Urgent: Arms Trade Treaty

May 19, 2013

US cit­i­zens: call on Obama to sign the Arms Trade Treaty promptly.

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Urgent: Call on EPA to reduce allowed levels of roundup



US cit­i­zens: call on the EPA to reduce, not increase, allowed lev­els of roundup in animal feed.

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Denial of human-caused global heating



Denial of human-caused global heat­ing is a zom­bie the­ory, dead in sci­en­tific terms though it seems alive when viewed through main­stream media. It’s fos­sil fuel money that keeps the zom­bie moving.

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Urgent: CO2 emissions from aviation



Every­one: call on United Air­lines to stop oppos­ing world-wide mea­sures to reduce CO2 emis­sions from aviation.

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Obama regime to extract more oil



The Obama regime’s new Arc­tic pol­icy is to take advan­tage of dis­ap­pear­ing ice to extract more oil. As we roar towards the edge of the cliff, he wants to step on the gasoline.

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Twisted theocratic Christians



Twisted theo­cratic Chris­tians in the US teach their chil­dren to feel they are being dis­crim­i­nated against if they do not dom­i­nate all social insti­tu­tions. There you have it: Chris­t­ian val­ues say you’re oppress­ing Chris­tians if you don’t let them dom­i­nate every­one else. Twisted Islamic fun­da­men­tal­ists in the Afghan par­lia­ment blocked a law to ban the selling […]

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Corporate resistance to necessary regulation



When a busi­ness prac­tice kills peo­ple, the resis­tance to nec­es­sary reg­u­la­tion fol­lows a pre­dictable pattern.

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UK gov’t suppressed evidence about murder of Litvinenko



The UK gov­ern­ment has sup­pressed evi­dence about the mur­der of Alexan­der Litvi­nenko in order to suck up to Putin. Litvi­nenko was killed by a dose of radioac­tive polo­nium, and the sus­pi­cion is that it was given to him by Russ­ian agents.

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Has your doctor received gifts from Big Pharma



Has your doc­tor received gifts from Big Pharma?

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Leaking information about government crimes



Peo­ple who want to leak infor­ma­tion about gov­ern­ment crimes must now fol­low spy trade­craft so as not to be caught by Obama’s War on Whistle­blow­ers. Nixon was famous for secrecy, but Obama is worse.

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UK cut its team planning for how to cope with effects of climate change



As cli­mate change heats up, the UK has cut its team plan­ning for how to cope with the effects from 38 peo­ple to 6 peo­ple. If you are rich, you will take care of your­self; as for the rest, los­ing their homes will help make them poorer.

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California suing JP Morgan



Cal­i­for­nia is suing JP Mor­gan for fraud­u­lent and ille­gal prac­tices in thou­sands of law­suits against peo­ple who may or may not really have been in arrears on their credit cards.

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Microsoft accesses URLs mentioned in Skype chat messages



Microsoft accesses URLs men­tioned in fools’ Skype chat mes­sages. I say “fools’” because non-fools use other com­mu­ni­ca­tion methods.

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Falsely claiming wolves and wolverines are real danger to humans



A sup­pos­edly fac­tual pro­gram about wildlife in Alaska got a big audi­ence by falsely claim­ing that wolves and even wolver­ines are a real dan­ger to humans. I won­der if the inter­ests that want to elim­i­nate pro­tec­tion for wolves in the US had some­thing to do with mak­ing this program.

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Urgent: Support the Home Defenders League



US cit­i­zens: state your sup­port for the Home Defend­ers League, who are pres­sur­ing the Depart­ment of Jus­tice to pros­e­cute crim­i­nal banksters. Here’s more about their week of action, now in progress.

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Urgent: Senate investigation report into CIA torture



US cit­i­zens: call on Obama to coop­er­ate with the Sen­ate inves­ti­ga­tion report into CIA torture.

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New Yorker set up secure leak-receiving system



The New Yorker mag­a­zine has set up a new secure leak-receiving sys­tem that was devel­oped by Aaron Swartz.

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UK agency admits mistake of not prosecuting thugs



The UK agency to inves­ti­gate crimes com­mit­ted by thugs has admit­ted that it made mis­takes when not pros­e­cut­ing the ones that killed a prisoner.

