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marmar
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marmar's Journal
May 9, 2012
from the Detroit Metro Times:
Mess of suppression
Why voter ID laws are solutions to a problem that doesn’t exist
By Curt Guyette
Published: May 9, 2012
News Hits recently found itself engaged in a debate about election integrity with one of our conservative friends over beers at a local watering hole.
And yes, that's not a misprint. We do have friends on the right. Just not very many of them.
Concern over voter fraud is being hyped as a real issue in the right-wing echo chamber of conservative talk radio, which is why our pal raised it as a point of discussion in our barroom banter. But as he voiced support for GOP attempts to institute stricter voter ID laws — "What's wrong with that?" he asked — we posed a counter question:
Which do you think is of greater concern, election fraud or voter fraud? ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/news/mess-of-suppression-1.1312159
Mess of suppression: Why voter ID laws are solutions to a problem that doesn’t exist
from the Detroit Metro Times:
Mess of suppression
Why voter ID laws are solutions to a problem that doesn’t exist
By Curt Guyette
Published: May 9, 2012
News Hits recently found itself engaged in a debate about election integrity with one of our conservative friends over beers at a local watering hole.
And yes, that's not a misprint. We do have friends on the right. Just not very many of them.
Concern over voter fraud is being hyped as a real issue in the right-wing echo chamber of conservative talk radio, which is why our pal raised it as a point of discussion in our barroom banter. But as he voiced support for GOP attempts to institute stricter voter ID laws — "What's wrong with that?" he asked — we posed a counter question:
Which do you think is of greater concern, election fraud or voter fraud? ....................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://metrotimes.com/news/mess-of-suppression-1.1312159
May 9, 2012
Otherwise known as heaven, for a railfan like me.
Central Station, Antwerp
St. Pancras, London
Hauptbahnhof, Berlin
Estación de Atocha, Madrid
Grand Central Terminal, New York
Gare du Nord, Paris
Stazione Centrale, Milan
Incredible Train Stations
Otherwise known as heaven, for a railfan like me.
Central Station, Antwerp
St. Pancras, London
Hauptbahnhof, Berlin
Estación de Atocha, Madrid
Grand Central Terminal, New York
Gare du Nord, Paris
Stazione Centrale, Milan
May 9, 2012
from the Independent UK:
Huge plant-eating dinosaurs may have produced enough greenhouse gas by breaking wind to alter the Earth's climate, research suggests.
Like leviathan cows, the mighty sauropods would have generated enormous quantities of methane.
Sauropods, recognisable by their long necks and tails, were widespread around 150 million years ago.
They included some of the largest animals to walk the Earth, such as Diplodocus, which measured 150 feet and weighed up to 45 tonnes. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dinosaur-wind-altered-climate-7721965.html
Flatulent Dinosaurs changed the world
from the Independent UK:
Huge plant-eating dinosaurs may have produced enough greenhouse gas by breaking wind to alter the Earth's climate, research suggests.
Like leviathan cows, the mighty sauropods would have generated enormous quantities of methane.
Sauropods, recognisable by their long necks and tails, were widespread around 150 million years ago.
They included some of the largest animals to walk the Earth, such as Diplodocus, which measured 150 feet and weighed up to 45 tonnes. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/dinosaur-wind-altered-climate-7721965.html
May 9, 2012
A Vision of America the Possible
Gus Speth imagines a compelling vision of a better, happier country—and how to make it possible.
by Gus Speth
posted May 08, 2012
Cross posted from Orion Magazine
We need a compelling vision for a new future, a vision of a better country—America the Possible—that is still within our power to reach. The deep, transformative changes sketched in the first half of this manifesto provide a path to America the Possible. But that path is only brought to life when we can combine this vision with the conviction that we will pull together to build the necessary political muscle for real change.
.....(snip).....
