Anti-Drone Movement Speaks: 'End the Secrecy, No to Kill List' 'After ten years of using drones it is about time that American citizens demand accountability from our government' http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/11/15-4
t Hofstra University on Tuesday night, you won't hear either presidential candidate or any of their pre-approved debate moderators talk about why the richest nation in the world ranks #2 in child poverty, why our schools leave so many kids unprepared for the world, or why Afghanistan is falling apart despite our spending more there in one year ($113 billion) than we do for one year of food stamps ($75 billion).
12-Year-Old Girl Has Second Degree Burns From SWAT Flash Grenade Detonated During Wrong-Door Raid
A 12-year-old girl in Billings, Montana, is suffering first and second degree burns on half her body after a SWAT team dropped a flash bang grenade next to her bed during a wrong-door drug raid on Oct. 9.
10 Conspiracy Theories Hatched by Conservative Fearmongers As Election Day Nears
The frequency and outlandishness of their conspiratorial imaginations grows in sync with their desperation. With Obama ahead in the polls, let's take a look at the absurdities hatched by our conservative fearmongers.
Factchecking Impossible, Pointless, Say Factcheckers
While factchecking as an enterprise would seem to inherently accept the idea that, yes, there are facts and they can be checked, in practice the people called factcheckers deny that what they do can be used to meaningfully distinguish between candidates:
Top 12 Countries Where Girls Are Most Likely to Be Child Brides
Despite international commitments to end child marriage, one in three girls in developing countries (excluding China) will be married before they turn 18 by 2030, according to the latest United Nations report on the issue. In 2010, a total of 67 million women around the world had gotten married while they were still under 18—half in Asia, one-fifth in Africa.
Anti Blasphemy Laws – Pakistan, Greece and Australia
We hear a lot of talk lately about the call for Anti-Blasphemy laws to be formalised to make blasphemy a crime internationally. The United Nations are debating this once again, mostly as a knee-jerk reaction against poorly made (and probably divisive) the YouTube video “The Innocence of Muslims”. But we see this call coming from two camps, and for two different reasons.
ACLU to Argue Next Week at Guantánamo Tribunal Against Censorship of Torture Testimony
Early next week, a military commission judge at Guantánamo Bay will hear oral argument on the American Civil Liberties Union’s challenge to censorship of torture testimony at the trial of the 9/11 defendants. This will be the ACLU’s first appearance arguing before the tribunal.
What Does the Church Think? Women's Rights Framed as Religious Question In VP Debate
Two debates into a four debate format, we have now seen all four members of the opposing campaigns debate the issues most important to the American voters. In that total 180 minutes of debate time, topics traditionally considered to be "women's issues" have been discussed for exactly six minutes.
The campaign lurches on, the adds stream endlessly into our living rooms, the robo-calls clamor incessantly for our dollars, candidates get bought and sold, the press obediently acts as if there’s substantive stuff going on, and the real issues of our times go unaddressed. This is what passes for an election, these days.
Mormons Believe God is Married and Maybe Polygamous
The belief that God is married isn't discussed directly in Mormon scripture, but it does follow necessarily from most Mormon teachings about God and a few Mormon leaders have discussed it directly over the years. It's noteworthy that God's wife, the Heavenly Mother, is not herself a god — apparently, only men can become gods.
What Psychopaths Teach Us about How to Succeed [Excerpt] We can learn a lot from psychopaths. Certain aspects of their personalities and intellect are often hallmarks of success
Fight back, live better Alan Maassreports on the surge of struggles around the U.S. against Wal-Mart, including the outcome of a strike at the company's giant distribution center in Illinois.http://socialistworker.org/2012/10/10/fight-back-live-better Government's Fault That Espionage Act Cases Risk Press Freedom
The latest unsealed court pleadings in the Espionage Act case against Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) whistleblower John Kiriakou reveal that Kiriakou's defense team has sought to subpoena journalists.
Maybe I have been too harsh in judging Barack Obama's economic performance. Instead of following George W. Bush's lead in bailing out the bankers first, I wanted Obama to do more for beleaguered homeowners and less for the Wall Street swindlers who trafficked in toxic mortgages. But the president must have done something right, or the hucksters at Goldman Sachs wouldn't hate him so.