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Mistaken moralistic economics



Paul Krug­man explains how psy­chol­ogy pre­dis­poses peo­ple towards mis­taken moral­is­tic eco­nom­ics which treats a depres­sion as pun­ish­ment for pre­vi­ous “excesses”. Keynes’s dis­cov­ery, that gov­ern­ments can end a depres­sion with deficit spend­ing or else per­pet­u­ate it, deliv­ers use­ful advice instead of the moral­ity play that peo­ple are look­ing for. This plays into the hands of those […]

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Anti-sharing organization in legal trouble



The “six strikes” anti-sharing orga­ni­za­tion CCI has run into legal trou­ble and has had to sus­pend activ­i­ties. I don’t think this will kill the scheme, though.

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Obama regime to continue war for a decade



The Obama regime admits it plans to con­tinue “war” for a decade or more against a vague asso­ci­a­tion of ter­ror­ist orga­ni­za­tions, many of which are not inter­ested in the US at all. Dur­ing that time, some of these orga­ni­za­tions will be wiped out, but US killings of civil­ians will inspire new ones. By ten years […]

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Pope condemns “cult of money”



The pope con­demned the “cult of money” of the banksters which legit­imizes their polit­i­cal power.

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Monsanto wants ban requiring labels on GMOs



Mon­santo wants Con­gress to ban states from requir­ing labels on GMOs.

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Canadian artist censored by gov’t



Cana­dian artist Franke James was cen­sored by the gov­ern­ment for not toe­ing the tar sands party line. She obtained the emails dis­cussing how to cen­sor her, and turned that into worse embar­rass­ment for the state.

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Urgent: Resist Monsanto



US cit­i­zens: call on Con­gress to resist Mon­santo and not ban states from requir­ing label­ing of GMOs in food. It is ironic that Repub­li­cans who used to claim they were for “states’ rights” sup­port a mea­sure like this. Really they stand for noth­ing except the com­pa­nies that get them elected.

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Austerity grab is killing people in poor countries, too

May 18, 2013

The aus­ter­ity grab is killing peo­ple in poor coun­tries, too, as they are forced to cut spend­ing to help the poor, on pub­lic health, and on agriculture.

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Bigger IRS scandal

May 17, 2013

Although the IRS was wrong to choose groups to inves­ti­gate based on their polit­i­cal affil­i­a­tion, those groups’ appli­ca­tions showed dis­hon­esty that called for action. A big­ger IRS scan­dal is not doing enough to scru­ti­nize all such applications.

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Austerity as cruelty to children



The UK med­ical doc­tors’ union con­demns gov­ern­ment aus­ter­ity as cru­elty to chil­dren. It is blind­ness to dis­cuss the topic of child abuse with­out includ­ing the abuse that is done by the state.

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Urgent: 50 states united for healthy air



US cit­i­zens: Tell your sen­a­tors you sup­port 50 States United for Healthy Air.

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Unstudied new drugs in UK



200 unstud­ied new drugs are being sold in the UK. This is partly a side-effect of pro­hi­bi­tion. If the basi­cally safe drugs, such as pot and MDMA, were legal, most peo­ple would stick to them. Some of them might be dan­ger­ous, while oth­ers might be fairly safe. Even those that are safe, in them­selves, might become […]

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Buying immunity



Cor­po­ra­tions that spend money on state judge elec­tions effec­tively buy them­selves immunity.

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Catholic Church taking control of US hospitals



The Catholic Church is tak­ing con­trol of a grow­ing frac­tion of US hos­pi­tals, and makes those hos­pi­tals deny var­i­ous kinds of health care. I think that gen­eral hos­pi­tals should not be allowed to deny care based on prej­u­dices. Limited-duty clin­ics, which don’t accept emer­gency patients and do not count as a hos­pi­tal, per­haps can be […]

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Florida wants to speed up death penalty



Florida wants to speed up the death penalty so that doubts about someone’s guilt don’t need to cause embarrassment.

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MD whistleblower privatized tests biased



An MD whistle­blower says that the UK’s pri­va­tized tests of whether dis­abled peo­ple are fit to work are sys­tem­at­i­cally biased.

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Chinese would join protests to protect environment



A poll finds most Chi­nese would join protests to pro­tect the local envi­ron­ment. They are not yet sen­si­tized to the greater long-term world-wide dan­ger of global heating.

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Internet of Things means total surveillance



The “Inter­net of Things” means total surveillance.

