes, social media can be an extremely effective.

Mashable spoke with an array of journalists and industry folks to see how they're using social media in their day-to-day work. Here's what we dug up.

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Finding Leads, Noticing Trends

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The Internet is, in essence, a huge hive of simultaneous conversation that reflects the populace's pressing concerns — from health care reform to this week's episode of Glee. Therefore, it can be quite difficult to cut through the static and put one's finger on the pulse of the story. That's where social media comes in: Tools such as Facebook and Twitter serve as excellent filters for the masses of information circulating on the web.

Aaron Lazenby, DJ for Pirate Cat Radio, was scanning Twitter one night last year when he noticed #iranelection trending. Curious, he clicked on the hashtag, and started poring over the flood of tweets about the "stolen" election.

Lazenby became fascinated with the situation, and stayed up all night talking with people in Iran and reading up on the subject. The next day, he was hanging out with a Pulitzer Prize-winning AP reporter who was completely unaware of what was going on in Iran — news of the protests had not reached the mainstream news. Lazenby seized the opportunity to tell the story.

He contacted one of his Twitter sources, who agreed to do an interview over Skype for Lazenby's radio show. The interview, in turn, was picked up by CNN's iReport, a citizen journalism portal.

"Our interactions on Twitter built enough trust between us where he was comfortable talking to me and I was comfortable using him as a source," Lazenby says. "Reading through tweet histories really can give you a good idea if the person is for real or not. I think that was critical for us getting the interview done," he says.

Brian Dresher, manager of social media and digital partnerships at USA TODAY, agrees that Twitter is an excellent source for journalists looking for leads. In fact, throughout 2009, he conducted bi-weekly training sessions with the paper's journalists in order to teach them how best to use the microblogging site. "I think the most vital [aspect of the] tool is the engagement with the audience," he says. "To not participate in conversations that are taking place or to avoid monitoring trends is going to result in lost opportunities. [By keeping up with Twitter], journalists are able to take a trend they first spot on Twitter and the real-time Internet and continue to develop it in more detail."

http://mashable.com/2010/04/12/journalists-gist/

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Will California Legalize Marijuana? Q&A With Assemblyman Tom Ammanio, Who Wants to do Just That.

Tom Ammiano is a California assemblyman from San Francisco, a former teacher, a long-time civil rights activist and a stand-up comic. Last year, Ammiano introduced a bill to legalize pot in California.

Reason.tv's Paul Feine sat down with Ammiano in March to talk about his life, his bill, and his relationship with Gov. Schwarzenegger.

Approximately 10 minutes. Produced by Paul Feine; shot and edited by Alex Manning.

Go to Reason.tv for embed codes and downloadable iPod, HD, and audio versions.

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Gatherings Planned for 4/20, International Day of Marijuana Celebration

Annual Four Twenty Gatherings Throughout U.S., Canada and New Zealand

 

Four-Twenty (including 4:20, 420 and 4/20) has long been associated with marijuana use and marijuana activism. 4:20 is a time of day when people smoke marijuana. April 20th has evolved into a counterculture holiday, known for large gatherings of people celebrating and consuming marijuana, a.k.a. cannabis. Thousands of people gather annually in Boston, Boulder, New York, Santa Cruz, Seattle and many other cities in the United States, Canada, New Zealand and elsewhere around the world.

Most reports about the origins of 4/20 trace back to 'The Waldos,' a small group of students at San Rafael High School in 1971. The teens would meet after school at 4:20, next to a statue of Louis Pasteur, and smoke marijuana. Four Twenty passed from those high school students, into the 70's Grateful Dead culture where it spread all across the United States.

The 4/20 smoke-outs are a series of cannabis rallies that demonstrate the impracticability of enforcing the current marijuana laws. Drug peace activists invite all herb enthusiasts to join them in defiant solidarity.

Annual 420 Celebration at UC Santa Cruz! | International Cannabis Smoker's Day at Hippie Hill, San Francisco | 4/20: Smoke Out The Globe | Don't Just Smoke a Joint on 4/20 - Take Action Against Marijuana Prohibition | 2007 and 2008: 420 at UCSC | 2009: 420 at UCSC "Gets Bigger Every Year" | Cannabis Culture

 

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2010/04/14/18644668.php

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Food Safety in the US: We're on Red Alert

by Andrew Kimbrell: Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety

 

The United States once had one of the safest food systems in the world, but now, 70 million Americans are sickened, 300,000 are hospitalized, and 5,000 die from food-borne illness every year. It is a sad fact: since 9/11, far more Americans have been killed, injured or hurt because of our lack of a coordinated food safety system than by terrorist acts that challenge our Homeland Security system.

