10/27/11

War Continues In Sudan

In Sudan, peace remains elusive - latimes.com: " Sudan's wars have not ended. They have, in fact, multiplied. Five of Sudan's 16 states are mired in armed conflicts. Since June, new conflicts have erupted in two volatile states — Southern Kordofan and Blue Nile — just north of the South Sudan border, while the three states in the western region of Darfur are still a war zone, although that conflict has dropped from the headlines. These conflicts are a stark reminder that the 2005 agreement failed to address the root causes of Sudan's problems. They are also a reminder that without justice, there can be no lasting peace in Sudan.
"

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Global Online Privacy

GOP Prevarication Continues Apace

Obama Regulates Fairly and Sparingly as Cantor and GOP Lie | Obama's Way: "Yesterday, a Bloomberg News analysis found that the Obama administration has passed fewer regulations than George W. Bush had at this point in his presidency -- and on top of that, they've come at far lower costs to the economy than the annual high mark for regulatory costs set by the first President Bush, or regulatory costs in President Reagan's last year for that matter."

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Online Influence

Should you care how high your Klout score is? — Tech News and Analysis: "While these criticisms may be well-founded, however, there is no question that measuring online influence is a huge potential market, and Klout is far from the only one doing it; Google, Twitter and Facebook clearly have their eyes on that prize as well."

Influence is something that one should desire at their own risk. If you believe as I do that words are of massive importance, being tied up with creation itself, then our sentences have the potential for an influence that is incalculable. History is made by our deeds/words. Our deeds/words are sparked by mimetic realities. If there is an ultimate form of judgment, as I suspect there is in some form, then our influence will surely be in the balance for good or for ill, whether or not we intended the results. Measures f this influence will not be possible. No algorithm is as complex as the human mind and the web of human minds.

Global Online Privacy

Wheels within wheels

Daily Kos :: News Community Action: "Some details have emerged from yesterday's Catfood Commission II Democrats' offer to slash Medicare in order to reach out to Republicans—an offer that was summarily refused. This is a time when you can actually be thankful for Republican intransigence on taxes. They might just be saving critical entitlement programs with their refusal to budge, because Democrats Max Baucus and Harry Reid are still pursuing an insane grand bargain."

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Karl Rove Is Probably Thinking 2016

Karl Rove Attacks Fellow Republicans Sarah Palin, Rick Perry, Herman Cain to Get Romney in White House - The Daily Beast:

Rove is smart enough to know that only the ambient Romney has a chance and that's a slim one. Romney does a good imitation of Johnny Carson but the presidency is not a late night show. What If I was to tell Karl that by the end of Obama's second term all eyes will be on the First Lady for a third and fourth Obama term? Sort of a latter day FDR.

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Flat tax insults intelligence

Flat-tax proposals: Too simple to work? [Most commented] - latimes.com: "Making the flat tax an option, as Gingrich and Perry favor, is a worst-of-both-worlds approach. It wouldn't reduce taxpayers' paperwork and expenses; they'd still need to calculate how much they'd owe under the current system to see whether they would pay less with the flat tax. Instead, it would let lower-income taxpayers and the elderly hold onto the valuable tax breaks that the flat tax would eliminate, while letting higher incomes take advantage of the flat tax's lower rates. In other words, it's status quo for those with lower incomes, but a boon to the wealthy."

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Bodies on the ground and (global) eyes on the thugs

We Shall Not Be Moved: Police Repression, Official Mendacity and Why OWS Has Already Overcome | Common Dreams: "The survival of the OWS movement depends on having bodies on the ground and eyes (as well as cameras) on the thugs in uniform."


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War by smell

Herodotus meets Ellroy:

"War by smell. Not until Nietzsche does smell attain such importance. The camels have won."

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Adam concluded he was not Pangloss

Manhattan Bully Wars:

"Adam concluded he was not Pangloss, for he did not believe everything was for the best, not with Slake's restless fists at bay. Not to mention the recent depredations of the Fuhrer. "

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Roger Ailes Robert Welch Lee Atwater

Fox News Breaks With Reality And Goes All Red Dawn To Smear Occupy Wall Street - Digg: "politicususa.com — The 1980s are back on Fox News today where Fox and Friends made the claim today that Occupy Wall Street was really organized by the Red Army of socialists that has infiltrated the Democratic Party. "

The meaty hand of Roger Ailes is at work. We will be saved, if at all, by hubris and overreach. Or perhaps by calories.

