Archive
Caterpillar Bulldozer
Tom Engelhardt – US imperial military presence unprecedented
BBC – Mass Extinction Imminent – Extreme Schemes
Tom Tancredo and Glenn Beck have a spiritual “Mind Meld”
All that Glitters is not Gold
All that Glitters – update November 2009
All that Glitters is not Gold
Frida Berrigan: US not honoring nuke agreements
Dr. Doug Rokke – Depleted Uranium
Deadly Dust Todesstaub Teil 1 von 8
Riz Khan – Impact of the Gaza war on Israel
Max Eternity – Net Neutrality and Broadband Access: A Civil Rights Issue
From Truthout:
Net Neutrality and Broadband Access: A Civil Rights Issue
Sunday 31 October 2010
by: Max Eternity, t r u t h o u t | Report
“Every man is our brother, and every man’s burden is our own. Where poverty exists, all are poorer. Where hate flourishes, all are corrupted. Where injustice reigns, all are unequal.”
– Whitney Moore Young Jr.Is net neutrality just a matter of the marketplace, or is it also a matter of ethics – a civil rights issue? And if the latter, how should broadband optimally serve the nation?
It’s a question the Digital Divide Institute (DDI) asks on its website, where it addresses what it calls the five domains of innovation – public policy, finance, technology, management and ethics – the cornerstones of DDI’s Meaningful Broadband initiative.
SCOTUS Blog – U.S.: No patent on human genes
From the SCOTUS Blog:
U.S.: No patent on human genes
Taking a position in court for the first time on the issue of patenting human genes, when isolated outside the body, the Obama Administration opposed monopoly rights. The position runs counter to long-time government policy. The issue likely is bound for the Supreme Court.
Drawing a sharp distinction between “nature’s handiwork” and human invention, the Obama Administration has urged a federal appeals court to rule that no U.S. patent can be issued to give sole rights to a natural gene taken out of the body and used for medical research. The stance is directly contrary to long-standing government policy. The issue almost surely is headed ultimately to the Supreme Court.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit — the nation’s specialized court for patent litigation — is now considering whether scientists working with basic DNA in the form of unmodified human genes — that is, extracted from the human body but changed in no way from their natural state — can get patent protection for the genes themselves. A federal judge in New York City said no last March, but a genetic research company, Myriad Genetics, Inc., has appealed. (The judge’s 152-page opinion is here.)
The idea of patenting genes and their DNA components when “isolated” in a laboratory is linked to a very practical pursuit in basic genetic research: the gene’s natural characteristics are studied in order to be able to understand susceptibility to disease, enabling medical diagnoses and suggesting treatment options. In isolated form, the DNA in its unchanged gene form retains the identical characteristics found in native DNA in the body, and that is precisely why it is valuable medical research material.
American Drug War: The Last White Hope
Yusuf Islam – Where do the children play
Climate Progress – Vitter of sea-rise-threatened Louisiana: “I do not think the science clearly supports global warming theory”
From Climate Progress:
October 31, 2010
The state that stands to suffer the most from human-caused climate change has elected leaders who want to stop efforts to avoid its inundation (see “Sea levels may rise 3 times faster than IPCC estimated, could hit 6 feet by 2100“). That’s true of the Governor and presidential hopeful (see “Jindal tries to block climate change regulation“). And It’s true of GOP Sen. Vitter who tried to block climate change response centers.
In their final debate on Thursday night, Vitter and his challenger Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-LA) grappled with global warming, which threatens Louisiana with destruction through sea level rise, strengthened storms, heat waves, and drought. Brad Johnson has the story and the video the reveals the sharp contrast between these two candidates on the issue that should be of greatest importance to Louisiana voters.
“It is not a healthy world,” Melancon said, “and we need to look towards trying to fix this problem.” He concluded, “[a]t the rate we’re going and what we’re doing to it, I am fearful that we won’t leave much of a legacy for our children and grandchildren.” Vitter, by contrast, has long questioned the science in his fealty to Louisiana’s oil industry. “I do not think the science clearly supports global warming theory,” he said:…
Sarah Posner – Inside the Wisconsin Right’s Voter-Suppression Scheme
From The Nation Magazine:
Inside the Wisconsin Right’s Voter-Suppression Scheme
October 29, 2010
From familiar stories about “illegal” electioneering by ACORN and the Black Panthers to Sharron Angle’s recent claim that Harry Reid is trying to steal the election by offering prospective voters free food—the myth of widespread voter fraud is now commonplace among Republicans. In just one example, an unconfirmed assertion that Nevada voting machines already had Reid’s name checked off became a national story, with Rush Limbaugh claiming that the “New Black Panther Party,” with the “imprimatur of the Justice Department,” was “running fraudulent elections” across the country.
Yusuf Islam, Ozzy Osbourne and the O’Jay’s at the Rally To Restore Sanity!
Jon Stewart’s speech at the Rally For Sanity
Nutter Congressman John Culberson does a Glenn Beck
David Horowitz and the King Street Patriots
I thought the David Horowitz ‘evil leftist shtick’ had been put to rest. Not so… The old fool rolls out his best stuff for the King Street Patriots.