The culprits in this assault on American wellbeing aren't shadowy terrorist figures, but rather, they are what most consumers would identify as wholesome -- not harmful -- foods. Peanuts, lettuce, pistachios, spinach, hamburgers sold to Boy Scout camps, peppers, tomatoes, and pepper-coated sausages are among the foods that have sickened and killed Americans in just the last few years. Our children are most at risk from these food threats, with half of all food-borne illness striking children under 15 years old.

The Bush administration constantly claimed it was protecting Americans from potential security threats, yet it completely failed to protect the public from the clear and present danger of deadly food.
Due in part to that administration's cuts in funding and staff, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently inspects less than 25% of all food facilities in the U.S. More than 50% of all American food facilities have gone uninspected for five years or more. During President Bush's last term, regulatory actions against those companies selling contaminated food to Americans declined by over a half (Office of the Inspector General: FDA's Food Facility Registry. Report: OEI-02-08-00060, December 2009).

The result is tragically predictable. Large processing facilities, which now mix foods from across the country and the world, are not being inspected. Illnesses caused by contaminated foods, which could be prevented with proper government oversight, are instead causing the hospitalization of hundreds of thousands and the deaths of thousands of Americans. Again, the victims are, disproportionately, our children.

The tens of millions of victims of food-borne illness represent only one segment of the casualties from our failure to require safe and nutritious food. Because of lax regulation of agricultural chemicals, many of the fruits and vegetables that should bring us health and nutrition are instead laced with dangerous pesticides, dozens of which are known carcinogens. Much of the food marketed to our children and served in their schools are confections brimming with trans-fats and high-fructose corn syrup; these contribute mightily to the epidemic of obesity in the young and heart disease and diabetes in our older populations. Under pressure from agribusiness, our federal agencies and legislators continue to commercialize genetically modified foods with no safety testing and no labeling for consumers. And, despite the strong potential of health hazards, food made with new, nanotechnology-based chemicals are getting waived through to the market, without any independent testing at all.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrew-kimbrell/food-safety-in-the-us-wer_b_532948.html

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One Job Lost Because of Health Care Reform

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The "Daddy" Party

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Scheming to steal workers' pensions

Amy Muldoon looks behind the hype about how public-sector workers get "exorbitant" pensions--and finds a cabal of right-wing politicians and CEOs out to bash unions.

Public-sector retirees protest an attack on their pension benefits (Christine Stuart | CTNewsjunkie.com)

ACCORDING TO the business press and crusading politicians, the unfettered greed of some in our society is threatening to bankrupt city and state governments, and cause public services to be hollowed out.

Who are these selfish criminals? Wall Street bankers? Defense contractors? Tax-dodging corporate executives?

No, the culprits, according to the latest media hype, are public employees.

The problem, we're told, is that public-sector workers have the nerve to collect "fixed" or "defined benefit" pensions--meaning that their pensions are negotiated according to pay and years of service, as opposed to "fixed contribution" pensions such as 401(k)s that are based on the values of stocks and investments (and which therefore can be worthless if you have bad luck).

A recent cover story in the investors' magazine Barron's by Jonathan Laing--headlined "The $2 Trillion Hole"--touts a recent Pew study which found that the shortfall between what's owed to public-sector workers for their pensions and the funds that have been set aside to pay them is now valued at up to $2 trillion. (The exact dollar amount of the gap is greatly disputed but lies somewhere between $1 and $3 billion).

Laing finds it outrageous that public employees usually retire with a guaranteed pension. His article, and similar one in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, consciously whip up anti-union and anti-public sector vitriol.

Of course, it's not surprising that the wealthy would bemoan decent compensation for working people. But their intention with the current hype is to generate a backlash from private-sector workers against their brothers and sisters in the public sector. This, they hope, will provide the political space for further attacking public-sector unions.

http://socialistworker.org/2010/04/12/scheming-to-steal-pensions

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Is the Fed Helping the Big Banks to Cook the Books?

By Mike Whitney

  On Friday, the Wall Street Journal revealed details of a cover up by the nations largest banks that have been engaged in potentially-criminal accounting activities to conceal the amount of debt on their balance sheets. The SEC has been notified of the allegations and has launched a probe to determine whether further action is needed. Among the banks implicated, are Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup. According to the WSJ: 

  "Major banks have masked their risk levels in the past five quarters by temporarily lowering their debt just before reporting it to the public, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. A group of 18 banks....understated the debt levels used to fund securities trades by lowering them an average of 42% at the end of each of the past five quarterly periods, the data show. The banks, which publicly release debt data each quarter, then boosted the debt levels in the middle of successive quarters." ("Big Banks Mask Risk Levels", Kate Kelly, Tom McGinty, Dan Fitzpatrick, Wall Street Journal)