In America the Possible, our dominant culture will have shifted, from today to tomorrow, in the following ways:
We actually know important things about how values and culture can be changed. One sure path to cultural change is, unfortunately, the cataclysmic event—the crisis—that profoundly challenges prevailing values and delegitimizes the status quo. The Great Depression is the classic example. I think we can be confident that we haven’t seen the end of major crises. ............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/america-the-possible-part-2
Gus Speth: A Vision of America the Possible
A Vision of America the Possible
Gus Speth imagines a compelling vision of a better, happier country—and how to make it possible.
by Gus Speth
posted May 08, 2012
Cross posted from Orion Magazine
We need a compelling vision for a new future, a vision of a better country—America the Possible—that is still within our power to reach. The deep, transformative changes sketched in the first half of this manifesto provide a path to America the Possible. But that path is only brought to life when we can combine this vision with the conviction that we will pull together to build the necessary political muscle for real change.
.....(snip).....
In America the Possible, our dominant culture will have shifted, from today to tomorrow, in the following ways:
- from seeing humanity as something apart from nature, transcending and dominating it, to seeing ourselves as part of nature, offspring of its evolutionary process, close kin to wild things, and wholly dependent on its vitality and the finite services it provides;
- from seeing nature in strictly utilitarian terms—humanity’s resource to exploit as it sees fit for economic and other purposes—to seeing the natural world as having intrinsic value independent of people and having rights that create the duty of ecological stewardship;
- from discounting the future, focusing severely on the near term, to taking the long view and recognizing duties to future generations;
- from today’s hyperindividualism and narcissism, and the resulting social isolation, to a powerful sense of community and social solidarity reaching from the local to the cosmopolitan;
- from the glorification of violence, the acceptance of war, and the spreading of hate and invidious divisions to the total abhorrence of these things;
- from materialism and consumerism to the prioritization of personal and family relationships, learning, experiencing nature, spirituality, service, and living within limits;
- from tolerating gross economic, social, and political inequality to demanding a high measure of equality in all these spheres.
- from seeing nature in strictly utilitarian terms—humanity’s resource to exploit as it sees fit for economic and other purposes—to seeing the natural world as having intrinsic value independent of people and having rights that create the duty of ecological stewardship;
- from discounting the future, focusing severely on the near term, to taking the long view and recognizing duties to future generations;
- from today’s hyperindividualism and narcissism, and the resulting social isolation, to a powerful sense of community and social solidarity reaching from the local to the cosmopolitan;
- from the glorification of violence, the acceptance of war, and the spreading of hate and invidious divisions to the total abhorrence of these things;
- from materialism and consumerism to the prioritization of personal and family relationships, learning, experiencing nature, spirituality, service, and living within limits;
- from tolerating gross economic, social, and political inequality to demanding a high measure of equality in all these spheres.
We actually know important things about how values and culture can be changed. One sure path to cultural change is, unfortunately, the cataclysmic event—the crisis—that profoundly challenges prevailing values and delegitimizes the status quo. The Great Depression is the classic example. I think we can be confident that we haven’t seen the end of major crises. ............(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/happiness/america-the-possible-part-2
May 9, 2012
from Democracy Now!:
........(snip)........
AMY GOODMAN: Some call it "welfare reform"; others, "welfare deform."
ROBERT REICH: Yeah, that so-called reform provided a maximum of five years in somebody’s life on, essentially, welfare. The assumption was that you would not have a deep recession or a depression that would go on nearly that long, and so that five years in a lifetime was about right. Well, what happened in 2007, 2008? We had a severe downturn. Who got caught in that downturn worse than anybody else? It was people at the bottom, in the bottom 20 percent, a lot of them minorities, a lot of them women. They are still caught in the downturn. Where is most of our unemployment? The welfare law, that maximum—gave them a maximum of five years, many of those people do not—are no longer eligible for anything. Their families are no longer eligible for anything. I mean, we, in signing—Bill Clinton, in signing that law, essentially condemned a substantial number of our most vulnerable people in this country to hardships that should never, in a civilized society, be imposed on anyone.
AMY GOODMAN: Bill Clinton did.