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Urgent: Support the SANE act



US cit­i­zens: call your con­gress­crit­ter to sup­port the SANE Act, which would can­cel expen­sive “upgrades” to US nuclear weapons. The Capi­tol Switch­board num­bers are 202–224‑3121, 888–818‑6641 and 888–355‑3588.

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Rapid erosion forces Alaskan town to relocate

May 16, 2013

A small Alaskan town is forced to relo­cate as rapid ero­sion is mak­ing the town fall into the adjoin­ing river. This is a more impor­tant issue than it might seem, because it’s going to hap­pen to mil­lions of Amer­i­cans (and mil­lions of oth­ers) as global heat­ing makes sea level rise and make storms stronger. The proper […]

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Anonymity Impossible



Has Big Data Made Anonymity Impos­si­ble? This applies to peo­ple who use dig­i­tal tech­nol­ogy in the surveillance-prone ways many peo­ple do. If you use tech­nol­ogy the way I do, peo­ple get far less data about you.

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Israel only pretends to have halted settlement construction



Israel pre­tends to have halted set­tle­ment con­struc­tion, but really is allow­ing con­struc­tion to go ahead.

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Cambodian shoe factory collapse kills workers



Sev­eral peo­ple were killed when a Cam­bo­dian shoe fac­tory col­lapsed. They were killed by psy­chopaths (cor­po­ra­tions). Amer­i­cans should cease their inor­di­nate pre­oc­cu­pa­tion with a com­par­a­tively small killing in Boston, which is unlikely to be repeated, and focus on these big­ger killings which we know will be repeated.

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Norman Finkelstein



Nor­man Finkel­stein, who was fired from a tenured US pro­fes­sor­ship for con­demn­ing Israel’s pol­icy of occu­pa­tion, says that he no longer needs to do that because Amer­i­can Jews now under­stand the issue and no longer sup­port Israel’s conduct.

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Urgent: Support bill to increase social security benefits



US cit­i­zens: Sup­port the bill to increase social secu­rity benefits.

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Israeli gov’t demolishing Palestinian homes in Jerusalem



The Israeli gov­ern­ment is demol­ish­ing Pales­tin­ian homes in Jerusalem to force Palestinians out.

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US bans particular bitcoin trade



The US gov­ern­ment has banned a par­tic­u­lar kind of bitcoin trade.

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Urgent: Rep. Grijalva’s letter



US cit­i­zens: phone your con­gress­crit­ter and say to sign Rep. Grijalva’s let­ter that urges Obama not to approve the Key­stone XL pipeline. The Capi­tol Switch­board num­bers are 202–224‑3121, 888–818‑6641 and 888–355‑3588.

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Republicans plan to cut food stamps



Repub­li­cans plan to cut food stamps but con­tinue big hand­outs to big agribusi­ness companies.

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Boko Haram forcing people to join



Boko Haram is forc­ing peo­ple to join or be killed.

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Amazon stretches UK tax law



Ama­zon stretches UK tax law to the breaking point.

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Drugs used for executions in the US



Arkansas plans to use untested drugs for exe­cu­tions, but the man­u­fac­turer won’t sell any more for that use. I con­demn the death penalty, but I don’t expect it can be stopped this way. Euro­pean com­pa­nies won’t be able to main­tain con­trol for long over how drugs are used once sold to the US.

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Congress fussing about artificial scandals



Con­gress, fuss­ing about arti­fi­cial scan­dals, shows no inter­est in real Obama scan­dals involv­ing stretch­ing US and inter­na­tional law about use of armed force. In the case of Libya, one can argue that Con­gress effec­tively approved the aer­ial inter­ven­tion by not object­ing to it.

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Student debt



Stu­dent Debt and the Crush­ing of the Amer­i­can Dream. Edu­ca­tion is one of the things the US needs to sup­port more by tax­ing the rich and the companies more.

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Charges against NY thug who killed unarmed teenager dismissed



A New York thug who killed an unarmed teenager in his fam­ily home had charges dis­missed. It is quite dif­fi­cult to hold them respon­si­ble, and partly this is because the rules give them lots of excuses.

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Half of EU in recession



Almost half the EU is in reces­sion thanks to aus­ter­ity poli­cies. “Reces­sions can hurt, but aus­ter­ity kills”. If oppres­sion dri­ves you to the point of sui­cide, why not die fight­ing your oppres­sors instead?