Boing Boing – Dirty debt collectors frightened victims with fake “sheriffs,” “courtroom,” “judges”
From Boing Boing:
Dirty debt collectors frightened victims with fake “sheriffs,” “courtroom,” “judges”
Cory Doctorow at 12:13 AM Sunday, Oct 31, 2010
The Pennsylvania Attorney General has brought suit against the Unicredit Debt Resolution Center in Erie, PA. According to the suit, Unicredit dressed its employees in fake sheriff’s deputies uniforms to lure debtors out of their homes with unenforceable orders, and took them to a fake courtroom where another employee pretending to be a judge told them they could go to jail if they didn’t pay up.
Slashdot – Is Google Polluting the Internet?
From Slashdot:
Is Google Polluting the Internet?
Posted by Soulskill on Saturday October 30, @02:37PM
from the hippie-talk-two-point-oh dept.
Pickens writes “In 1998, Larry Page and Sergey Brin made a promise: ‘We believe the issue of advertising causes enough mixed incentives that it is crucial to have a competitive search engine that is transparent and in the academic realm.’ Now, Micah White writes in the Guardian that the vast library that is the internet is flooded with so many advertisements that this commercial barrage is having a cultural impact, where users can no longer tell the difference between content and advertising, and the omnipresence of internet advertising constrains the horizon of our thought. And at the center of it all, with ad space on 85% of all internet sites, is Google. In the gleeful words of CEO Eric Schmidt, ‘We are an advertising company.’ The danger of allowing an advertising company to control the index of human knowledge is too obvious to ignore, writes White. ‘The universal index is the shared heritage of humanity. It ought to be owned by us all. No corporation or nation has the right to privatize the index, commercialize the index, censor what they do not like or auction search ranking to the highest bidder.’ Google currently makes nearly all its money from practices its founders once rightly abhorred. ‘Now it is up to us to realize the dream of a non-commercial paradigm for organizing the internet. … We have public libraries. We need a public search engine.'”
Media Matters – Glenn Beck failed his 40-Day Challenge
- Media Matters’ Brock Challenges Palin To Release Tapes
18 minutes ago - ABC says Breitbart will appear only online — not in its broadcast coverage
October 30, 2010 5:33 pm ET - In Wash. Post op-ed, Fox News Democrats Schoen, Caddell liken Obama to Nixon
October 30, 2010 5:31 pm ET - Fox fearmongers again about nonexistent military disenfranchisement
October 30, 2010 3:49 pm ET - Sargent: Source says “ABC’s newsroom upset with decision to tap” Breitbart for election night
October 30, 2010 12:47 pm ET - Fox begins special election coverage by promising to have on Bachmann, Scott, and Levin balanced by … Blagojevich
October 30, 2010 11:22 am ET - Civil rights commissioner blasts conservative panel’s “hatchet job” attack on DOJ
October 30, 2010 2:08 am ET - After calling birthers “idiot[s],” Beck promotes candidacy of birther Tom Tancredo
October 29, 2010 11:59 pm ET
- Glenn Beck failed his 40-Day Challenge
October 29, 2010 6:16 pm ET - How Glenn Beck led his tea party followers into the GOP
October 29, 2010 5:54 pm ET - Media Matters: The real story of the 2010 election
October 29, 2010 5:52 pm ET - As Palin “stands with” Beck, his rhetoric is credited with inspiring death threats
October 29, 2010 2:33 pm ET - Fox GOTV day three: Fox continues its week of relentless campaigning for Republicans
October 29, 2010 1:44 pm ET - Beck rails against millions of jobs that wouldn’t exist without the stimulus
October 28, 2010 11:19 pm ET - Fox News has long history of airing deceptively cropped videos
October 28, 2010 6:19 pm ET - Bill Sammon: Washington managing editor of the “voice of the opposition”
October 28, 2010 2:34 pm ET - Day 2: Fox continues its relentless GOP GOTV efforts
October 28, 2010 12:58 pm ET - Fox trumpets misleading GOP report on health care reform effects
October 28, 2010 8:47 am ET - Hatchet job: Fox crops Reid statement to pretend he has a “political scandal”
October 28, 2010 12:29 am ET - Beck connects Obama, Soros to “violent revolution” coming to “our shores”
October 27, 2010 11:22 pm ET - Out of Context: The James O’Keefe Story
October 27, 2010 4:58 pm ET - Baseless right-wing accusations of voter fraud? Must mean an election is near
October 27, 2010 3:04 pm ET
From Media Matters:
Glenn Beck failed his 40-Day Challenge
October 29, 2010 6:16 pm ET
When Glenn Beck announced his “40-Day Challenge” on his Fox News show, he pledged to “stop all lies for the next 40 days.” Beck has also said that Fox would fire him if he made “inaccurate” claims. But Beck habitually relies on false and misleading statements — Media Matters compiled 40 inaccurate claims Beck made on Fox during his 40-Day Challenge.
How Glenn Beck led his tea party followers into the GOP
October 29, 2010 5:54 pm ET
Glenn Beck’s political activism — from the 9/12 Project to his 8/28 rally — has made him a leader in the tea party movement. Beck has used that status to drive his followers into the Republican Party and bolster its get-out-the-vote efforts for the 2010 elections.
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