9/24/11

Obama needs to turn spotlight on Bahrain

United States Government Urged to Break the Silence on Bahrain Abuses | Human Rights First: "Washington, DC –The United States Government must break its silence on Bahrain and condemn today’s ongoing violent attacks on peaceful protestors, said Human Rights First."

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Eritrea's shameful detention of political prisoners

Eritrea: Free Political Prisoners 10 Years On | Human Rights Watch: "(New York) – Ten years after President Isaias Afewerki of Eritrea ordered the detention of 21 senior government members and journalists who criticized him, his government should release the detainees or reveal their fate, Human Rights Watch said in a briefing paper released today. Eritrea should also open its jails to international monitors, Human Rights Watch said."

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Guinea:Situation Report

Guinea: Putting the Transition Back on Track - International Crisis Group: "After the election of Alpha Condé to the presidency in November 2010, legislative elections are set to complete a new phase in Guinea’s political transition. However, recent violent ethnic politics and the political actors’ mistrust in the electoral arrangements are cause for concern. Condé’s unilateral move to overhaul the electoral system has gained little praise, and with his party’s gloomy prospects for the legislative elections, suspicion is increasing. He has done too little too late to promote reconciliation or dialogue with the opposition. Guinea can afford neither a makeshift electoral system, nor a new campaign based on ethnic factors. "

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This universe is perfused with signs

intimologies: Signs and pictures, Peirce and Dogen:

C.S. Peirce makes a "distinction between the two kinds of indeterminacy, viz.: indefiniteness and generality, of which the former consists in the sign's not sufficiently expressing itself to allow of an indubitable determinate interpretation, while the latter turns over to the interpreter the right to complete the determination as he please. It seems a strange thing, when one comes to ponder over it, that a sign should leave its interpreter to supply a part of its meaning; but the explanation of the phenomenon lies in the fact that the entire universe — not merely the universe of existents, but all that wider universe, embracing the universe of existents as a part, the universe which we are all accustomed to refer to as “the truth” — that all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs." — EP2:394 (1906)

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Congressional Republicans Show their True Colors

House Passes Bill to Expedite Keystone Pipeline Decision Despite Environmental Concerns | MAPLight.org - Money and Politics: "July 27, 2011 - The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday passed a bill (HR 1938) by a vote of 279-147 that would direct President Obama to expedite consideration and approval of the construction and operation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The pipeline would run from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico."

The color is called Dirty Oil.

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Perry Lacks Luster

Will Perry's halting debate style produce a faltering campaign? | McClatchy: "The Texas governor turned in a weak performance in a debate Thursday, raising questions about how ready he is for the rigors of a tough campaign and how much Republicans really know about the man."

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Big Oil is not the answer

Why You Should Worry About Big Oil: "Beyond the fat profits, the giants are surprisingly vulnerable worldwide. That's bad news for business -- and consumers "

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Perry shaky

Doubts about Perry among some in Republican Party - politics - Decision 2012 - msnbc.com: "Perry is leading national polls, but he is also facing intensifying criticism from the right and left. Some Republicans in Iowa and New Hampshire are expressing doubts, especially after debates in which rivals raised questions about his record on immigration, public health and Social Security retirement benefits."

Irony would be if he helped Romney by making everyone else an also ran.

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Nothing is too much to keep Rupert at large

News Corp. Suit Costs Shamed Company $4.7M: "The publisher of Britain's shuttered News of the World said it will pay damages of $4.7 million for hacking the cell phone of a slain British school girl.

Chairman James Murdoch of News Corp.'s News International unit is said to have personally approved the offer to the family of Milly Dowler, The Daily Telegraph reported."

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Are we Americans too full of ourselves?

Letter from China: Storytelling in China and America : The New Yorker: "“Westerners are the protagonists of their autobiographical novels,” Nisbett concluded. “Asians are merely cast members in movies touching on their existences.”"

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How corporations are screwing us now

ProPublica: "Opaque redistricting groups are being quietly bankrolled by corporations, unions and other special interests. Their main interest in the once-a-decade political fight over redistricting is not to help voters in the communities they claim to represent but mainly to improve the prospects of their political allies or harm their enemies. "

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Aspergers? Employment opportunity.

PsycPORT Article: "Traits that make great software testers such as intense focus, comfort with repetition and memory for detail also happen to be characteristics of autism. People with a mild form of autism called Asperger's syndrome have normal to high intelligence and often are highly skilled with computers."

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Google please stop ruining my "Web experience"

Google it is a pain in the butt to have to fill out a captcha code every time I have something to say
I am tolerably aware that most messages never get to where they are intended to go
But if a Google captcha code czar reads this
Find some better way to treat serious bloggers who have no time to waste
And while you are at it don't mess with my Chrome
Intrusiveness by Web giants is rife and unwelcome
haudec word verification time 15 seconds plus
Fuming time
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And the Yanks are supposed to play today at 4:00 Eastern

Rain throws Red Sox, Yankees a curve | yankees.com: News: "NEW YORK -- As if the American League Wild Card race isn't hectic enough the way it is, thanks to another rainy night at Yankee Stadium on Friday, the Red Sox will have to play a day-night doubleheader against the Yankees on Sunday as they try to lock up the AL's fourth playoff spot."