  The article, titled "Big Banks Mask Risk Levels", has set off alarm bells on Wall Street because of the similarity between Lehman Bros. "repo 105" transactions and these new signs of obfuscation by other large banks.  "Repo 105" is an arcane accounting device that Lehman used to hide $50 billion in debt off its balance sheet in an attempt to mislead investors about the true condition of its financial health. The WSJ story suggests that the practice may be more widespread than originally thought. The "repo 105" scandal is further complicated by suspicions that Lehman was assisted in its effort by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York which, at the time, was headed by Timothy Geithner. Here is a short recap of what transpired between the Geithner's NY Fed and Lehman according to ex-regulator William Black and former NY governor Eliot Spitzer from an article on Huffington Post: 

"The FRBNY knew that Lehman was engaged in smoke and mirrors designed to overstate its liquidity and, therefore, was unwilling to lend as much money to Lehman. The FRBNY did not, however, inform the SEC, the public, or the OTS (which regulated an S&L that Lehman owned) of what should have been viewed by all as ongoing misrepresentations.

The Fed's behavior made it clear that officials didn't believe they needed to do more with this information. The FRBNY remained willing to lend to an institution with misleading accounting and neither remedied the accounting nor notified other regulators who may have had the opportunity to do so...... We now know from Valukas and from former Treasury Secretary Paulson that the Treasury and the Fed knew that Lehman was massively overstating its on-book asset values." (Time for the Truth"  William Black and Eliot Spitzer, Huffington Post)  

So the question is whether the NY Fed helped other banks conceal important financial information from investors, too. And--if that's the case--then how can the public be confident that the biggest banks in the country are truly solvent?

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25203.htm

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33 states out of money to fund jobless benefits

From police horses to fireworks to wrangling stray chickens, these cash-strapped cities are eliminating all kinds of services.

 

By Hibah Yousuf

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- With unemployment still at a severe high, a majority of states have drained their jobless benefit funds, forcing them to borrow billions from the federal government to help out-of-work Americans.

A total of 33 states and the Virgin Islands have depleted their funds and borrowed more than $38.7 billion to provide a safety net, according to a report released Thursday by the National Employment Law Project. Four others are at the brink of insolvency.

 

Debt-challenged California has borrowed the most, totaling more than $8.4 billion, followed by Michigan and New York, which have loans worth more than $3 billion. Nine other states have borrowed at least $1 billion from the federal government.

"The nation's financing system for jobless benefits is under unprecedented stress," said Andrew Stettner, deputy director of the New York-based advocacy group for the unemployed. "While the recession has certainly made things worse, this funding crisis has been developing for years."

http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/08/news/economy/state_funds_jobless_benefits/

11 quirky budget cuts: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2010/news/1003/gallery.city_state_budget_cuts/index.html

 

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Read 'Em If You Got 'Em

According to Tank Books, the flip-top cigarette pack is one of the most successful pieces of packaging design in history. The publisher pays homage to this iconic form by launching a series of books designed to resemble cigarette packs. The books are the same size as a pack of smokes, packaged in flip-top cartons with silver foil wrapping and sealed in cellophane.

The titles are by famous authors such as Kafka, Robert Louis Stevenson and Kipling.

Each story is complete and unabridged with a type size that's easy to read. Individual books cost £8.67and the complete set comes in a striking tin priced at £47.19. You can order this unique conversation piece HERE.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 7th, 2010 at 8:33 AM and is filed under Books, Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

http://larryfire.wordpress.com/2010/04/07/read-em-if-you-got-em/

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Turkey to Challenge Israel, Support Hamas

by Maayana Miskin

Turkey is planning a gesture that will challenge Israel and provide support to Gaza's Hamas leaders next month. A flotilla of ships funded by Turkey will approach Gaza in May, in an attempt to challenge Israeli control at sea - or, as organizers put it, "break Israel's illegal blockade on Gaza."

While residents of Gaza have access to the sea, the Israel Navy prevents travel by sea between Gaza and surrounding countries, in an attempt to prevent weapons smuggling. Gaza terrorists have previously used incoming ships to smuggle arms, and have used the sea to transport bombs to the coast of southern Israel.

The ships are sponsored by the Turkish group IHH (Insani Yardim Vakfi), which receives government support. IHH also held a massive fundraiser to collect the more than $2 million it spent on the boats.

The IHH group will be joined by ships from Britain, Greece, and Ireland in the attempt to break Israel's control at sea. The delegation will include members of parliament and journalists, organizers said.

The flotilla follows previous such missions in challenging Israel's ban on international travel to and from Gaza, as part of a campaign dubbed "Free Gaza" by its organizers. The latest group of ships will bring several hundred passengers and 5,000 tons of cargo, including humanitarian supplies, cement, and building materials.

The decision to bring cement is another challenge to Israeli policy in Gaza. Israel allows humanitarian aid through its border with Gaza, but allows cement and metal pipes to enter the area only for use in specific projects, in coordination with international aid groups. Israeli defense experts worry that if Hamas were allowed to import cement and pipes freely, it would use them to build bunkers and rockets as it has done in the past.

