Category Archives: Big Brother

Pipeline rupture report of 2009 buried

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Warrior Publications has this up on a report of yet another pipeline rupture that was buried since 2009.  Accidentally, of course…/snark

Nathan Lemphers says “it’s hard to guess intentions” as to why this report was buried….

…yeah, I’m not buying it, either, that it was an “oversight” that the damning report was never to see sunlight.  There are too many incidents of the oil industry interfering with freedom of the press and freedom of speech for it to be unintentional.

Let’s not forget the Arkansas oil spill that we wouldn’t have heard about, if it were up to the mainstream media. Or the massive devastation of the Gulf that BP tried to hide (and unfortunately, did a pretty good job of interfering with photographers and having dead dolphins carted away before they could document them.)

The tide was turned against the Vietnam war through the media…once one sees how devastating it is, it makes it harder to look the other way.

…and so it is with the devastating effects of the energy companies on the environment….hard to look the other way once one sees how devastating it is to the Earth and to the wildlife.

Neil Young’s song and the accompanying video haunt me–it shows in stark contrast how beautiful this Earth truly is until the oil and gas companies move in…

Ed Shultz (MSNBC)  has now two nights in a row yelled into the screen about how we  should be in favor of the XL pipeline for *cough* safety reasons.  Um-hmmm…

You know, I might have believed him if he wasn’t leaving out one important factor of tar sands:  pet coke.  Pet coke being the highly toxic byproduct of tar sands….which they want to dump in my already toxic state…

He is adamant that the “oil is going to come out, anyway” so it might as well be us, because if China or anyone else does it, well, it’s just not going to be as environmentally friendly.

I say let them.  It will be blood on their hands, not ours.

Better yet, leave the oil in the Earth where it belongs.  As the Sierra Club stated, if the XL is not built, then there is high probability that the tar sands will remain in the Earth.

Additionally, I thought it was disingenuous of Ed Shultz not to mention the Mi’kmaq or other First Nations of Canada whom have rights to the lands that are being destroyed.

Not a peep.  That speaks volumes!

And it also speaks to why MSNBC and Ed Shultz are still trying to convince people, almost on a daily basis, that Hillary Clinton is the front runner for the 2016 presidential race.  Hillary Clinton is all for the XL. 

Lastly,  Ed and his backers would still like to downplay how devastating XL would be on the environment.

He says we “have to” have XL in order to turn on our lights…and other scare tactics.

I don’t think we have *even* begun to truly use our brain cells to discover sustainable ways of creating energy.

…and Ed, we can always light a candle instead of cursing the dark…

Putting an “X” on XL and Enbridge Pipelines

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Idle No More has put up  links to several folks speaking out against XL and Enbridge Pipelines:

Honor the Earth:

Rise Up Mother Earth:

Note how they characterize Mother Earth as crying–Earth isn’t a big ball of dirt, but a living, breathing organism.

Here’s a list of nationwide vigils.

The Black Snake will face mounting opposition.

What did Big Oil know and when did they know it.  Jack Gerard, head of the American Petroleum Institute, thought the pipeline was dangerous to the environment…bwahahahahaha *snort*   /just a little joke there, folks

Finally, Democracy Now! featured the XL in a debate with an industry insider and Friends of the Earth:

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/3/debate_state_dept_moves_keystone_xl

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/3/environmental_groups_shocked_by_reports_of

And this on Enbridge’s infamous 2010 Kalamazoo spill, with cleanup still not done.

http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/3/michigan_activists_face_up_to_2

Bob Braun: Newark school closings may be illegal

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I have to hand it to Bob Braun–the hits just keep coming.  He has yet another great report up on how the Christie/Anderson plan of trashing public education via closing public schools and pushing children into charters may be illegal, according to New Jersey law.

I am so happy that at least someone is fighting for them.  I wish we had them here….Indiana’s public schools will close before Hoosiers wake up to what is really happening…

**note that the 5 principals that were fired…er, put on indefinite layoff…were reinstated.  Woot.

 

ALEC hard at work in Indiana; HB1321

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Diane Ravitch has this up on the destructive policies designed to push for charter schools that will ultimately mean the demise of public schools through siphoning funding away.

By the way, HB1320, has passed.  By the legiscan link, it’s hard to tell whether it passed in the legislature or just the committee.  Either way, it doesn’t look good.

 

U.S. Dept. of Ed. receiving money from Gates

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What a bombshell…the United States Department of Education is taking dirty money from Bill and Melinda Gates.

