More quid pro quo, a la Chris Christie…gah, can this guy be any more of a sleazy opportunist?
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Google and the NSA
Yasha Levine at Pando Daily has a report on the alarmingly close relationship between Google and the Dept. of Defense.
At first glance, you wonder what all the fuss is about, since Google is a tech company…but as the report flows along, there is a link to this piece by Consumer Watchdog.
From the report:
When a deal between NASA and top Google executives to use the base was first disclosed in 2007, it called for only four jets to use the base.But newly released government records show that the Google executive 0leet has now grown to six jets and two helicopters, while at least 40 Google employees hold security badges at the base and all of the planes are supplied with Department of Defense jet fuel.~~~~~~~~~~
[Italics mine.]
Wow, if ever there were a quid pro quo…supplying Google with expensive jet fuel? Giving employees security clearance? And all Google has to do is cooperate with divulging private information in contradiction of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits agencies from intruding into people’s privacy without a court warrant…
…but Google execs are too busy jetsetting to Cannes, Tahiti, and other places of interest…on the taxpayer dime…
Keyhole? What an apt name for the company…funded by the CIA…that was to become Google Earth. There’s just something unnerving to see one’s home on the internet for anyone to see. Keyhole, indeed.
I do find it ironic and slightly amusing that the emails going back and forth from the Google execs and the various gov’t. agencies are being used against them…they seem to forget that their own privacy is abused by the system they created.
As I am reading this, I’m wondering why they would have to use Google at all? Why is there such a push for privatization, when these services should be from government employees/agencies? Not that I’m advocating invasion of privacy, mind you, but questioning the privatization movement that gets short term $$ gains by selling off public interests in land and intellectual property that was paid for by public funds. And, of course, the lack of sunlight when something goes from public to private.
~~~~~As a side note…when I saw Eric Schmidt’s bespectacled face…I got a chill down my spine. Perhaps it’s because he just looks like a Nazi…and not a true evaluation of him…but there it is.
Human chain protest in support of kidnapped Nigerian girls to be held on Burrard Street Bridge
Continuing to call attention to the kidnapping of girls by radicals. It needs to be noted that not all Muslims are radicals. It’s actually against their religion –they, too, have the “Do Unto Others as You Would Have Done to You…” in their Q’uran. Anyone of any religion can be violent and use religion as an excuse to abuse others and to gain power and control over others.
Same Theme Different Thought
A relative of mine recently visited the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles California. Without question it is an amazing space created to tell a horrible story. A story that was genocidal then and has had lingering affect on the generations that followed. It’s truly an amazing what we can do to our fellow man. This relative was so moved by her experience there, and spoke with such genuine emotion about her experience that it was hard to not feel a small part of that pain and injustice.
As she spoke about these atrocities I couldn’t help but think of how most of our culture doesn’t even realize that much of this same thing happened to our own First Peoples of this land. It seems like Indian people are just thought of as Hollywood stereotypes or museum artifacts. There is such an out cry for the Holocaust people and rightly…
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Eating the weeds…
…continuing to explore the weeds-are-a-figment-of-your-upbringing theme…
I found this podcast of EarthEats on public radio talking about the redbuds. It has special significance being here in Indiana.
Who knew that the redbuds were edible? Not I.
Also, Trader’s Point Creamery of Indiana, sells excellent milk products with their grassfed cows. Good stuff.
~~~~~
Also, I subscribe to a farmer’s forum and one of the members talked about the “weeds” they harvest.
One of them is plantain. When I first read that, I thought of the banana-like fruit. Nope. It’s that weed that you can’t seem to kill that sprouts all over the place…and after reading this, one wonders what are we thinking–spraying them with poison to eradicate them?
The writer makes a good point about our lack of knowledge and how folks lining up for food banks had an abundance of good food that was free in the form of plantains scattered about. It’s depressing that we have been brainwashed against the natural world and good nutrition is available at no cost. The only problem is that unless they know if the plant has been sprayed with chemicals, they could make themselves ill. In poor neighborhoods, it’s probably a safe bet that those “weeds” have not been sprayed, as keeping up with the Joneses with manicured lawns is not on the top of their list of survival. But it’s always good to ask if you wish to eat the plant.