A spokesman for the government-backed IHH said the project would serve to "wake the world's consciousness about the crimes committed against Palestinians."

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/136963

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Israel has nearly 300 nuclear weapons

The Israeli prime minister has decided against going to the US for a nuclear summit, which was to have involved the leaders of 47 nations. Mr. Netanyahu dropped out by announcing at a press conference that he wanted to highlight Israel's opposition to a nuclear Iran. It is known in political circles that he also decided not to attend because some Muslim delegates were planning to raise the issue of Israel's assumed arsenal of hundreds of weapons. Over the weekend, Jane's Defence Weekly, which deals with military information, estimated that the State of Israel has up to 300 nuclear warheads, with a power similar to that of Britain.

 

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=622307

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What Jesus reads when he's drunk.

 

Ten years in simmering gestation. Well over a year of howling labor pains, far longer than it was supposed to take. Born in San Francisco under a full, neo-pagan moon during a semi-eclipse of the Dog Star alongside a drunken meteor shower whilst Shakti was doing to Shiva that thing with her tongue that drives him absolutely wild.   Made of: wood pulp and ink, sweat and blood, tears and coffee, scotch and sake, spit and come, laughter and bliss. Weight similar to: small ferret/large avocado/your left thigh bone. Smells like: lavender/leather/spurious desire. More than 85 million people have died since I took the first real step toward this thing's creation, back in August of '08. 126 million more were born. People had sex an estimated 71 billion times, globally speaking. I contributed a relatively paltry 217 incidents to this fine number. You do what you can. But it's finally here. It has arrived. I have a wild new book, called "The Daring Spectacle: Adventures in Deviant Journalism." It's shipping right now from my printing house, also pre-orderable via Amazon(though they won't have actual stock for a week or two), available everywhere else very soon. I'd simply love it if you'd grab a copy, or three. Will you? Some details: I call TDSa "mega-compendium." It's a glorious collection of my wildest, weirdest and most popular columns from the Chronicle and SFGate, spanning nearly 10 years but focusing mostly on the more recent stuff, because I prefer to keep it reasonably fresh, my writing has improved tremendously over the years, and some of the really old stuff is downright embarrassing. The book includes more than 90 columns, with commentary. There's a whole bunch of horrifying hate mail, hundreds of photos, all sorts of messy rock 'n' roll design goodness. I'm happy to say, looks and reads like nothing else out there. I'll be doing readings, signings, prayings, hurlings, bake sales, yoga demos, whatever else I can think of, soon, to the point where you will likely be quite sick of hearing about it. I apologize for that in advance. But what can I do. I'm a writer. It's a livelihood. And it's a damn cool book, if I do say so myself. Did I mention it's self-published? That it's a grand and weird experiment, that, by purchasing a copy, you're taking an active stake in my livelihood? And my rent? And my sake budget? Because you are. Full details at daringspectacle.com.   And yes, for the record, it helps me much more if you buy it at full price through AtlasBooksright now, sted of Amazon. But I begrudge no one wishing to order it anywhere, at any time, for any reason whatsoever. In fact, I'd simply love it if you'd ask your fave local bookstore order some stock as well. The ISBN is 978-0-9842997-0-6, if that helps, which is sometimes does. Upcoming newsletters will list out my appearances and readings and such. By the way, if you're a bookstore owner in a largish city and want to host a reading/signing, let me know. We could have much fun. There is my humble plea. I hope you enjoy the book. I hope you love it like sunshine loves chocolate, all sticky and melty and good. Go forth and purchase.

 

http://markmorford.com/

 

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Young People Consuming More News

By paulgillin

 

McKinsey Quarterly has some good news for newspapers. It's been looking at readership trends in the UK and sees growing interest in news from under 35-readers. In fact, daily time spent consuming news in the critical 25-to-34 age category is up 37% from three years ago (you have to register to read the report or you can  download a PDF here). People in that age group prefer to consume the news on the Internet rather than in print, but the good news is that they trust newspapers more than any other source: "66 percent describe newspaper advertising as 'informative and confidence inspiring,' compared with only 44 percent for TV and 12 percent for the Web," the report says.

The report is pessimistic on the chances that existing business models will ever transition successfully online. It notes that only one in seven UK news consumers declared a willingness to pay for content. However, the trust factor should embolden publishers to seek more innovative revenue models, including advertorials and transaction fees.

In our view, this is news organizations' best shot. As the volume of online information grows by leaps and bounds, the need for trusted sources grows with it. Publishers need to discard their not-invented-here thinking and look for ways to aggregate information in ways that command a premium value. We also really like the transaction fee idea. We've been pushing that one for about a year.

http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/young-people-consuming-more-news.html

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The Evolution of Philosophy

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Dressing Up

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The Wellington Declaration

What is ACTA?

ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA) is a controversial international treaty being negotiated in a series of secret meetings.

ACTA is proposed as a plurilateral trade agreement for establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement. It is being negotiated between the US, Canada, Japan, the European Union, South Korea, Mexico, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand. Unfortunately, the negotiations have extended beyond trade and physical counterfeiting to potentially cover non-commercial infringement of copyright material by ordinary citizens and issues of digital rights management.

What is PublicACTA?

PublicACTA has been organised by InternetNZ so that the public can critique the known and likely content of ACTA proposals. 

Preamble

The participants at the PublicACTA Conference of 10 April 2010 respectfully submit this, the Wellington Declaration, to the parties negotiating the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), for their consideration during the Wellington round of negotiations.

Consistent with the European Parliament's Resolution of 10 March 2010 on the Transparency and State of Play of the ACTA Negotiations (P7_TA(2010)0058), ACTA should be limited to an Agreement regarding enforcement against counterfeiting (the large scale commercial production of illicit physical goods).

The first part of the Declaration deals with general matters and principles.

The second part of the Declaration deals with some of the specific points under discussion in Wellington.

Part One: General Matters and Principles

Preserving the Internet
We recognise that the Internet has enabled creativity and innovation, the sharing of knowledge, citizen engagement and democracy, and is an engine of economic growth and opportunity. This is the result of certain attributes of the Internet: its open protocols and its generativity; the fact that anyone can connect and anyone can build new applications, and find new uses without discrimination. ACTA should preserve these attributes.

Go here to read and sign the Wellington Declaration

 

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Hallucinogens Have Doctors Tuning In Again

By JOHN TIERNEY

As a retired clinical psychologist, Clark Martin was well acquainted with traditional treatments for depression, but his own case seemed untreatable as he struggled through chemotherapy and other grueling regimens for kidney cancer. Counseling seemed futile to him. So did the antidepressant pills he tried.

"It was a whole personality shift for me. I wasn't any longer attached to my performance and trying to control things. I could see that the really good things in life will happen if you just show up and share your natural enthusiasms with people."

Nothing had any lasting effect until, at the age of 65, he had his first psychedelic experience. He left his home in Vancouver, Wash., to take part in an experiment at Johns Hopkins medical school involving psilocybin, the psychoactive ingredient found in certain mushrooms.

Scientists are taking a new look at hallucinogens, which became taboo among regulators after enthusiasts like Timothy Leary promoted them in the 1960s with the slogan "Turn on, tune in, drop out." Now, using rigorous protocols and safeguards, scientists have won permission to study once again the drugs' potential for treating mental problems and illuminating the nature of consciousness.

After taking the hallucinogen, Dr. Martin put on an eye mask and headphones, and lay on a couch listening to classical music as he contemplated the universe.

"All of a sudden, everything familiar started evaporating," he recalled. "Imagine you fall off a boat out in the open ocean, and you turn around, and the boat is gone. And then the water's gone. And then you're gone."

Today, more than a year later, Dr. Martin credits that six-hour experience with helping him overcome his depression and profoundly transforming his relationships with his daughter and friends. He ranks it among the most meaningful events of his life, which makes him a fairly typical member of a growing club of experimental subjects.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/12/science/12psychedelics.html?src=me&ref=general

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Massey Energy

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In West Virginia, Coal Miners' Slaughter

 

BY MICHAEL WINSHIP

The high cost of energy in America was paid in human lives this week, with the deaths of more than two dozen miners in a massive explosion at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia. It's the worst mine disaster in a quarter of a century.

Upper Big Branch is owned by Massey Energy Company, which operates 47 mines in central Appalachia. According to the Los Angeles Times, it employs nearly 6,000 and in 2009 reported revenues of $2.3 billion, with a net income of $104.4 million.

At the center of this week's catastrophe is Massey's president and CEO Don Blankenship, a man so reviled nowadays he had to be escorted away by police when he and other company officials tried to address a group of distraught family and friends outside the Upper Big Branch mine in the early morning hours after the explosion. The crowd hurled invective -- and a chair.

Blankenship hates unions (Upper Big Branch is a non-union mine), thinks global warming is a figment of our imaginations and that those who do believe in climate change are crazy; supports destructive mountaintop-removal mining; serves on the board of the conservative, free market U.S. Chamber of Commerce and now, lucky us, shares his pearls of right-wing wisdom via Twitter. "America doesn't need Green jobs," he tweeted pithily last month, "but Red, White, & Blue ones."

David Roberts of the environmental magazine Grist described him as "the scariest polluter in the U.S. ...The guy is evil and I don't use that word lightly."

http://blog.buzzflash.com//contributors/3137

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The Cover-Ups That Exploded

 

by Alexander Cockburn

The Pentagon is reeling after two lethal episodes uncovered by diligent journalism show trigger-happy U.S. Army helicopter pilots and U.S. Special Forces slaughtering civilians, then seeking to cover up their crimes.

