(Oh, how I miss CSPAN…even though it is slowly becoming mostly conservative views.)
Speaks his mind on President Obama using MLK’s bible to be sworn in. He has strong words about “using King’s fire” and not following up with actions, such as putting Wall St bankers in jail, putting Bush torturers in jail, getting rid of the drones, doing something about poverty...etc.
DS Wright has an update here.
But the general feeling is that Wall St. will still go unpunished…i.e., jail time. It’s kinda hard to stop these people when they see nothing wrong with what they did and none of them serve jail time.
…because we’d much rather go after computer wizzes who have legal access to files and download them for the public so that the public knows what their government is doing…
link here.
bgrothus has this link in the comments section. Remember, folks, the derivatives were the cause of the meltdown. They were betting on people losing their mortgages….these scumbags were betting on people like me losing their houses.
…and not only betting on people losing their houses, but on people dying. It’s amazing how they can make it seem….normal. Just coldly predict how long someone lives and apply a monetary value to it, i.e., insurance $$.
(crap, I have to go, and I wanted to explore this more….argh)
I found this interesting post on Aaron Swartz, which raises more questions than it answers…
I found another post on this site Saturday, but couldn’t find it again looking today. It mentioned a post by Marcy Wheeler on what was going on with Aaron Swartz and his suicide after being hounded by authorities. (Be sure to click on the NY Times link, which explains a little better.) More here.
This chills one to the bone. And what exactly was he downloading that caused such concern? The articles dance around it. Anyway, Aaron Swartz believed that the information out there that was paid for by taxpayers deserved to be easily accessed–that is, without paying high $$ to join JSTOR or any other program to gain access. It was noted that many documents are being electronically copied with limited access to the public. This is incredibly disturbing, as everyone knows that Information is Power. And knowledge can inform the American citizen what their government is doing. (This is why stuff like Kindle worry me–taking information off of physical books and putting them in electronic gadgets that require a battery and software to view is dangerous in that if either of those fail to work, the information is inaccessible. One can easily see how this can turn into denial of information–book burning a la the information age.)
The thing is…Swartz had legal access to the information, via Harvard! He had the legal right to access. He was trying to make a point that the copyright laws protected electronic information that the taxpayers paid for, but were denied access to. Now, think of the library books one checks out…they are copyrighted materials, but one can still access the information via a library card. I think Swartz was applying those same principles to his providing this information. Note that JSTOR refused to prosecute him once they learned he had legal access.
Susie Madrak has a post up on MLK’s birthday celebration. This is my view, too, on how everybody brings up “I Have a Dream” speech, and then fail to acknowledge his “Beyond Vietnam” speech (which he gave a year to the day before his murder).
He was expanding from the Civil Rights protests towards protesting the condition of the poor and of the terrible consequences of war. This was more of a threat to the status quo than anything he had done prior. Indeed, even his friends that had supported him during the Civil Rights era were abandoning him when he started advocating for the poor and protesting against war. According to those that knew him, he never felt so alone.
He knew that advocating those positions was dangerous.
And he did it anyway….
Good Grief, how many children/adults have to suffer?
Why isn’t the evidence is for public viewing.? Pretty evident that Big Pharma is culpable, and getting away with it because if you can keep the information from being in the public sphere, more folks will be unaware and less likely to realize their child or their selves have symptoms caused by vaccination. And as this story illustrates, the court cases can have motion after motion filed and be dragged on for years, and only someone of means could afford to pay an attorney to fight their case. In other words, more profits for Big Pharma…
I was thinking about my post here over the weekend, and thought I should expand on it. I write what I know (which is what they tell you), but perhaps I was being myopic.
I did a search on susceptibility and African Americans, but had very few articles to choose from. I found this.
Here are some of the issues I have with this article–
One is that pollution stays in one place, so it affects just the nearest geographical area. It spreads all over. Articles on it here and here and here.
Air pollution in FW is particularly bad–there were many, many ozone days last summer where I could not go outside for any length of time. I thought I could at least jog in the morning of an ozone day, but was sadly mistaken when I started wheezing as I climbed the stairs to my apartment afterward.
