DeSwiss
DeSwiss's JournalHopeless at Gitmo: 'Torture & desperation with no end in sight'
RussiaToday·Published on Apr 17, 2013
Amid the ongoing mass hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay, U.S. military officials have disclosed two recent suicide attempts by protesting detainees. They also defended a prison guard raid on cells over the weekend, which resulted in violent clashes with several inmates.
RT's Bill Dod spoke with Moazzam Begg - who was released from Guantanamo without charge after 2 years. He doesn't believe Obama's prepared to deliver on his pledge to close the facility.
Meanwhile an independent American think tank releases a report accusing top U.S. officials of being responsible for abuse at Guantanamo. The Constitution Project concluded it was indisputable that torture had been carried out - READ MORE http://on.rt.com/y6oudb
Ambassador James R. Jones - who helped compile the report - says most Guantanamo detainees have completely lost hope.
Gitmo hunger strike: Timeline http://on.rt.com/5mn2oe
RT LIVE http://rt.com/on-air
A New Story of the People
TheSustainableMan·Published on Apr 5, 2013
How do we change the world? Change the story.
"The greatest illusion of this world is the illusion of separation." ~ Once the story our world is built on reflects the reality of interconnection, we will be on a true path towards sustainability.
The speaker is Charles Eisenstein (author of 'The Ascent of Humanity' and 'Sacred Economics').
For more from Charles Eisenstein, visit http://www.ascentofhumanity.com/
For more from Sustainable Man, visit http://sustainableman.org/
Company Files Defamation Suit Against Customer For Complaining
TechDirt
by Mike Masnick
Tue, Apr 16th 2013 3:12pm
Here's yet another example of companies using lawsuits to censor speech -- a situation that would be stopped if there was a serious federal anti-SLAPP law in place. Paul Levy shares the incredible story of a company called "Med Express," an Ohio company, who appears to sell various medical equipment exclusively via eBay (there are other "Med Express" companies out there from what I can tell). One buyer, in South Carolina, purchased something, but was disappointed by the fact that the product arrived postage due. The woman noted it wasn't the fact that she had to pay, just the inconvenience of having to pay to get the delivery when it wasn't expected. In response, she left negative feedback on Med Express' eBay page.
While Med Express did express regret (while noting that some other customers had seen the same problem) and offered to reimburse the postage due, it also asked her to remove the negative review. However, as she noted, it wasn't the money issue, but the inconvenience, so she decided to leave her feedback up. At this point, Med Express and its lawyer, James Amodio, apparently decided that if she didn't like "inconvenience" it would subject her to more inconvenience and sued her for defamation in state court in Ohio and sought a temporary restraining order against eBay to block the review. While that failed, apparently the judge is allowing a hearing to happen for a preliminary injunction even though (as Levy points out) the same reason the TRO was rejected should apply to any preliminary injunction.
Amazingly, the complaint directly lays out the pretty clear fact that it's suing her for not removing a truthful review. They don't even attempt to argue that she said anything false or defamatory. Just that they feel she shouldn't have complained since they offered to reimburse.
This is where Levy, a former colleague of the customer in this case, Amy Nicholls, reached out to Amodio to point out that the lawsuit was a complete joke. Amodio's response is somewhat stunning, in that, according to Levy, he more or less admitted that he was filing a nuisance lawsuit:
- I contacted [link:James Amodio|http://www.brownandamodio.com/james_amodio.html], Med Express’s lawyer, to explain to him the many ways in which his lawsuit is untenable. He readily admitted that, as the complaint admits, everything that the customer had posted in her feedback was true; he did not deny that a statement has to be false to be actionable as defamation; but he just plain didn’t care. To the contrary, he told me that I could come up to Medina, Ohio, and argue whatever I might like, but that the case was going to continue unless the feedback was taken down or changed to positive. And he explained why his client was insisting on this change — he said that it sells exclusively over eBay, where a sufficient level of negative feedback can increase the cost of such sales as well as possibly driving away customers
MORE
- With morons running a company like this, I suppose she should count herself lucky they didn't send someone around to break her legs and put her in a wheelchair....
FDA Let Drugs Approved on Fraudulent Research Stay on the Market
Source: ProPublica
[font color=darkgray]Retired FDA investigator Patrick Stone
(Katie Hayes Luke for ProPublica)[/font]
On the morning of May 3, 2010, three agents of the Food and Drug Administration descended upon the Houston office of Cetero Research, a firm that conducted research for drug companies worldwide. Lead agent Patrick Stone, now retired from the FDA, had visited the Houston lab many times over the previous decade for routine inspections. This time was different. His team was there to investigate a former employee's allegation that the company had tampered with records and manipulated test data.
When Stone explained the gravity of the inquiry to Chinna Pamidi, the testing facility's president, the Cetero executive made a brief phone call. Moments later, employees rolled in eight flatbed carts, each double-stacked with file boxes. The documents represented five years of data from some 1,400 drug trials.
Pamidi bluntly acknowledged that much of the lab's work was fraudulent, Stone said. "You got us," Stone recalled him saying. Based partly on records in the file boxes, the FDA eventually concluded that the lab's violations were so "egregious" and of such a "pervasive nature" that studies conducted there between April 2005 and August 2009 might be worthless.
The health threat was potentially serious: About 100 drugs, including sophisticated chemotherapy compounds and addictive prescription painkillers, had been approved for sale in the United States at least in part on the strength of Cetero Houston's tainted tests. The vast majority, 81, were generic versions of brand-name drugs on which Cetero scientists had often run critical tests to determine whether the copies did, in fact, act the same in the body as the originals. For example, one of these generic drugs was ibuprofen, sold as gelatin capsules by one of the nation's largest grocery-store chains for months before the FDA received assurance they were safe.