But I am not betting on any of these games getting played. And if they are not look for wall to wall exhaustion, lineup legerdemain and general mayhem as the slush season continues - I blame it on big oil and global warming but what do I know? I do know that oil is filthy in more ways than one.

A suggestive starting point

Chris Martenson - Information on the global economy, environment, and our energy challenges. Real estate, oil, community, homes, money. - Chris Martenson, ChrisMartenson.com: "Rob Hopkins is a true pioneer of the movement to intelligently prepare and adapt society for entering a post-Peak Oil future. His brainchild, Transition Towns, has been one of the most successful initiative to-date in inspiring hundreds of cities, towns and communities around the globe towards using local cooperation and interdependence to shrink their ecological footprints. "

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A virus that kills breast cancer in seven says?

Scientists discover virus that kills all types of breast cancer ‘within seven days’ | The Raw Story: "Scientists at the Penn State College of Medicine said this week they have discovered a virus that is capable of killing all types of breast cancer "within seven days" of first introduction in a laboratory setting."

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The earliest explorers

Aboriginal Australians: The first explorers: "By sequencing the genome, the researchers demonstrate that Aboriginal Australians descend directly from an early human expansion into Asia that took place some 70,000 years ago, at least 24,000 years before the population movements that gave rise to present-day Europeans and Asians. The results imply that modern day Aboriginal Australians are in fact the direct descendents of the first people who arrived in Australia as early as 50,000 years ago."

Tell Michele and Rick.

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Woes of the American Left

Michael Kazin's American Dreamers: Why has the radical left sabotaged itself so often? - By Paul Berman - Slate Magazine: "Michael Kazin's wistfully titled American Dreamers is a skillful discussion of a large and multi-branched topic—namely, the history of America's radical left, starting with its roots in the early 19th century and climbing upward to today, or perhaps tomorrow, given that, at the end of the book, he worries about the future. Kazin tells us that he wrote his book under an inspiration from Dr. Seuss, which came to him during the fateful Y2K year 2000. The Supreme Court threw the presidential election to George W. Bush in that year. And Kazin, like a despairing man who has contemplated death by drowning, but then thought better of it, turned for consolation to fond childhood memories such as Yertle the Turtle and The Butter Battle Book."

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Images and reading minds - Video

Video: Mind-reading tech reconstructs moving images others see | SmartPlanet: "Scientists, for the first time ever, used brain imaging to determine what moving images a person is seeing. What enabled this breakthrough was a brain imaging technique called functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), which tracks the fluctuations of the brain’s blood oxygen levels."

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Disney World combats sprawl

Building our cities like Disney World, state fairs | SmartPlanet: "Millions of people in farm states pay an admission to amble through car-free districts animated by cafes, beer gardens, music performances and the enduringly interesting parade of people passing by. Locally grown food is all around, some so fresh that it is still on the hoof.

This is no chi chi idea of a pedestrian district imported from Germany or Italy. It’s a homegrown model for how to improve safety, health and pleasantness in the places we call home."

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One of my favorites

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=21368&cmd=apop

How Beautiful Upon The Mountain

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Rick Perry's star falleth apace

DOJ: Rick Perry's Texas Redistricting Plan Purposefully Discriminated Against Minorities | TPMMuckraker: "The Justice Department said late Friday that based on their preliminary investigation, a congressional redistricting map signed into law by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry appears to have been "adopted, at least in part, for the purpose of diminishing the ability of citizens of the United States, on account of race, color, or membership in a language minority group, to elect their preferred candidates of choice to Congress."

DOJ's Civil Rights D"

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Selfhood and Jonestown - a Podcast

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/audioPop.jsp?episodeId=20375&cmd=apop

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Who needs privacy?

Bacteria Show Up in Hospital Rooms, Again – TIME Healthland: "Researchers from the University of Iowa presented data at a scientific conference in Chicago this week showing that they had found disease-causing bugs, including drug-resistant varieties like MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) and VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococcus), on 95% of hospital room privacy curtains tested. Brand new curtains were contaminated within a week, the researchers said."

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Facebook Some Possible Positives

Facebook Is More Relevant Than Ever - In the News - Truthdig: "But possibly more interesting than the redesign is the announcement by Facebook Chief Technology Officer Bret Taylor that more than 350 million people now use the site on their cellphones each month, a big deal for places like Africa where mobile phones are decidedly more prevalent than computers. That, coupled with another Facebook benchmark—passing more than 800 million users, or close to 12 percent of the world’s total population—is evidence that the social media site is still a force to be reckoned with."