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China closing microblog accounts



China is clos­ing the microblog accounts of influ­en­tial peo­ple who have posted crit­i­cism. Murong Xue­cun, one of them, writes about what it is like to be “rein­car­nated“ on the Internet.

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Attempt at shutting down North Dakota’s only abortion provider



Chris­t­ian fanat­ics are try­ing to shut the only abor­tion provider in North Dakota by impos­ing impos­si­ble arbi­trary restric­tions. The clinic is suing to overturn them.

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Digital revolution gift to the power of the state



The dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion turns out to be a gift to the power of the state, and those who exer­cise the power are the ones who deter­mine its lim­its. We need to make sure there are lots of peo­ple who are not going to be easy for Big Brother to spy on, on line. We also […]

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Israel demolishes “unrecognized” village again



Israel demol­ished an “unrec­og­nized” tra­di­tional Bedouin vil­lage in the Negev, for the 15th time.

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Urgent: Investigate threat to journalism



US cit­i­zens: sign this peti­tion for Con­gress to inves­ti­gate the threat to jour­nal­ism posed by the inves­ti­ga­tion into Asso­ci­ated Press journalism.

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Distribution of child pornography



We are asked to believe that the dis­tri­b­u­tion of child pornog­ra­phy — and I mean real child pornog­ra­phy — leads peo­ple to com­mit sex­ual abuse of chil­dren. But evi­dence sug­gests it’s not so. There are two argu­ments for pro­hi­bi­tion of “child pornog­ra­phy”. One is that “it was made in a real act of sex­ual abuse”. In […]

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Tax-paying Arab neighborhoods denied vital services



Arab neigh­bor­hoods for­mally included in Jerusalem, although out­side the annex­a­tion wall, have to pay the same taxes as the rest of the city, but they don’t get vital ser­vices such as sew­ers or garbage col­lec­tion. It reminds me of the way Chicago treated minor­ity areas until Mayor Washington.

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Mass protest in China against new chemical plant



A mass protest was held in China against a new chem­i­cal plant sus­pected of plan­ning to pro­duce paraxy­lene, which is car­cino­genic. Maybe this plant won’t pro­duce paraxy­lene, but with gov­ern­ments and com­pa­nies so dis­hon­est (and not only in China), how can any­one believe that? Every­one is bet­ter off if states force com­pa­nies to be honest.

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Organic Farms suing Monsanto



US organic farms are suing Mon­santo to pro­tect them­selves from being sued if patented genes con­t­a­m­i­nate their crops.

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Israel makes Palestinian teenagers incriminate each other



Israel makes Pales­tin­ian teenagers incrim­i­nate other Pales­tin­ian teenagers, on charges that are some­times absurd. When accused in court, they don’t under­stand what they are accused of, but they know it doesn’t matter.

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Roundup can harm human health indirectly

May 15, 2013

Roundup is not directly toxic to humans, but it can harm human health indirectly.

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Safety inspections in Bangladesh



Wal­mart refuses to sign the agree­ment requir­ing safety inspec­tions of fac­to­ries in Bangladesh. I hope this leads to a pub­lic pres­sure campaign.

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China trying to use torture to stop prostitution



China is try­ing to stop pros­ti­tu­tion by tor­tur­ing accused pros­ti­tutes into con­fess­ing. There is noth­ing eth­i­cally wrong with pros­ti­tu­tion, so the state’s only legit­i­mate goal in this area is to make sure nobody is coerced into pros­ti­tu­tion and pre­vent the spread of sex­u­ally trans­mit­ted dis­eases by pros­ti­tu­tion. Pro­hi­bi­tion and repres­sion of pros­ti­tu­tion get in the […]

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Supreme Court rules for Monsanto, against farmer



The Supreme Court ruled for Mon­santo and against a farmer who bought seeds from a grain ele­va­tor (many of which con­tained a patented Mon­santo gene). This means that Mon­santo has been given con­trol over all ordi­nary seed sup­plies for the plants that are effected.

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Missing from Arab peace plan



Miss­ing from the Arab peace plan: an Israeli part­ner. The Arab peace plan is quite sim­i­lar to what the US gov­ern­ment has advo­cated for years, but the US does not pres­sure Israel to accept it.