The World Wide Web was transfixed Monday when Wikileaks put up on YouTube a 38-minute video, along with a 17-minute edited version, taken from a U.S. Army Apache helicopter, one of two firing on a group of Iraqis in Baghdad at a street corner in July 2007. Twelve civilians died, including a Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and a Reuters driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.

At a press conference in Washington, D.C., Wikileaks said it had got the footage from whistle-blowers in the military and had been able to break the encryption code. The Pentagon has confirmed the video is genuine.

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, the U.S. military has finally admitted that Special Forces troops killed two pregnant Afghan women and a girl in a February 2010, raid, in which two Afghan government officials were also killed. Brilliant reporting by Jerome Starkey of The Times of London has blown apart the U.S. military's cover-up story that the women were killed by knife wounds administered several hours before the raid.

It now appears that the knife wounds may have been inflicted by the Special Forces troops retrieving their bullets from the dead or dying women's bodies. Starkey's story last Sunday in The Times reported that "Afghan investigators also determined that American forces not only killed the women but had also 'dug bullets out of their victims' bodies in the bloody aftermath" and then "washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened."

The 17-minute video recording the U.S. military's massacre from the air in Baghdad is utterly damning. The visual and audio record reveal the two Apache helicopter pilots and the U.S. Army intelligence personnel monitoring the real-time footage falling over themselves to make the snap judgment that the civilians roughly a thousand feet below are armed insurgents and that one of them, peeking round a corner, was carrying an RPG — that is, a rocket-propelled antitank grenade launcher.

The dialogue is particularly chilling, revealing gleeful pilots gloating over the effect of their initial machine-gun salvoes. "Look at those dead bastards," one pilot says. "Nice," answers the other. Then, as a wounded man painfully writhes toward the curb, the pilots eagerly wait for an excuse to finish him off. "All you gotta do is pick up a weapon," one pilot says yearningly.

Then suddenly, a civilian van, seeing the carnage, pulls up. A man jumps out and starts dragging the wounded man around to load him in. The pilots implore the intelligence monitors to give them the go-ahead to strafe the van, about which they have made the instant, fatally erroneous judgment that this is an insurgent rescue squad. A few moments later, the intelligence monitors, with zero visual evidence underpinning their judgment, give the go-ahead.

http://www.creators.com/liberal/alexander-cockburn/the-cover-ups-that-exploded.html

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Pope Benedict Nixon

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Ratzinger is the perfect pope

by Richard Dawkins

"Should Pope Benedict XVI be held responsible for the escalating scandals over clerical sexual abuse in Europe?"

Yes he should, and it's going to escalate a lot further, as more and more victims break through the guilt of their childhood indoctrination and come forward.

"Should he be investigated for how cases of abuse were handled under his watch as archbishop of Munich or as the Vatican's chief doctrinal enforcer?"

Yes, of course he should. This former head of the Inquisition should be arrested the moment he dares to set foot outside his tinpot fiefdom of the Vatican, and he should be tried in an appropriate civil - not ecclesiastical - court. That's what should happen. Sadly, we all know our faith-befuddled governments will be too craven to do it.

"Should the pope resign?"

No. As the College of Cardinals must have recognized when they elected him, he is perfectly - ideally - qualified to lead the Roman Catholic Church. A leering old villain in a frock, who spent decades conspiring behind closed doors for the position he now holds; a man who believes he is infallible and acts the part; a man whose preaching of scientific falsehood is responsible for the deaths of countless AIDS victims in Africa; a man whose first instinct when his priests are caught with their pants down is to cover up the scandal and damn the young victims to silence: in short, exactly the right man for the job. He should not resign, moreover, because he is perfectly positioned to accelerate the downfall of the evil, corrupt organization whose character he fits like a glove, and of which he is the absolute and historically appropriate monarch.

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/panelists/richard_dawkins/2010/03/ratzinger_is_the_perfect_pope.html

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Palin: America does not need ‘this snake oil science stuff’

By Stephen C. Webster

Up yours, scientists.

That's essentially the message sent by former politician Sarah Palin during a recent speech to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference, where she disparaged the work of thousands of the world's top minds to the delight of a large crowd that laughed, clapped and cheered her on the whole way.

She was addressing the increasingly urgent matter of global climate change when Palin whipped out a gem of a quote, telling the conference-goers that American does not need "this snake oil science stuff" and calling climate science "Gore-gate."

The former half-term governor was attempting to make a reference to the so-called "Climate-gate" affair that was orchestrated over a set of leaked emails from the University of East Anglia, providing the world with insight to an internal dispute between teams of scientists. The whole "scandal" is better known to MSNBC host Rachael Maddow as "total bull-pucky": fictional claims blown so out of proportion by right-wing media that the masses at least partially accept it.