For a “collaboration conference” April 2012

Another “collaborative” effort to implement Common Core, December 2013

Note the “shared responsibility” white paper….and the focus is on labor collaboration…nothing about a well-rounded education as a robust part of democracy….the focus is on labor and business.

Note the paper states that the Dept. of Ed. is under “immense pressure” to implement labor-management collaborative…um, yeah, I don’t remember asking for more corporate involvement in public schools, have you…?

This sentence is telling:

To advance this collaborative theory of change the Department has been using both its convening and

grant making powers.

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(I have no idea why the font changed to smaller size…must be the pdf.)

…in other words, the Dept. of Ed. has been coercing schools to adopt the policy through grants and legislation…

n February 2012, the Department

announced the launch of the RESPECT Project.
RESPECT stands for Recognizing Educational Success, Professional Excellence, and Collaborative Teaching.
The project’s purpose is to directly engage with teachers across America in a national conversation about transforming the teaching profession by
dramatically changing the way teachers are recruited,
credentialed, supported, compensated, promoted,
and retained in the profession.
The near-term aim of the RESPECT Project is to elevate teachers’ voices in shaping federal,
state, and local policy, with a long-
term goal of making teaching one of America’s most respected professions.

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This is such a joke.  Respect means you pay teachers a decent wage that reflects their professional education and their experience.  Respect means you do not bash teachers and teacher’s unions.

“…the…aim of RESPECT Project is to elevate teachers’ voices…”  Unless, of course, those voices are in passionate disagreement with you:

Finally, I found this wonderful video that takes on “Waiting for Superman” and all the false claims made by the education profiteers and their allies:

NSA using phone apps like Angry Birds to gather personal info

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Well, I wish I could say I’m surprised, but no…nobody is going to design a game and give it away for free…ain’t gonna happen without some benefit for themselves.  No free lunches, folks.

Here we have another case of taxation without representation…since a majority of people want this invasion of privacy to stop.

 

 

Update: Indiana HB1320

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Update on this post on the power grab/information grab by Pence and his henchmen.

I found this summary of the bill– as you can see, it does not outline what information is being gathered.  It does not say who is receiving this information.  It does not outline how this benefits children and education.  And why does the state need to provide backup when schools routinely backup their own records??

As I wrote on Diane’s blog–

It looks like Gates has his dirty little fingers in this–gathering more information for…what? or perhaps I should say…who? What kind of information are they gathering? Who will benefit from gathering this information?

The bill does not tell us. Highly suspicious.

I also found this excellent blog by Doug Martin (you might recall he posted on firedoglake).

If passed into law, HB1320 will probably hand another $3.7 million of our tax dollars to a private company which will sell off personal and confidential information of students and families to companies out to market their products and agenda to them.

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This new move is not a new one.  In fact, HB1320 was probably inspired by a model bill drafted for various states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, the corporate sponsored bill-mill behind the scenes in Indiana and across the country bringing us school privatization, attacks on the postal service and unions, and the infamous Stand Your Ground Law.

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Yep.  This has the smell of ALEC all over it.

 

 

 

Action Alert: Pence Power Grab from Glenda Ritz

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Once again, Glenda Ritz is under threat of losing her authority granted to her by the citizens of Indiana….who voted more for her than Pence.

Calling all Hoosiers…send out emails to have your voice heard.  Don’t let Pence become a dictator!

Teacher’s experience in Gulen Charter school

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Diane Ravitch has an account of a teacher’s experience in a Gulen charter school.  Unreal.

No books.  And teachers with 100 students limited to 25 copies per day.  Money missing from their paychecks unaccounted for.  Seriously?

All of this is flying under the radar because the mainstream media is not only not covering the Newark 5, they’re not covering the criminal and unethical activities of people running charter schools.

…but they’ll be more than happy to run story after story of bad teachers in public schools…

 

 

Mi’kmaq Warriors begin tour

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Mi’kmaq Warriors will begin a speaking tour on the environmental protests against fracking, but also pipelines and tar sands.

“We are all being systematically displaced within our own traditional territories,” Patles explained. “Once they destroy our territories and these resource companies are gone, we will be the ones left with destroyed land and poisoned water.”

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Again, we have the disaster capitalism…take the resources without even paying for them, and then leave poisoned land and water.  And no, I don’t think the Mi’kmaq would take money even if it were offered to them. Their spirituality cannot be bought…and the Earth is seen as connected to the Creator…

You can’t buy clean air, clean water, nor clean land after it’s been poisoned.  This point seems to always be lost on politicians and energy companies who couldn’t care less what happens to people after the fact…