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Urgent: Object to giving award to Henry Kissinger



Every­one: object to giv­ing Henry Kissinger an award for defend­ing free­dom and democracy.

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Major “American” companies raise profits by paying workers less



Major “Amer­i­can” com­pa­nies’ prof­its are up, mainly because they are pay­ing work­ers less.

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Palestinian prisoners pay for medical care



Israel forces Pales­tin­ian pris­on­ers to pay for their med­ical care while in prison.

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Urgent: Preserve conservation requirements in the farm bill



US cit­i­zens: call on your sen­a­tors to pre­serve con­ser­va­tion require­ments in the farm bill.

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AP-gate and Watergate similarities



The sim­i­lar­i­ties between AP-gate to Water­gate. Unlike the writer, I will not give Obama the credit of sup­pos­ing he was in any way reluc­tant to do the bad things he is doing.

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UK wants Europe to import tar sands oil



The UK gov­ern­ment wants Europe to import tar sands oil from the Key­stone XL pipeline.

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Urgent: Protect Indonesian rain forests



Every­one: call on the Pres­i­dent of Indone­sia to pro­tect rain forests from a plan to cut them down for palm oil.

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Vermont legalizes assisted suicide, but only for terminally ill



Ver­mont has legal­ized assisted sui­cide, but only for those who are ter­mi­nally ill. It is a shame to limit this to peo­ple whose suf­fer­ing is going to end soon any­way, and exclude those in unbear­able pain that could con­tinue for decades. So it is a mis­take to use the slo­gan “death with dig­nity”, which presumes […]

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Weak US reaction to shootings in New Orleans



Note the con­trast between the weak US reac­tion to the shoot­ing in New Orleans and the exag­ger­ated response to the bomb­ing in Boston.

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Urgent: Prosecute the banksters



US cit­i­zens: call on Obama and Holder to pros­e­cute the banksters.

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UK austerity policies



The UK aus­ter­ity poli­cies are designed to fall mostly on the poor. Mas­sive youth unem­ploy­ment in the UK is mak­ing young men hate them­selves, and they take it out on the usual scape­goats such as women and gay men.

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Surveil thousands of millions non-suspects



The more gov­ern­ment agen­cies sur­veil thou­sands or mil­lions non-suspects, the more blame they will get when one of them sur­pris­ingly com­mits a crime — but they won’t be able to anticipate who.

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Cables show US has pushed countries to accept GMO crops



Cables show that the US has actively pushed coun­tries around the world to accept GMO crops.

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Westerners in tizzy about Syrian rebel who ate part of corpse



West­ern­ers are in a tizzy about a Syr­ian rebel who ate part of the corpse of a dead gov­ern­ment sol­dier, for revenge. Such ado about so lit­tle. What­ever you do to a corpse, it can’t really hurt any­one (except you, if you catch some dis­ease from it). The worst it can do to oth­ers is […]

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The “right” of businesses to secretly make data out of your data



Some in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment pro­pose to pro­tect the “right” of busi­nesses to secretly make money out of your data.

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University research centers sponsored by oil companies



Uni­ver­sity research cen­ters spon­sored by oil com­pa­nies pro­vide the lat­ter with a form of legit­i­macy that they can­not buy in any other way.

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BP and Shell accused of fixing prices



BP and Shell have been accused of fix­ing prices for a decade. Since this is in Europe, they may actu­ally be prosecuted.

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Face recognition



More nasty appli­ca­tions for face recognition.

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Use of IRS for politically motivated investigations



Pres­i­dents since Roo­sevelt have used the IRS for polit­i­cally moti­vated inves­ti­ga­tions. It looks like Obama did not ask for the IRS to tar­get tea party front groups. How­ever, some years ago I saw reports that right-wing churches ille­gally endorse can­di­dates and that the IRS had failed to make them stop.

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Amazon staff in Germany on strike



Ama­zon staff in Ger­many have gone on strike. Ama­zon abuses its staff in the US, but the US gov­ern­ment gives less sup­port to workers.

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Clothing chains sign on to fund safety inspections in Bangladesh



Sev­eral West­ern cloth­ing chains have signed on to fund safety inspec­tions in Bangladesh. This will prob­a­bly do some good, and the pro­posed changes in laws could do more good. How­ever, what we really need is to change the free exploita­tion treaties so that they no longer pres­sure coun­tries to com­pete to offer the worst working […]

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The subpoena against AP phone call records



Why the sub­poena against AP phone call records is dan­ger­ous to free­dom of the press. Of course, the entire thrust of Obama’s war on whistle­blow­ers is not merely harm­ful to our human rights, it is aimed directly at them.