ROBERT REICH: Bill Clinton did. Now, again, the economy at that time was buoyant. We created—or at least presided over an economy, by then, that was down to 4 percent unemployment. But there was no guarantee that 4 percent unemployment would be the norm. I mean, on the inside—and then, subsequently, I said, we might have recessions, we might have 6 or 7 or 8 percent unemployment. You know, now, among the very poor, we have 20 percent or 25 percent high school dropouts, almost 30 percent unemployment. If we don’t have any safety net, it’s not only bad for them, it’s bad for the economy, because it means that we have a lot of people who have no money in their pockets at all. Only 40 percent of people who have lost their jobs now are eligible for unemployment benefits. I mean, not just welfare—I mean, we haven’t just slashed the welfare safety net, we don’t even have much of an unemployment benefit safety net left. For people who—you know, last night, I was talking with people who said, "The reason that Americans who are unemployed are not getting jobs is because their lives are too cushy. We’ve made it too easy for them. They get a lot of unemployment benefits." You know, where—what planet are these people on? I mean, 40 percent are eligible, and the average welfare—the average unemployment benefit is only about 20 to 30 percent of previous—your previous job compensation, in any event.
........(snip)........
ROBERT REICH: And it essentially allowed—once that Glass-Steagall was repealed, it allowed investment banks, the casino of Wall Street, to invade commercial banks and commercial deposits, and it allowed investment bankers to utilize commercial deposits for, essentially, gambling, Amy. And that, combined with these investment banks going public, becoming publicly held companies, really opened the floodgates to an era of even greater casino capitalism than we had before.
We’ve got to resurrect Glass-Steagall. I mean, it seems to me one of the problems we have with Wall Street right now is that there is still no constraint. The major Wall Street banks are bigger than they were before. They have better access to lower-cost money. That is, interest rates for them are at a preferable rate over other banks, so they have a competitive advantage that is going to enable them to get even larger. They know, and everybody else knows, they will be bailed out if they get in trouble, because they have already been bailed out. Without a resurrection of Glass-Steagall, and without legislation that caps the size of the biggest banks, that breaks up the biggest banks—something that the Dallas Federal Reserve Board, you know, the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve Board, has advocated—we are going to see a replay of what happened in 2008, and with all the damage to everybody else, all of the ancillary damage to everybody else in the economy that that entails. ...................(more)
The complete piece (audio, video & transcript versions) is at: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/8/former_labor_sec_robert_reich_on
Robert Reich on Clinton’s Errors of Crippling Welfare to Repealing Glass-Steagall
from Democracy Now!:
........(snip)........
AMY GOODMAN: Some call it "welfare reform"; others, "welfare deform."
ROBERT REICH: Yeah, that so-called reform provided a maximum of five years in somebody’s life on, essentially, welfare. The assumption was that you would not have a deep recession or a depression that would go on nearly that long, and so that five years in a lifetime was about right. Well, what happened in 2007, 2008? We had a severe downturn. Who got caught in that downturn worse than anybody else? It was people at the bottom, in the bottom 20 percent, a lot of them minorities, a lot of them women. They are still caught in the downturn. Where is most of our unemployment? The welfare law, that maximum—gave them a maximum of five years, many of those people do not—are no longer eligible for anything. Their families are no longer eligible for anything. I mean, we, in signing—Bill Clinton, in signing that law, essentially condemned a substantial number of our most vulnerable people in this country to hardships that should never, in a civilized society, be imposed on anyone.
AMY GOODMAN: Bill Clinton did.
ROBERT REICH: Bill Clinton did. Now, again, the economy at that time was buoyant. We created—or at least presided over an economy, by then, that was down to 4 percent unemployment. But there was no guarantee that 4 percent unemployment would be the norm. I mean, on the inside—and then, subsequently, I said, we might have recessions, we might have 6 or 7 or 8 percent unemployment. You know, now, among the very poor, we have 20 percent or 25 percent high school dropouts, almost 30 percent unemployment. If we don’t have any safety net, it’s not only bad for them, it’s bad for the economy, because it means that we have a lot of people who have no money in their pockets at all. Only 40 percent of people who have lost their jobs now are eligible for unemployment benefits. I mean, not just welfare—I mean, we haven’t just slashed the welfare safety net, we don’t even have much of an unemployment benefit safety net left. For people who—you know, last night, I was talking with people who said, "The reason that Americans who are unemployed are not getting jobs is because their lives are too cushy. We’ve made it too easy for them. They get a lot of unemployment benefits." You know, where—what planet are these people on? I mean, 40 percent are eligible, and the average welfare—the average unemployment benefit is only about 20 to 30 percent of previous—your previous job compensation, in any event.