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So we simply prove they are a dwindling minority

Morgan Freeman: Tea Party Is Racist, They're Out To Get Obama: ""Their stated policy, publicly stated, is to do whatever it takes to see to it that Obama only serves one term," the actor said. "What’s, what does that, what underlines that? 'Screw the country. We’re going to whatever we do to get this black man, we can, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man outta here.'""

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A break in the GOP lockstep

Moderate Republicans condemn debate crowd booing of Iraq-stationed soldier | The Washington Independent: "After the debate, many moderate Republicans spoke out against the audience’s behavior including Minnesota Republican Rep. John Kriesel who called those who booed “morons.”"

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Here's an overview of the bill we are going to pass

American Jobs Act | The White House: "Cutting the payroll tax cut in half for 98 percent of businesses: The President’s plan will cut in half the taxes paid by businesses on their first $5 million in payroll, providing a tax but targeting the benefit to the 98 percent of firms that have payroll below this threshold."

Go to the link above for the whole kahuna.

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What we don't know in this case won't hurt us

NASA satellite breaks up, plunges back to Earth - Yahoo! News: "CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - A six-tones NASA science satellite pierced the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean and fell back to Earth, the U.S. space agency said on Saturday, but it was not yet known where the remains landed."

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Something smart in Michigan

A Double Win for Fresh Food: "In Michigan, food stamps are worth double at farmers markets, which means more healthy food for low-income shoppers and more customers for local farmers."

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From the Yahoo buy me memo

Memo reveals Yahoo is talking to potential buyers (report) | ZDNet: "Our advisers are working with us to develop ideas that we will pursue proactively. At the same time, they are fielding inquiries from multiple parties that have already expressed interest in a number of potential options. We will take the time we need to select and structure the best approach for the company, its shareholders and employees."

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Whatever the condition is the fact remains that racism is alive and malevolent

3quarksdaily: The Post-Black Condition: "Much has been written on the benefits that accrued to the generation of African-Americans reaping the rewards of the civil rights revolution. But we have heard surprisingly little from those in the post-civil-rights age about what these benefits have meant to them, and especially how they view themselves as black people in an America now led by a black president"

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How do you define evil?

Violence and Death - How Abba's Way Understands Evil - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com:

"But the divisive mentality that builds toward violence and the taking of life is the very essence of evil."

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Six Videos on Social Good

World's Top Thinkers Weigh In On Social Good [VIDEO]:

Everyone is a top thinker. Brains are equal in potential. Society is how people express thoughts.

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Who says we need three meals

There Is No Biological Reason to Eat Three Meals a Day -- So Why Do We Do It? | Food | AlterNet: "When we skip meals, eat extra meals or subvert paradigms -- spaghetti breakfasts, pancake suppers -- we feel naughty, edgy and criminal. "Three meals a day" resonates like a Bible phrase."

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Fresh brutality from Syria

New evidence of Syria brutality emerges as woman's mutilated body is found | Amnesty International: "Fresh evidence of the extreme brutality being meted out to Syrian protesters and their families has been revealed today by Amnesty International."

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Conrad Black Speaks

The Convictions of Conrad Black | Society | Vanity Fair: "Conrad Black, the high-flying Canadian-born press lord, went to U.S. federal prison in 2008 on a wave of public vitriol similar to that now engulfing his onetime rival Rupert Murdoch. Black served 29 months, mounted a partially successful Supreme Court appeal, was freed on bail, but now faces re-incarceration."

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Our inventors need to start thinking big

Turbines like Giant Silos Stonehenged in Tornado Alley - Associated Content from Yahoo! - associatedcontent.com: "We are dunces. We stare in shock and grief at enough wind energy to power our nation for a year or so and put our hands over our heads because we have read for centuries of the depredations of tornadoes and don't believe there could be another message in their frequent arrival. "

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NYT Photo Bias

Hippie Kooks — BagNews: "If the AFP wire photo above captures a cogent protest poster doubling as a cut-to-the-chase economics-op-ed, sandwiching this guy between two suits and then framing him like the town crier in a church doorway, short of the full “kook treatment,” makes this snapshot artistic at best."

Figures.

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The book no one would publish

BEYOND CREED - Stephen Rose : IUniverse:

And few will read. But I soldier on.

Robert Redford:on the dirtiest oil around

Robert Redford: Punching Back at Big Oil | techn4all news technology4all news sharing: "The fact is, producing oil from tar sands generates 17 percent more of the carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions that are warming our planet than conventional oil in this country. It’s 19 percent dirtier than Middle East Sour, 13 percent dirtier than Mexican Heavy and 16 percent dirtier than Venezuelan crudes."

Mr. President if you OK this pipeline you are thinking short term. I have not contributed yet, pending this decision. I am not alone.

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RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

The Slow as Molasses Press