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IRS increase scrutiny of political spending



The IRS must increase scrutiny of polit­i­cal spend­ing (but not in a biased way).

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Obama regime collects Associated Press’s phone records



The Obama regime col­lected two months of the Asso­ci­ated Press’s phone records to try to find the source of a leak.

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Increase in US oil production



US oil pro­duc­tion has increased greatly and is expected to increase more. This is some­thing the world can­not afford.

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Urgent: Treat tomato farm workers decently



In the US: call on Wendy’s to sign up to treat tomato farm work­ers decently, as other major US food chains have already done.

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Force-feeding of prisoners in Guantanamo



A broad move­ment con­demns force-feeding of pris­on­ers in Guan­tanamo, which is very painful and degrad­ing to the pris­on­ers. In addi­tion, the pris­on­ers are now forced to undergo a strip search before meet­ing with a lawyer.

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Interventions in Syria and oil pipelines

May 14, 2013

Inter­ven­tions in Syria’s civil war may be moti­vated by oil pipelines, part of the root cause was the effects of global heating.

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Easier for workers to unionize



Bangladesh has made it eas­ier for cloth­ing work­ers to unionize.

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Comparing US with Atlas Shrugged



Com­par­ing today’s US with the fic­tional world of Atlas Shrugged makes a strange contrast.

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Candidate for mayor denounces stop and frisk



A can­di­date for mayor of New York denounces the thug department’s “stop-and-frisk” prac­tice for its evi­dent racial bias. How­ever, it will be dif­fi­cult to pre­vent the deci­sion to search a par­tic­u­lar per­son from being based on race, unless the thugs must show a spe­cific jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for each instance. In other words, search­ing a per­son must […]

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Prejudice against prostitutes



In Pales­tine, prej­u­dice against pros­ti­tutes com­bines with cir­cum­stances that leave some women no other way out. This dri­ves many to sui­cide. Such con­tempt for women that is found across the Mus­lim world, and partly con­tin­ues to exist in the west too.

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Catastrophic 4C rise in temperature



If cur­rent trends con­tinue, humans will emit enough CO2 to prob­a­bly cause a cat­a­strophic 4C rise in tem­per­a­ture by 2041. How­ever, if the cli­mate sys­tem is more sen­si­tive than that, the cat­a­stro­phe made be locked in by 2021.

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1/3 of animal species will be hit by global heating



1/3 of all ani­mal species will be hit by effects of global heating.

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Deforestation of Amazon will mean less rain



Defor­esta­tion of the Ama­zon will mean less rain, which means giant hydropower pro­grams will pro­vide less elec­tric­ity than expected. It will also mean dis­as­ter for agri­cul­ture in Brazil.

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Urgent: Ban neonicotinoids



US cit­i­zens: call on the EPA to ban neonicotinoids.

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Additional security powers



If thugs demand addi­tional “secu­rity” pow­ers, remem­ber that they have lied about this before. “Secu­rity” mea­sures are only addressed to a nar­row part of the spec­trum of crime. The biggest and most dam­ag­ing crimes in the US are com­mit­ted by banksters, and the state refuses to pros­e­cute them even when they are caught. The “security” […]

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Thugs prioritize War on Drugs



Sys­tem­atic rea­sons cause thugs to pri­or­i­tize the War on Drugs over inves­ti­gat­ing reports of kid­napped people.

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Bad or difficult option on Syria



The US has sev­eral bad or dif­fi­cult options to choose from if it is to inter­vene in Syria.

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Road to victory over access to Plan B



The road to the vic­tory over access to Plan B: “We fol­lowed a car­di­nal rule of the rad­i­cals of the 1960’s Women’s Lib­er­a­tion Move­ment: we demanded what we really wanted, rather than ton­ing down to be respectable.” This is my rule too. Many oth­ers demand small changes in the DMCA or DRM, or talk about […]

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Can’t US keep guns away from children

May 13, 2013

Can’t the US keep guns away from children?

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The “one state solution” myth



Uri Avn­ery: why the “one state solu­tion” is a myth.