........(snip)........
ROBERT REICH: And it essentially allowed—once that Glass-Steagall was repealed, it allowed investment banks, the casino of Wall Street, to invade commercial banks and commercial deposits, and it allowed investment bankers to utilize commercial deposits for, essentially, gambling, Amy. And that, combined with these investment banks going public, becoming publicly held companies, really opened the floodgates to an era of even greater casino capitalism than we had before.
We’ve got to resurrect Glass-Steagall. I mean, it seems to me one of the problems we have with Wall Street right now is that there is still no constraint. The major Wall Street banks are bigger than they were before. They have better access to lower-cost money. That is, interest rates for them are at a preferable rate over other banks, so they have a competitive advantage that is going to enable them to get even larger. They know, and everybody else knows, they will be bailed out if they get in trouble, because they have already been bailed out. Without a resurrection of Glass-Steagall, and without legislation that caps the size of the biggest banks, that breaks up the biggest banks—something that the Dallas Federal Reserve Board, you know, the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve Board, has advocated—we are going to see a replay of what happened in 2008, and with all the damage to everybody else, all of the ancillary damage to everybody else in the economy that that entails. ...................(more)
The complete piece (audio, video & transcript versions) is at: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/8/former_labor_sec_robert_reich_on
May 9, 2012
Hightower Lowdown / By Jim Hightower
Ask Your Doctor if This Big Pharma Scam Is Right for You: The Dangers of a Drugged Up America
In medicated America, the fix for every problem is just a prescription away. Except that it's not.
May 8, 2012 |
Butterflies waft across a beautiful field of spring flowers. A delightful young family bicycles joyously down a country lane. A couple on a park bench leans sensually into each other. A 40-something woman's face radiates with both perfect beauty and internal happiness. "All's right with the world," is the message... as long as you've taken your dosages of Lunesta, Celebrex, Cialis, and Botox.
Welcome to medicated America, where the fix for every problem--from incontinence to erectile dysfunction, stiff joints to mood swings, weight gain to wrinkles-- is just a prescription away. Thus the beautiful images, stirring music, attractive actors, and soothing words in the omnipresent, multibillion-dollar kaleidoscope of drug advertising by Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and other giants of Big Pharma--all pitching their particular brand-name nostrum directly at us hoi polloi (the industry spends a fourth of its income on ads and other promotions, nearly double its expenditures on research and development). The corporate come-ons typically conclude with a phrase that has achieved cliche status in America's vernacular: "Ask your doctor if 'Suprema Wundercure' is right for you."
The better question, though, is one that cartoonist Dan Piraro expressed in one of his "Bizarro" panels: "Ask your doctor if playing into the hands of the pharmaceutical industry is right for you." ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/health/155331/ask_your_doctor_if_this_big_pharma_scam_is_right_for_you%3A_the_dangers_of_a_drugged_up_america/
Ask Your Doctor if This Big Pharma Scam Is Right for You: The Dangers of a Drugged Up America
Hightower Lowdown / By Jim Hightower
Ask Your Doctor if This Big Pharma Scam Is Right for You: The Dangers of a Drugged Up America
In medicated America, the fix for every problem is just a prescription away. Except that it's not.
May 8, 2012 |
Butterflies waft across a beautiful field of spring flowers. A delightful young family bicycles joyously down a country lane. A couple on a park bench leans sensually into each other. A 40-something woman's face radiates with both perfect beauty and internal happiness. "All's right with the world," is the message... as long as you've taken your dosages of Lunesta, Celebrex, Cialis, and Botox.
Welcome to medicated America, where the fix for every problem--from incontinence to erectile dysfunction, stiff joints to mood swings, weight gain to wrinkles-- is just a prescription away. Thus the beautiful images, stirring music, attractive actors, and soothing words in the omnipresent, multibillion-dollar kaleidoscope of drug advertising by Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, and other giants of Big Pharma--all pitching their particular brand-name nostrum directly at us hoi polloi (the industry spends a fourth of its income on ads and other promotions, nearly double its expenditures on research and development). The corporate come-ons typically conclude with a phrase that has achieved cliche status in America's vernacular: "Ask your doctor if 'Suprema Wundercure' is right for you."