In the midst of describing what she thinks America really needs, Palin belted out a truly amazing run-on sentence: "We should create a competitive climate for investment and for renewables and alternatives that are economical and doable and none of this snake oil science stuff that is based on this global warming, Gore-gate stuff that came down where there was revelation that the scientists, some of these scientists were playing political games."

"Nothing about the supposed 'bombshell' climate-gate scandal at all challenges the scientific consensus that global warming is happening, that it is induced by human activity," Maddow scoffed during an April 2 broadcast.

Maddow called the alleged scandal, like the falsified claims that ultimately brought down ACORN, the "un-mooring of politics from fact," calling out a least two dozen other Republican-created media narratives that are complete "bull."

For Palin to play off a fictional theme is expected at this point, as she once fashioned a popular campaign meme off the laughable invention that President Obama "pals around with terrorists." In spite of this, it is perhaps her insistence that the United States does not need "this snake oil science stuff" that best highlights the place from which her beliefs spring.

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0410/palin-this-snake-oil-science-stuff/

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et tu, Barack?

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New years hangover

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Happy 2010 and keep chasing the wildebeest

by Garrison Keillor

 

It is possible in this day and age to fly south in December and three hours later land in a city where you can sit comfortably in your T-shirt and linen jacket and eat your dinner at a cafe under palm trees and still enjoy the protections of the U.S. Constitution, which is a wonderful, wonderful thing. Paradise, in fact.

The problem with paradise is that it's temporary: You don't belong here and the neighbors are nobody you care to know, so it's only blissful for a week or so. You're in a city built on sandy marsh in a boom period, and when you look around at the freeway, the office parks, the malls, the curvy streets of houses, your hotel, you see nothing that predates 1980, nothing that distinguishes this city from Scottsdale or Fort Lauderdale or any other suburb in America, which is exhilarating to some people but not to you. And the people around you are all in the throes of relaxation. As we know, people are at their best when engaged in the endless heroic quest for whatever -- truth, love, literary excellence, supremacy in tennis, a royal flush, the perfect salad -- and relaxation makes them dull. It's true. We're hunters. Once we chase down that wildebeest and devour its hindquarters, we get suddenly stupider.

I'm sitting with wife and child at a cafe at a marina, and the big motor yachts parked in the water bring back the memory of long boring afternoons aboard boats. There is no boredom like that boredom, sitting in the stern of a big expensive boat as it churns through the coastal waters, watching your host, the wheel in one hairy hand and a bowlful of scotch in the other, woofing at you about how much he loves this, meanwhile the sun is beating down, turning your brain to tomato aspic. The conversation deceased an hour ago and the cheese dip has gone bad and the jouncing of the waves is making you very queasy.

And yet -- you yourself have gazed at million-dollar cruisers in boatyards, imagining the euphoria that could be yours. It's a beautiful dream and God forbid it should come true and you become just one more drunk driving a boat.

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-oped1230keillordec30,0,3894534.column

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Obama, the Fallen Messiah

 

by Max Blumenthal

During a time of economic decline, persistent cultural strife, deepening American involvement in far-off military conflicts, and rapid environmental deterioration, is there any wonder that so many Americans believe in salvation fantasies promising them both a transcendent, everlasting future and violent retribution against perceived evildoers? A 2002 CNN poll found that 59% of Americans believed that the prophecies in the Book of Revelations would come true. The startling number reflected the still-fresh trauma of the 9/11 attacks, but I suspect that it has held steady, if not risen. Indeed, mainstream American culture is permeated by apocalyptic beliefs and the yearning for messianic deliverance; the success of the movie 2012 and the forthcoming schlockbuster Legacy are just two recent examples.

I spent several chapters in my book, Republican Gomorrah: Inside The Movement That Shattered The Party, following the Christian right's ascent to the mountain top with George W. Bush's re-election; detailing how the movement shrouded science and reason in the shadow of the cross; then observing it as it swiftly imploded during the Terri Schiavo charade. Because I completed my book just days after Barack Obama's inauguration, I was only able to foreshadow the right's plan to undermine the new president without much analysis of what Obama would do, or how the movement that propelled his success would behave.

The Obama phenomenon is impossible to analyze or understand without considering the deep levels of anxiety and desperation that progressives suffered during the radical presidency of George W. Bush. When the Democratic primary began, some progressives seemed to embrace a secular version of the Christian right's salvation fantasy. They ached for a secular messiah to descend from the political heavens, reverse Bush's disastrous legacy and save the country from itself. A mere politician, even with solid progressive credentials, would have been unacceptable to them.

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/25789

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Sex Sells Where You Least Expect It

What type of products would you consider the primary offenders of the "sex sells" philosophy of advertising? Magazines are probably the top users of sexual imagery, which is not surprising considering their sales are defined by their cover image.  Record albums operated on the same principle, and were just as guilty of using cheesecake to boost sales. Can you blame them? It worked.