Read more: http://www.propublica.org/article/fda-let-drugs-approved-on-fraudulent-research-stay-on-the-market
(Filed Under DA!) ''World Photo Caption Contest: Putin Topless Protest''
[/center]
Huffington Post | Posted: 04/14/2013 3:32 pm EDT | Updated: 04/14/2013 3:32 pm EDT
Life is never boring for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This week, Finnish police announced the controversial leader had been mistakenly placed on its criminal blacklist. But before the bit of bad news, Putin appeared to enjoy a protest for the first time.
During an industrial fair the Russian president attended alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel, a topless protester from the activist group FEMEN stormed Putin, screaming a few choice words.
(MORE)
- Absolutely, PRICELESS!
Russia Responds To U.S. Magnitsky Act By Placing 18 Americans On Blacklist
Source: Huffington Post
By JIM HEINTZ 04/13/13 01:05 PM ET EDT AP
MOSCOW — Russia on Saturday banned 18 Americans from entering the country in response to Washington imposing sanctions on 18 Russians for alleged human rights violations.
The list released by the Foreign Ministry includes John Yoo, a former U.S. Justice Department official who wrote legal memos authorizing harsh interrogation techniques; David Addington, the chief of staff for former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney; and two former commanders of the Guantanamo Bay detention center: retired Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller and Adm. Jeffrey Harbeson.
The move came a day after the U.S. announced its sanctions under the Magnitsky Law, named for Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who was arrested in 2008 for tax evasion after accusing Russian police officials of stealing $230 million in tax rebates. He died in prison the next year, allegedly after being beaten and denied medical treatment.
The U.S. State Department released a statement Saturday in response to Russia's latest decision. "As we've said many times before, the right response by Russia to the international outcry over Sergey Magnitsky's death would be to conduct a proper investigation and hold those responsible for his death accountable, rather than engage in tit-for-tat retaliation," according to the statement.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/13/russia-responds-to-us-mag_n_3075795.html
- U.S.State Department: ''Russia shouldn't be interfering into how we're minding their business. Russia just needs to mind its business the way we say they should. Because... who's da Super Power in this scenario, right??
Hooya!! USA!! USA!!''
{BTW - Thanks for the smackdown on Darth Cheney. We never wouldve' had the balls to do something like that!}
[center]
''We have always been
at war with Eastasia''[/center]
150,000 SQ.KM of Pacific with Fukushima nuclear material - ‘Remarkable’ amount released in ocean
Study: 150,000 sq. kilometers of Pacific with Fukushima nuclear material — ‘Remarkable’ amount released in ocean
Published: April 12th, 2013 at 12:43 pm ET
By ENENews
Title: Cesium, iodine and tritium in NW Pacific waters. A comparison of the Fukushima impact with global fallout
Source: Biogeosciences Discuss., 10, 6377-6416, 2013
Date: April 3, 2013
... Recently, large quantities of radioactive materials were released to the atmosphere and coastal waters following a nuclear accident at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant (NPP), which increased 137Cs concentrations in coastal seawater off Fukushima up to eight orders of magnitude above the global fallout background ...
... the measured 137Cs concentrations in surface waters ranged from 1.8mBq L-1 to 3500mBq L-1, up to 3500 times higher than the global fallout background, although the cruise track did not go closer than 30 km from the coast. … The elevated 137Cs levels covered an area of around 150 000 km2 (south of 38°N and west of 147° E).
...The contribution of 137Cs, 129I and 3H released from the damaged Fukushima NPP to the sea has been remarkable, as it has considerably influenced their concentrations in surface seawater as well as in the water column of the NW Pacific Ocean.
...
Full study here (PDF)
See also: Graphic: 900-mile-long "front" of most contaminated water from Fukushima Daiichi moving across Pacific toward U.S., Canada (VIDEO)
“So how far and how fast is the cesium traveling? If you take a broader
look at the Pacific Ocean and you look for a front of where you see the
edge of the cesium moving. This goes to March 2012, about 180 degrees.
This is actually based on samples, not models.”
http://www.totalwebcasting.com/view/?id=hcf#
Published: April 12th, 2013 at 12:43 pm ET
By ENENews
Quilted Picker-Upper: ''Clearly they’re taking the spill seriously...''
Date: April 9, 2013
At 11:15 in
Clearly they’re taking the spill
seriously or they wouldn’t have
used the quilted ...
Exxon is employing a time honored
clean up technique employed by
drunk guys.
Just throw some paper towels down
on what you spilled and get out
of there ...
The point is, Exxon has got this
one with the paper towels ...
Watch the broadcast here
Published: April 11th, 2013 at 7:13 pm ET
By ENENews
- What's more sickening than paper towels on a tar sand oil spill, is knowing that the Koch Brothers will probably benefit from it.....
Thank You Exxon: Mayflower, Arkansas' New Oil Lake
LeakSourceNews·Published on Apr 7, 2013
04/06/2013
Video Credit: https://twitter.com/jak_nlauren #RadicalMedia
More: http://leaksource.wordpress.com/2013/...
http://twitter.com/LeakSourceNews
Russia buries beaten journalist
AlJazeeraEnglish·Published on Apr 11, 2013
The funeral has taken place of a Russian journalist who died five years after a brutal attack during which he suffered brain damage.Mikhail Beketov was among the first to raise alarm about the destruction of Khimki forest during a highway construction project. He had suspicions that local officials were profiting from the project.Beketov died on Monday in hospital. His attackers were never identified.Al Jazeera's David Chater reports from Moscow.
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