To pinch, pluck, or twist sharply

Manhattan Bully Wars:

tweak (twk)

tr.v. tweaked, tweak·ing, tweaks

1. To pinch, pluck, or twist sharply.

2. To adjust; fine-tune.

3. To make fun of; tease.

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We do not know if heaven is a place

Abba's Way:

We do not know if heaven is a place
But Abba makes us each his heavenly home

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Occupy Future

Binghamton University - Fernand Braudel Center: Commentaries: "As to the future, it could be that the movement goes from strength to strength. It might be able to do two things: force short-term restructuring of what the government will actually do to minimize the pain that people are obviously feeling acutely; and bring about long-term transformation of how large segments of the American population think about the realities of the structural crisis of capitalism and the major geopolitical transformations that are occurring because we are now living in a multipolar world."

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Knock off capitalism

We need a new Braudel. What we have now is knock off capitalism which enables the poor to emulate the rich by getting fat and buying for $10 what costs $1000 uptown. The little bit that corporations make on the ten buck version is what creates the polarization. It is mass culture knock off capitalism. And as Veblen understood its goal is to create a comatose population that complies with the dictates of the conscious manipulators. The casualty is community and diversity in reality not name. The symptom is sclerosis. The prognosis is social decay. The cure is democratic revolution laced with hard truth.


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All flat plans reduce revenue, screw poor and middle class

Which GOP flat tax plan is fairest of them all? - CSMonitor.com:

In addition to paving the way for abolition of medicare and social security. There are better ways to regain a sense of self-sufficiency than killing the country.

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Ordinary people are the civil rights heroes

Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement -- Timeline History: "There are dozens of Civil Rights Movement timelines, chronologies, and histories on the web, but too many of them minimize the central role played by ordinary people transforming their lives with extraordinary courage — people coming together to change their lives for themselves. But all too often that central fact has been quietly dropped out of history in favor of a "benevolent" court ruling, a couple of charismatic leaders, a handful of famous protests in a few well-known places, some tragic martyrs, and the gracious largess of magnanimous legislators."

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Middle East Peace Update (Videos)

The Middle East in the 21st Century: A Conversation with David Miliband and George Mitchell | Chatham House: Independent thinking on international affairs:

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Human Rights Stride in Uraguay

Uruguay: Congress adopts landmark law to tackle impunity | Amnesty International: "The Uruguayan Congress adopted a law early today that marks an important step toward justice for the many victims of gross human rights violations during the country’s military rule, Amnesty International said today. "

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The 1% is watching

Wall Street Firms Spy on Protesters in Tax-Funded Center | Occupy Wall Street | AlterNet: "Wall Street’s audacity to corrupt knows no bounds and the cooptation of government by the 1 per cent knows no limits. How else to explain $150 million of taxpayer money going to equip a government facility in lower Manhattan where Wall Street firms, serially charged with corruption, get to sit alongside the New York Police Department and spy on law abiding citizens."

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Hell of a way not to cause injury, chief. (Video)

Watch a Cop Lob a Flash Grenade Into a Group of Occupy Oakland Protesters Trying to Help a Seriously Injured Man - Hit & Run : Reason Magazine:

"Police Chief Howard Jordan's claim that "The goal is not to cause injury.""

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Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine veteran, was in critical condition Wednesday

Oakland police action unnerves some protesters | The Associated Press | News | San Francisco Examiner:

"On Tuesday, an Iraq War veteran marching with Oakland demonstrators suffered a cracked skull in the chaos between officers and protesters, further raising concern among some in the movement.

Scott Olsen, a 24-year-old Marine veteran, was in critical condition Wednesday after he had been struck, said a spokesman for Highland Hospital in Oakland."

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Oakland Nights (Video)

Parks and Demonstration - Oakland Riot - The Daily Show with Jon Stewart - 10/26/11 - Video Clip | Comedy Central:

Suppressed news. Not in NYT. Not on most of MSNBC. It will probably be there today.

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Until states are made bottom up they are not really states

Barack Kissinger Obama: Times Argus Online:

"So many states propped up by the cold war are failing."


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RECCMENDATION Richard Gordon Quantum Touch

The Slow as Molasses Press