I'd also have to say automobile, fashion, cologne, cigarettes and alcohol advertising are frequent offenders.

However, what continually gives me great delight (don't ask me why) is to find the "sex sells" principle in a vintage advertisement or promotional material where you'd least expect it. I've shown you sexual imagery used for marketing denture cream, rice, batteries, and crackers in previous posts. Well, let's look a few more unexpected examples of "sex sells" in action.

Here's a new one for you - time delay relays! WTF? Is this the sort of product that can influence its customers using female anatomy? Seems like you either need a time delay relay, or you don't. I'm just sayin'.

Here's 10 more unexpected vintage examples of  "sex sells" in action...

1. boot polish

2. Ammonium Sulphate

3. pipe and bolt threading machine (click here for more Rigid Tools advertising)

4. "stacked" ovens (source: Found in Mom's Basement)

5. slide projectors

http://my-retrospace.blogspot.com/2009/12/sex-sells-10-where-you-least-expect-it.html

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More on Jim DeMint and Republican Super-Hypocrisy

by: RDemocrat

The hypocrisy of the Republicans on the recent failed terrorist attack in Detroit is mind-boggling, even by their own super-high hypocrisy standards. When the Bush Administration allowed the deadliest attack ever on American soil due to rank incompetence, they were mum. Then when, just a few days later a terrorist was allowed on board a plane and was thwarted by passengers Republicans were too full of god-king worship to utter a single protest. However, when an almost identical attack to the "shoe-bomber" occurs without the incompetence and death of an event like 9-11 preceding it, they are all up in arms about "keeping our country safe". RDemocrat :: More on Jim DeMint and Republican Super-Hypocrisy Of course they ignore many inconvenient facts besides the 9-11 attacks in their super-hypocrisy. They ignore the fact that Republicans set up the current terror-alert system and sold it along with the Constitutional rights stealing Patriot Act and FISA law as measures that would keep us safe. They ignore the fact that Obama has "kept us safe" longer than Bush did in his time before 9-11. They also conveniently ignore the fact that one of their own, Jim DeMint has held up Obama's chosen leader of the Transportation Safety Administration since September.

Yes, Erroll Southers has been waiting that long to be confirmed because of the super-hypocrisy of Jim DeMint. Does DeMint object to Southers because he is not qualified?? Well, lets take a quick look at Erroll Southers:

Erroll G. Southers is the Associate Director for educational programs at the U.S. homeland security Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE) at the University of Southern California (USC) and an Adjunct Professor of Terrorism and Public Policy. He is the former deputy director of the California Office of Homeland Security, appointed by Governor Schwarzenegger, and responsible for the oversight of counterterrorism policy and national pilot programs. Mr. Southers' experience includes counterterrorism studies in Israel, at the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Israeli Defense Forces' Home Front Command. He is a former FBI Special Agent assigned to matters of counterterrorism, foreign counterintelligence, and a member of the Bureau's SWAT Team. He is a former Santa Monica Police Department detective, member of the Rio Hondo Police Academy faculty and tactical staff, and a court-qualified gang expert. As an authority on the protection of cultural properties, he ascended to the level of Assistant Vice President at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Mr. Southers is A Certified Institutional Protection manager and is certified in homeland security by the American College of Forensic Examiners Institute. He is a consultant to numerous international firms and regularly featured in the media as an expert on matters of counter-terrorism and infrastructure protection. Mr. Southers is a Senior Fellow of the UCLA School of Public Affairs and a Next Generation Fellow of The American Assembly at Columbia University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Brown University and his Master of Public Administration at USC.

http://www.nationalrep.org/200...

Hmm, this guy looks pretty damn qualified to me. I think maybe having someone like this leading our Transportation Safety Agency may have been a good thing and may have kept a terrorist from boarding a plane, but because of Senator DeMint we will never know. Of course, as always with Republicans the real reason DeMint objects to Southers is the fact that the man has not ruled out allowing TSA screeners, who will have to be highly qualified and skilled professionals join a labor union:

DeMint said Wednesday that he is concerned that Southers would let TSA screeners join a labor union.

http://www2.wjbf.com/jbf/news/...

Well, that explains it. Because we all know that screeners making just above poverty wage levels will be so much happier and more encouraged to do their jobs. We all know that everyone wants to be as broke as possible and not have any benefits to go into work and deal with a bunch of angry travelers all while knowing that a mistake on their part could cost hundreds, even thousands of people their lives. Of course these folks should be working for peanuts, and should just be glad someone gave them a job that is not flipping burgers at Mickey D's. Right??

http://www.hillbillyreport.org/diary/1039/more-on-jim-demint-and-republican-superhypocrisy

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For your convenience

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