Arctic ice is melting at a record pace--but instead of trying to address climate change, global superpowers are rushing to drill, mine, and exploit the "new ground."
WHAT DO WE CALL THIS NEW ERA OF POLICING?A month before 9/11, William Bratton took to the New York Times to bemoan the Cloudy Future for Policing. The LAPD (and before that, the NYPD) Chief of Police was, at that moment, the champion of community policing, combining CompStat’s ability to track crime statistics with broken windows theory to justify large numbers of arrests for “quality of life” and petty drug offenses. The intent was to let communities know the police were invested in them.
Free speech and prosecution in the age of Twitter [U.K.]
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has decided not to charge Daniel Thomas for posting a homophobic message on Twitter, the social networking site, about the swimmer Tom Daley. The press release, which takes the form of an extended quote from the Director of Public Prosecutions, is fascinating. I have reproduced it in full below.
U.S. Elections. Where Is The Leadership On The Climate Crisis?
With two months left, the candidates, the media, and the public, are focused on the wrong debate. The national debate is lagging far behind reality. The dialogue on climate change is almost non-existent. There are references to climate change and the environment in the recently released Democratic Party platform but it seems that the language is deliberately toned down to appeal to all voters.
Monsanto’s Products Cause Tumors, Organ Damage In Rats
A new study out today may hurt efforts by America’s largest biotechnology company, Monsanto, to defeat a California ballot initiative that would require labels on genetically modified foods (GMOs). The French study found that rats who were either fed a lifetime diet of Monsanto’s genetically modified corn or exposed to the company’s popular herbicide, Roundup, developed tumors and organ damage.
How American Democracy Became The Property Of A Commercial Oligarchy
The ritual performance of the legend of democracy in the autumn of 2012 promises the conspicuous consumption of $5.8 billion, enough money, thank God, to prove that our flag is still there. Forbidden the use of words apt to depress a Q Score or disturb a Gallup poll, the candidates stand as product placements meant to be seen instead of heard, their quality to be inferred from the cost of their manufacture.
America Committed Thousands of 9/11s On Defenseless People Overseas
It's now eleven years since 9/11, but Americans are still proudly slaughtering in Afghanistan in calculated unawareness or without concern that the Muslims who highjacked airliners and flew them suicidally into the Trade Towers were from US ally Saudi Arabia ("They all look the same to me").
Mitt Romney: it’s not my job to worry about the poor
More Revisions to the Official Bin Laden Raid Story
The narrative of the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound is getting another revamp, and this time, bin Laden's youngest wife doesn't get shot in the leg. On Tuesday, the CIA's top lawyer Stephen Preston gave a new account of the May 2011 mission in Pakistan in an address at Harvard Law School. It doesn't appear that the account was intended to shed new light on the raid, however, as Politico's Josh Gersteinpoints out, Preston "omitted a relevant part of that narrative."
Various Matters: Cyberwar, Last Gasps, and Hate Speech
An Obama official seems to justify an Iranian attack on the US; Panetta channels Cheney; Tom Friedman writes from expertise
U.S. Policy to Israel, Palestine Must Change
The United States remains complicit in the ongoing systematic violation of human rights by the Israeli government.
Drone Warfare's Deadly Civilian Toll: A Very Personal View
I was minutes from ordering a drone strike on a Taliban insurgent – until I realised I was watching an Afghan child at play
Time to Abolish the American Dream
The “arc” of capitalism, according to this school, is about 600 years long, from 1500 to 2100. It is our particular (mis)fortune to be living through the beginning of the end, the disintegration of capitalism as a world system. It was mostly commercial capital in the sixteenth century, evolving into industrial capital in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and then moving on to financial capital—money created by money itself, and by speculation in currency—in the twentieth and twenty-first. In dialectical fashion, it will be the very success of the system that eventually does it in.
How We Became Israel
Peace means dominion for Netanyahu—and now for us.
Don’t Let Them Trade Away Our Internet Freedoms: Speak Out Against the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement!
Fight over FISA Amendments Act Moves to the Senate, as the House Passes the Broad, Warrantless Spying Bill
Senate Republicans Kill Veterans' Jobs Bill
enate Republicans prevented a veterans' jobs bill from coming to a vote today by forcing a budget point of order vote. Democrats came up 2 votes short of the 60 needed to defeat the GOP's budget measure.
How Big Coal Keeps America Stupid
he New York Times has a good piece today about the $153 million ad blitz the fossil fuel industry is running to oust President Obama. The Times points out that this is a big change from the last election when green ads greatly outnumbered those for fossil fuels and global warming was openly discussed. And it's certainly true -- you can't turn on the TV right now without seeing ads touting the wonders of coal, gas, and oil.
Report: Religious intolerance is on the rise worldwide
Three-quarters of the world’s 7 billion population live in countries with high levels of government restriction on religion or where there exist serious “social hostilities” involving faith issues, according to researchers, with the US and the UK among countries showing a worrying rise in religious discrimination.
Walking out on Wal-Mart