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America’s attitudes towards children



America’s con­tra­dic­tory atti­tudes towards children.

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Fictional candidate for president



Many Ira­ni­ans can only sup­port a fic­tional can­di­date for pres­i­dent. In the US, things are not that far gone. We can vote for can­di­dates that stand for good prin­ci­ples; we just know that it would be a mir­a­cle for one of them to win.

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Pakistan elections



Extrem­ists’ vio­lence was unable to pre­vent Pak­istan from hold­ing a more or less demo­c­ra­tic election.

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US-educated minister added to politburo of Vietnamese gov’t



A US-educated min­is­ter has been added to the polit­buro of the Viet­namese Com­mu­nist Party. I guess that means more crush­ing of human rights to cater to global business.

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Murder out of superstition



Mur­der out of super­sti­tion didn’t dis­ap­pear after the Salem witch tri­als. It still occurs today.

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Corruption drains wealth out of Africa



Cor­rup­tion drains wealth out of Africa, twice as much as it gets in for­eign aid.

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House of Representatives passes bill to end overtime pay



The House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed a bill to end over­time pay in the name of “flex­i­bil­ity” and “caring”.

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UNESCO trying to save Great Barrier Reef



UNESCO is try­ing to save the Great Bar­rier Reef from dam­age from coal ship­ments, but half its coral is dead already due to envi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion and global heat­ing. Ocean acid­i­fi­ca­tion will kill all the rest, if we burn all that coal.

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Chad arrests opposition journalists and bloggers



Chad has arrested many oppo­si­tion jour­nal­ists and bloggers.

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Urgent: Support the Local Farms, Foods, and Jobs Act



US cit­i­zens: phone your con­gress­crit­ter to sup­port the Local Farms, Foods, and Jobs Act. The Capi­tol Switch­board num­bers are 202–224‑3121, 888–818‑6641 and 888–355‑3588.

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American” corporations get special tax deal



Amer­i­can” cor­po­ra­tions get a spe­cial tax deal for for­eign earn­ings, which favors them over real cit­i­zens. The point is not that we should give peo­ple the same deal; rather, we should take it away from corporations.

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US drone attacks war crimes



Pakistan’s high court ruled that US drone attacks in Pak­istan are war crimes.

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Psychotherapy



Offer­ing a lit­tle psy­chother­apy to peo­ple who go through a trauma is unnec­es­sary, and some meth­ods actu­ally tend to make peo­ple suf­fer more.

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Don’t let CIA control torture narrative



ACLU: Pres­i­dent Obama, Don t Let the CIA Con­trol the Tor­ture Narrative.

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Urgent: Steps toward ending imprisonment without trial



US cit­i­zens: call on Obama to take two impor­tant steps towards end­ing impris­on­ment without trial.

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Proposed treaty for copyright exception



Hol­ly­wood influ­ence threat­ens to block a pro­posed treaty for a copy­right excep­tion for books for blind peo­ple. I have mixed feel­ings about this treaty. Blind peo­ple deserve to escape from dig­i­tal hand­cuffs, and so do the rest of us. A treaty that removes some of the harm­ful effect on blind peo­ple is a step towards […]

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Colleges selling out poor to court rich



How Col­leges Are Sell­ing Out the Poor to Court the Rich.

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Urgent: Letter to Obama opposing Keystone XL



US cit­i­zens: Phone your con­gress­crit­ter to co-sign Rep. Grijalva’s let­ter to Obama oppos­ing the Key­stone XL planet-roaster pipeline. The Capi­tol Switch­board num­bers are 202–224‑3121, 888–818‑6641 and 888–355‑3588.

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Urgent: Decent working conditions for Publix farm workers



In the US: call on Pub­lix to join the agree­ment to demand decent work­ing con­di­tions for the farm work­ers who grow its tomatoes.

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Largest companies running 8000 tax doges



The UK’s 100 largest com­pa­nies are run­ning 8000 tax dodges. I would expect that most of them are law­ful, and take advan­tage of laws that need to be changed.

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The US-Korea free exploitation agreement



A year after sign­ing the US-Korea free exploita­tion agree­ment, US exports to Korea have gone down 10%. In other words, this treaty failed even to pro­vide the ben­e­fit the US was sup­posed to get. Of course, it did the other harm these treaties always do. You can pretty much count on a free exploita­tion agreement […]

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US support for Rios Montt’s crimes against humanity



Now that Rios Montt has been con­victed of crimes against human­ity, we must look at the evi­dence that the US under Ronald Rea­gan know­ingly sup­ported those crimes.