The better question, though, is one that cartoonist Dan Piraro expressed in one of his "Bizarro" panels: "Ask your doctor if playing into the hands of the pharmaceutical industry is right for you." ...................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/health/155331/ask_your_doctor_if_this_big_pharma_scam_is_right_for_you%3A_the_dangers_of_a_drugged_up_america/
May 9, 2012
(Bloomberg) Bank security guards in London lock the doors when they see Liam Taylor coming.
At a time of protests in March 2011, the secondary school teacher and a dozen others pushed through the revolving doors of Barclays Plc (BARC)’s headquarters in the Canary Wharf financial district of London. He led placard-waving chants to protest bonuses and tax avoidance.
The British bank was handing out 65.5 million pounds ($106 million) to eight executives, including Chief Executive Officer Robert Diamond, whom Taylor has never met. Meanwhile, the council of the poverty-mired surrounding London neighborhood of Tower Hamlets was slashing 72 million pounds from its taxpayer- funded budget.
Here, where two worlds collide, the 26-year-old umbrella- toting teacher plays an active role in the Occupy London protest movement. Tower Hamlets has one of the highest rates of young people receiving jobless benefits in London, the highest proportion of poor children and older people in England and the worst child poverty in the U.K. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-08/occupy-london-tour-shows-bankers-profiting-amid-poverty.html
Occupy London Tour Shows Bankers Profiting Amid Poverty
(Bloomberg) Bank security guards in London lock the doors when they see Liam Taylor coming.
At a time of protests in March 2011, the secondary school teacher and a dozen others pushed through the revolving doors of Barclays Plc (BARC)’s headquarters in the Canary Wharf financial district of London. He led placard-waving chants to protest bonuses and tax avoidance.
The British bank was handing out 65.5 million pounds ($106 million) to eight executives, including Chief Executive Officer Robert Diamond, whom Taylor has never met. Meanwhile, the council of the poverty-mired surrounding London neighborhood of Tower Hamlets was slashing 72 million pounds from its taxpayer- funded budget.
Here, where two worlds collide, the 26-year-old umbrella- toting teacher plays an active role in the Occupy London protest movement. Tower Hamlets has one of the highest rates of young people receiving jobless benefits in London, the highest proportion of poor children and older people in England and the worst child poverty in the U.K. ................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-08/occupy-london-tour-shows-bankers-profiting-amid-poverty.html
May 9, 2012
from the Guardian UK:
A would-be "underwear bomber" involved in a plot to attack a US-based jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged.
The revelation is the latest twist in an increasingly bizarre story about the disruption of an apparent attempt by al-Qaida to strike at a high-profile American target using a sophisticated device hidden in the clothing of an attacker.
The plot, which the White House said on Monday had involved the seizing of an underwear bomb by authorities in the Middle East sometime in the last 10 days, had caused alarm throughout the US.
It has also been linked to a suspected US drone strike in Yemen where two Yemeni members of al-Qaida were killed by a missile attack on their car on Sunday, one of them a senior militant, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/09/underwear-bomber-working-for-cia
The increasingly bizarre (and odoriferous) saga of the would-be exploding underpants bomber
from the Guardian UK:
A would-be "underwear bomber" involved in a plot to attack a US-based jet was in fact working as an undercover informer with Saudi intelligence and the CIA, it has emerged.
The revelation is the latest twist in an increasingly bizarre story about the disruption of an apparent attempt by al-Qaida to strike at a high-profile American target using a sophisticated device hidden in the clothing of an attacker.
The plot, which the White House said on Monday had involved the seizing of an underwear bomb by authorities in the Middle East sometime in the last 10 days, had caused alarm throughout the US.
It has also been linked to a suspected US drone strike in Yemen where two Yemeni members of al-Qaida were killed by a missile attack on their car on Sunday, one of them a senior militant, Fahd Mohammed Ahmed al-Quso. .................(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/may/09/underwear-bomber-working-for-cia
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