On a positive note~it’s also highly likely that they are GMO free, as Monsanto, Dow, et al, would not have a $$ profit incentive since they grow like…weeds. Heh.
Mom pays off Every student’s lunch bill after son denied lunch
What kind of cruel person would throw a student’s lunch in the trash because they didn’t have the money to pay?
Does anyone believe Mark Daniel, the superintendent, that there are “policies in place to avoid instances such as these…”? Me, neither. Somebody has given permission to that minimum wage cafeteria worker that it is perfectly okay to waste good food to punish a child for the parents’ mistakes. I don’t know if you can even call it a mistake when this parent is a single Mom working two jobs to take care of her family. What is missing from this picture, besides compassion…? The father, who is probably paying very little in support or nothing at all. My ex only paid one-fifth of his $100k income to support three children. And he begrudged even that little amount…
There is more to this story, folks, than is being written about here.
And God Bless the mother for her compassion and generosity. God Bless the son for he learned something through his pain of humiliation.
Diet and Health, via Weston Price **edited
A member of the mercury support group posted this link to the Spring Caustic Commentary on the Weston Price Foundation website.
It’s pretty informative for those who are unfamiliar with Weston Price’s work. He was a dentist who traveled the world, observing the indigenous tribes. He discovered that they had perfect teeth–no dental decay. When they became industrialized, and ate a more Western diet, their dental health began to suffer. Price also observed the changes in mouth structure–before the Western diet, the parents had bright, wide smiles….but the generations afterward had more narrow smiles and misshapened teeth by overcrowding the mouth. And yet, Western doctors refuse to see the connection between diet and overall health and wellbeing.
**edited to add the link. Geesh.
Leaving children behind…by ignorance…
(hat tip to Diane Ravitch and Mercedes Schneider)
This puts a light on the mindset of No Child Left a Mind…only a politician would say such stupid things like they “don’t want to leave any child behind…” while ignoring the fact that it is child abuse to expect ALL children to be at 100%. It shows how little they know about education, about children’s individual development, and about humanity in general.
We are not machines.
We are not here to make profits for them.
There is more to education (and life) than remembering facts and spewing them out. A rich culture and thriving democracy require people with all kinds of creative expression–whether that be through intellect, arts, music, sewing, other crafts. The marketplace of ideas is a concept for the media, but is true of democracy, as well. If we all learn the same way with the same information spewed out–we gain very little when in contact with others…we don’t enrich ourselves nor they enrich themselves when we are not encouraged to express ourselves in positive creative ways without constraint.
For politicians to look at No Child Left a Mind as some sort of feather in their cap…shortsighted and delusional is how I would characterize that…
They are closing public schools in poor and minority neighborhoods…just the opposite of what these politicians say they want. Children are stressed out and crying about testing that requires them to know things that are above their intellectual growth.
…not to mention the $$$ profiteering of Gates, Michael Milken, and the hedge fund managers involved in the scheme of trying to profit off our children.
Native Americans burial mounds illegally altered
In a glaring passing of the buck, Phyllis Ewing refuses to take responsibility for this.
It’s her subordinates fault, you see…they were just doing things illegally–although she was their boss and had the ultimate responsibility for it. And the most egregious is even after it was noted that something had gone wrong…this went on for years afterwards. How dense or unethical can you be?
Innovation Ohio: State Shortchanges Public Schools, Favors Charters
A new report from Innovation Ohio shows that the state regularly Shortchanges public schools to favor charters. Charter operators give generous campaign contributions to the governor and legislators.
“Proponents have long claimed that community or ‘charter’ schools are the cure for much of what ails Ohio’s education system. If only parents had more “choice” over where their children attend school, they say, competition and the magic of the market would surely improve all schools.
“Equally important, boosters claim that charter schools are cost neutral to the state. Unfortunately, a data set recently produced by the Ohio Department of Educationi explodes that particular myth. According to the data, the way charter schools are funded in this state has a profoundly negative impact on the resources that remain for the overwhelming majority of kids — 1.6 million — who stay in Ohio’s traditional public schools. Actually, it’s even worse than that. In…
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