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Urgent: Tell EPA not to let companies block pollution standards



US cit­i­zens: tell the EPA not to let oil com­pa­nies block new pol­lu­tion stan­dards for cars and trucks.

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USDA to do environmental impact study on proposed GMO crops



In response to many pub­lic com­plaints, the USDA has decided to do a full envi­ron­men­tal impact study on pro­posed multi-herbicide-resistant GMO crops, rather than approve them without one.

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Not enough nurses after cuts to the NHS



The con­ser­v­a­tives have cut the NHS to the point where hos­pi­tals no longer have enough nurses to keep patients safe.

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Global heating threatens to destroy cassava



Global heat­ing threat­ens to destroy cas­sava, the prin­ci­pal food of mil­lions in Africa, via insects and disease.

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Real motive for austerity in the UK acknowledged



A right-wing politi­cian embar­rass­ingly acknowl­edged the real motive for aus­ter­ity in the UK.

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Pretense that the UK gov’t is trying to rescue Shaker Aamer



The Pen­ta­gon has punc­tured the pre­tense that the UK gov­ern­ment is try­ing to res­cue Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo.

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Facebook leads people to forget all the people they give info to

May 12, 2013

How Face­book leads peo­ple to for­get all the dif­fer­ent sorts of peo­ple they are giv­ing their infor­ma­tion to. This is not to men­tion Face­book itself, a per­pet­ual lurker whose pres­ence is dan­ger­ous to overlook.

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FBI screwed up testing evidence



The FBI screwed up test­ing evi­dence against 137 peo­ple, but only informed the lawyers of 30 of them. Oth­ers have lan­guished in prison for years.

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Irish gov’t shields companies that sold horsemeat as beef



The Irish gov­ern­ment is shield­ing the com­pa­nies that sold horse­meat as beef. If the Irish gov­ern­ment intended, in Feb­ru­ary, to put meat busi­nesses gen­tly on notice so they would cease this prac­tice, that’s not wrong in prin­ci­ple. It was a way to put an end to the prac­tice. How­ever, block­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion is going too far. I […]

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Autodestructive response to Boston bombings



Cam­paign­ing against an autode­struc­tive response to the Boston Bombings.

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Urgent: Disclosure of political spending by publicly traded companies



US cit­i­zens: Once again, call on the SEC to require pub­licly traded com­pa­nies to dis­close their polit­i­cal spending.

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Woman asks court to let her have an abortion



A woman in El Sal­vador has asked the Supreme Court to let her have an abor­tion, because oth­er­wise she is likely to die from her preg­nancy. The sacred fetus that the Catholic Church would kill her to save can­not sur­vive any­way, because most of its brain is miss­ing. But even if it were healthy, she […]

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The “center” according to NY Times Magazine



The New York Times Mag­a­zine labeled as the “cen­ter” the place between a right-wing extrem­ist econ­o­mist and a some­what right-wing economist.

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US planned to meddle in Venezuelan politics



A Wik­ileaks cable shows how the US planned to med­dle in Venezue­lan pol­i­tics to try to defeat Chavez. I don’t agree with all the opin­ions in the arti­cle; for instance, I think he’s bend­ing over back­wards to defend North Korea, which is as nasty a tyranny as you can find on Earth.

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Attachment toward corpses



On the fool­ish and absurd attach­ment many peo­ple feel toward corpses. While crit­i­ciz­ing this attach­ment, the arti­cle sup­ports it by using terms such as “laid to rest”. I never use such terms, both because they endorse super­sti­tious ideas and because euphemisms strike me as encour­age­ment of cowardice.

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Millions to privatize public schools



The “Amer­i­can Fed­er­a­tion for Chil­dren” spent mil­lions to sup­port state leg­is­la­ture can­di­dates that want to pri­va­tize pub­lic schools. This is the kind of preda­tor that US par­ents really should be wor­ried about, since they can hurt a lot more chil­dren than any other kind of predator.

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Unsupported safety standards in California endanger wildlife



Food pro­cess­ing com­pa­nies have imposed unsup­ported safety stan­dards in Cal­i­for­nia, which endan­ger wildlife.

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