Is Anarchism a Political Philosophy Whose Time Has Come?
It seems that everywhere, these days, people are talking about anarchism. Now Dmitry Orlov joins the discussion with a 3-part series, "In Praise of Anarchy." Utilizing primarily the work of the 19th century Russian anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, Orlov argues that anarchy, rather than hierarchy, is the dominant pattern in nature, that hierarchical organizations ultimately end in collapse, and that the impending collapse of the capitalist industrial system presents an opportunity for the emergence of anarchism.
As far as the Republicans are concerned, President Barack Obama is secularism’s go-to guy in Washington. Newt Gingrich refers to him as a “secular-socialist.” Mitt Romney charges that his opponent advocates a “secular agenda.” And Rick Santorum frets that Obama is imposing “secular values” on “people of faith.”
The Cost of Cybercrime: 1.5 Million Victims Every Day
Two-thirds of online adults already have been Cybercrime victims at some point in their lives, and 46% of online adults have been victims within the past year. The annual cost of Cybercrime is a whopping $110 billion.
Today, we see Washington on a rampage to realize these words from historian Gordon Wood: ‘our beliefs in liberty, equality, constitutionalism, and the well-being of ordinary people came out of the Revolutionary era; so too, did our idea that we Americans are a special people with a special destiny to lead the world toward liberty and democracy’. This fallacious sentiment, coined ‘American exceptionalism’, has become Washington’s mantra; it has wrought death and misery on billions.
From people being harassed for paying by cash or having a food garden, to Americans being arrested for letting their children play outside – innumerable examples over the past few months alone illustrate that the United States is no longer a free country.
The United States, long considered the standard bearer for economic freedom among large industrial nations, has experienced a remarkable plunge in economic freedom during the past decade. From 1980 to 2000, the US was generally rated the third freest economy in the world, ranking behind only Hong Kong and Singapore. The ranking of the US has fallen precipitously; from second in 2000 to eighth in 2005 and 19th in 2010.
Mitt Romney Adds the Uninsured to His List of Americans He isn’t Concerned About
Many people will admit that they never appreciate good health until they are sick or injured, and if they do fall ill, their first thought is getting immediate treatment to alleviate their discomfort. For people fortunate enough to have healthcare insurance, their first point of consultation is a primary care provider who can diagnose and treat their condition, and more than likely provide guidance for how to prevent a recurrence unless their health issue is an injury.
Learning the cynical realities of America's evolving monarchical chief executives, their active-positive passions and passive-negative ennui made us all begin to wonder if we were plotting careers in politics at the wrong time. Carter won, but seemed incapable of throwing the necessary levers and switches of political power to advance his agenda. After Johnson, then Nixon, the American press was accustomed to a president with every golf club in his bag and the skill to use them. Carter, rightly or wrongly, was portrayed as a president with only a sand wedge and little passion for the game overall.
A study at Stanford and New York University titled ‘Living Under Drones’ claimed that only two percent of drone strike casualties in Pakistan are top militants, and that the large number of related civilian deaths turn Pakistanis against the US.
Report: "Counterproductive" US Drone Program "Terrorizes" Pakistan
Rejecting the dominant narrative that insulates most Americans from the reality of the US drone program in Pakistan—a narrative that says drones are a surgically precise and effective tool that makes the US safer from "global terrorism" with minimal downsides—a new reportby researchers at the Stanford and NYU schools of law says that the program itself is "terrorizing" and that its overall impact is "counterproductive" when it comes to addressing international law, security, and human rights.
Scientists: No to Genetically Modified Crops, Yes to Paradigm Shift
A group of scientists said that ecological farming and a shift towards a holistic paradigm, not genetically modified (GM) crops, are the answer for India's future agricultural needs.
Living Under Drones, a new report from Stanford and New York universities, was a difficult piece of fieldwork – I was with the law students in Peshawar as they tried to interview victims of the CIA's drone war. But it has made an important contribution to the drone debate by identifying the innocent victims of the CIA's reign of terror: the entire civilian population of Waziristan (roughly 800,000 people).