The lung disease thing I am confused about because in my building, the only folks with oxygen tanks are whites–several of them. And nearly all the ones in wheelchairs are white. At one time, there have been seven whites in wheelchairs, several more using walkers but only one black gentleman in a wheelchair. Just my own little world….
I suspect that heavy metals are affecting African Americans, but like whites, are not being noticed or investigated. The information may be out there, but I didn’t see it in my research. I would love to explore this more.
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And no, I don’t think that nuclear energy is the answer (if one wants to reduce coal production to lessen the impact of lead, arsenic and mercury in the environment). Nuclear has many, many problems, one of which is thyroid cancer levels go up around nuclear power plants. I think one of the first things that has to occur is for Americans to stop wasting so much energy and going off grid would be the first step–one has to be more conscious of the energy they use if they are responsible for that energy. Another step would be to build sustainable housing, like earth ships. Gotta love that name. And I love the design on this page—Isn’t that cool? Who would think such an artsy design is also sustainable?
A paper here by Joseph Mangano on the rising thyroid cancer rates and nuclear energy. (PDF)
A map on disease clusters here.
Yep, the evidence is out there that we are killing ourselves with the toxic environment. I’d rather sacrifice a little and be able to breathe than have the conveniences of modern life that are killing us, slowly.
C.J.Chivers of the New York Times had this up over the weekend–a post on ammunition being supplied to Africa. I thought I’d post it because of the focus on Africa. Perhaps it’s just me, but it seems that Africa is becoming a focal point…or perhaps it was always there, but ignored?
Anyway, I thought that it’s striking that a lot is said about Iran’s nuclear capabilities, but not of small arms ammunition and shipping it to other countries.
The question one has to ask is…why? What do they hope to gain? Is it for their political benefit or just plain guns profits?
“If Christ were here, there is one thing he would not be…A Christian.” Brilliantly said. Trying to act like Christ is a little too much work…as it requires following “Do Unto Others…”
Diane Sweet has a post up on the fundamentalist Pat Robertson, doing what fundamentalists do: putting women beneath them…
I disagree with one of the commenters who said that this kind of thinking was dying out. It’s a dangerous assumption, and from what I’m seeing, far from being a thing of the past. This crap has been going on for thousands of years, in different forms and won’t “die out” until women are seen and treated as equals. Women are a still not thought of as having equal value in whatever they do–if they stay home to raise the children and care for the house, or if they work outside the home.
The issues with rape and the degradation of the young woman in Steubenville are classic examples of treating women as “less than” and making moral judgments against her that are not made against the men. She’s a slut to be peed on. He’s just having a good time.
My first impression of listening to Carolyn Cain is that she sounds waaay too much like Sarah Palin. It was just a first impression I got…(and a side note~the eye movement? That is a sign of mercury/heavy metal poisoning…I kid you not.)
Where to begin??
My God, can you imagine a child getting a hold of a gun and killing his/her classmates?
Or a child, say a middle schooler, that was in one of those pissed-off-at-the-world moods who gets the teacher’s gun and shoots her?
The gun can (and will) be used in so many ways that are unintended…that is, they won’t be protecting people’s lives, but ending them.
I mean, really, schools that I taught in were safe–all doors were locked and you had to be buzzed in to enter the school. They go through exercises to practice the drill for any emergency, including this, so I’m at a loss as to how Sandy Hook even happened. I do know that the nurse was given a moment in time when she could have tried to stop Adam Lanza–he was right next to her as she hid under a desk (if I recall correctly).
If she had a gun, would she have used it? I know that I wouldn’t. I’d try to find some other means to stop someone from the rampage. I would have tried to tackle him once his back was turned…I may have died in the process, but at least I would have tried to stop more from being killed…and at the very least, it would have bought more time until police could arrive. Just my thoughts on it…
Looking at the comments, the first one on the Ed Show website is brilliant:
If she wants to carry a gun at work, she should quit teaching and become a cop.
Amen.
Also, if I were still substitute teaching, I would not want to be in a classroom with a gun in it. Period. I would refuse to teach or have the gun taken by the principal.
I’m not being dragged into the fear. And the kids need to see the adults not being manipulated by fear.
Eagle 
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