The Supreme Court declared that money is speech. Pictures, movies, advertising is speech even it what is "spoken" is provocative, misinformation, or a lie, but always meant to influence the viewer, listener. That is Democracy we say piously. Those Muslims must understand that our government does not necessarily approve of a dirty movie but we have free speech in this country. Anybody can say, write, make movies about anything they want. Oh yeah?
I made a conscious decision to approach the situation in New York with optimism and an open mind. What I experienced during my time there, was in many ways a direct reflection of the attitude I approached it with. This does not mean that I did not observe any negativity during the events of the weekend. It does mean, however, that instead of focusing on those negative events, I am able to appreciate the positive experiences such as the following story.
Nobility means dignity. Because of the possible beneficial effects, any work done well can lead to dignity. In our time, every citizen can feel a sense of mission, purpose and importance. Every task can be considered an act of service to our nation when that task is done well. In this way every act can be an act of public service. And in this way every kind of work can be noble. This is the message if you believe individuals have an inherent purpose. But this is not the message of Plutocracy.
Democracy and an educated citizenry go hand in hand. Public education is the great equalizer. America's founders believed it was insurance against loss of liberty.
Why Your Brain Is Irrational about Obama and Romney
Before the election, I urge you to read Leonard Mlodinow's new book, Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior (Pantheon). You will gain such insights as that higher-pitched voices are judged by subjects as more nervous, less truthful and less empathetic than speakers with lower-pitched voices and that speaking a little faster and louder, with fewer pauses and greater variation in volume, leads people to judge someone to be energetic, intelligent and knowledgeable. Looks matter even more.
ith 42 days to go until the US presidential elections, now is the time to put climate change at the top of the political agenda. We are at a critical moment in history. This year we have witnessed record levels of carbon in the atmosphere, unprecedented melting of ice in the arctic, alarming spikes in global temperature and extreme weather conditions.
ast week, Mitt Romney and President Obama traded insults in a most amazing way, reminding us that success in American politics these days requires two things: saying the most absurd things with a straight face, and maximizing the appearance of differences with your opponent, while minimizing their reality.
The Defense Department's plans to reduce at least 150 civilian senior leadership positions, the cap on civilian personnel numbers and the existing pay freeze threaten the department's ability to achieve its mission, and according to a Sept. 19 report (.pdf) from the Government Accountability Office, its analysis of possible workforce gaps is inaccurate. http://www.fiercegovernment.com/story/gao-dod-civilian-workforce-assessment-flawed/2012-09-25
Atheists, Secularism, Secular Government: Why Atheists Care About Secularism
Importance of Secularism & Secular Government to Irreligious Atheists
The Israel lobby’s biggest and longest-running Washington boondoggles are the massive annual weapons and economic packages to Israel. Tightly coordinated campaign contributors (both individuals and political action committees) and the Israeli government’s own quiet demands manifest themselves within AIPAC-drafted foreign aid legislation. The U.S.-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012 forces Americans to fork hard-earned tax dollars over to Israel’s coffers on the pretext that it is in eminent danger.
Let's admit it: Picking up a picket sign and spending hours marching out in the 105-degree heat or the -15 degree frost, screaming your lungs out, does not seem like a particularly natural thing to do. In fact, when people do this sort of thing outside of the context of a protest event, it's usually a cry for help. So why do we protest?
It’s an unfortunate but increasingly difficult to ignore truth: progressives are ignorant, too. Not all progressives, all the time. But more than we’d like to think. More than can possibly be considered acceptable in a healthy sub-culture, let alone one with a stated aim of leading the world into a new enlightenment. Or even one with the humbler hope of living in that kind of world. http://www.care2.com/causes/enlightenment-has-no-end-point.html
There are plenty of reasons to believe that human nature changes slowly, if at all — all’s still fair in love and war. For millennia, religious believers have attributed our nature to God’s image, as well as to God’s plan. In recent years, evolutionary psychologists peered directly at our forerunners on the savannahs of East Africa; if human beings change, we do so gradually over thousands of years.
