US Embassy cables culprit should be executed, says Mike Huckabee

Secrets are kept by the government to prevent the people who elected it to know the truth. We must protect the courageous citizens who leaked the information to the press. Check the article in The Guardian.

Can you imagine what would happen if this guy is elected?

War Machines: Recruiting Robots for Combat

By JOHN MARKOFF

Published: November 27, 2010

New robots — none of them very human-looking — are being designed to handle a broad range of tasks, despite controversy about the impact on future warfare. See article in the New York Times.

What makes war impossible to win is the human love and  knowledge.  The human in the soldier can't see kids and women as the enemy it is ordered to obliterate. And Soldiers  get confused and disheartened when they read new papers and learn of the $708 billion the military machine receives and how the money lands in a few, very secretive hands -Obama does not even know which- while they are sacrificed: 6,000 soldiers have died,  50,000 are maimed for life and 100,000s have  psychological damages.   Now if wars are conducted with machines  the human element won't get in the way and the public will less likely get informed and see the horrific pictures of war; the military will be empowered beyond what is safe for the US and the world. Soldiers will be video gamers removed from the actual blood baths while the few benefiting from the war -the ones who want to control opium production for pharmaceutical use in Europe and in the US; and to protect oil pipelines which carry stolen petroleum for European and American consumption -  will fill their pockets with impunity from war crimes.

US rejects call in UN human rights body to abolish death penalty

The US has not yet agreed to abolish the death penalty while even small African countries such as Angola have abolished it years ago.

  

The US along with Iran, China, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are responsible for 88% of all deaths by execution. See http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0777460.html The US has aligned with countries known to violate human rights and indeed it is a violator itself: it has been responsible for the Japanese concentration camps, the use of weapons of mass destruction against sovereign nations, the imprisonment of thousands without trials, the torture of hundreds and the death of millions.

And again this is another year the US will not abolish the death penalty. The question is: who made that decision? The UN's invitation was to the American people and thus we should have had a chance to a referendum vote or at least the right to a public debate.

US rejects UN call to abolish death penalty

The US is backwards and we should be ashamed.

France Asks Airlines to Cut Flights Ahead of Strikes

By ALAN COWELL

Published: October 18, 2010

France is asking airlines to cut flights into its airports by up to 50 percent on Tuesday because of possible strikes by airport personnel, as labor unrest over retirement reform stiffened.

Income Inequality: Too Big to Ignore

By ROBERT H. FRANK

Published: October 16, 2010

Economics was founded by moral philosophers, and links between the two disciplines remain strong. So why won’t economists make judgments on the gap between rich and poor?

Israel Stops Jewish Activists From Entering Gaza

By DINA KRAFT

Published: September 28, 2010

Israeli navy commandos peacefully commandeered a catamaran trying to break the blockade, officials said.

RSA Animate - Crises of Capitalism

Child's Ordeal Shows Risks of Psychosis Drugs for Young

This story shows how our society is over medicated.  The only one benefitting are the pharmaceutical companies. Check the article in the New York Times

Geo tags on photos

More and more our privacy is lost.  Our correspondence is archived, and the archivers are government contractors. The GPS give feed back which can locate us, surveillance cameras are everywhere filming people 5 times on average per day and heat cameras can film people in their homes.  Google maps permit people to come all the way into your yard.

Now we learn that photos we upload on the web can carry geo tags.  Check the article in the New York Times 

Max Roach - Abbey Lincoln

Defining prosperity down

"There is growing evidence that our governing elite just doesn't care about the prospects of American workers - that a once-unthinkable level of economic distress is in the process of becoming the new normal." Check the article by Paul Krugman.  New York Times, August 1, 2010

Abu Hamza extradition to US blocked by Europeans

European court of human rights will not allow Abu Hamza and three other men to be extradited until satisfied he will be treated humanly check the article in the Guardian 

Louise Bourgeois

BP Oil Spill

Where will we throw out the clean up waste? Check this video.

A little bit of history, Israel preemptive strikes on neighboring countries and land grab in 1967

Reagan in Iraq, Clinton in Iraq, Bush in Iraq and Afghanistan , and Obama in Pakistan and Yemen are preemptive strikers and they are the aggressors and the real terrorists. It is time to end all wars and to stop human right violators and bullies..

U.N. Report highly Critical of U.S. Drone Attacks

This is a good article and Alston made some very remarkable comments. Check it out, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/03/world/03drones.html

Example of human right violation in Israel

Israel offered to sell South Africa nuclear weapons

Check the article in the Guardian.

Students who use laptops in classroom are getting lower grades than their counterparts who are not

Studies are on their way at Stanford University which preliminary results show shorter concentration span for students joggling their electronic toys and different social sites at the same time.  MIT has seen a decrease in the quality of their students check PBS "Frontline: Digital Nation" (even though I do not support their conclusion, the beginning of the video looks at some of the findings).  

Many colleges are responding to the crisis by shutting down internet access in their classrooms.

Riots in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan

The US supports the government which is responsible for the deaths of protesters.  Check the article in the Guardian.

White House approves assassination of cleric linked to Christmas bomb plot

The US is taking Justice in its own hands; willing to murder a man without giving him the right to a trial.  This is very dangerous since any opposition leader could be labelled as a terrorist and murdered.   This threatens our democracy and it can't be legal and must be stopped.

Original article in the Guardian.

Taylor Mali: What teachers make | Video on TED.com

Taylor Mali: What teachers make | Video on TED.com

NATO airstrike kills at least 27 civilians- Washington Post

With so many civilian casualties this month, the NATO forces are promoting the radicalization of thousands,  the growing hatred of the terrorized population of Afghanistan is radicalizing the native. So, when McCrystal or Patreus think they can trust the troops they are training, they are being ignorant or they are lying to us?  

Let's follow the Dutch's example and remove all of our troops in six months time.  Then we cut the military budget down from over $700 billions to $300 billions.  We use that money to retrain the unemployed and develop a manufacturing base.  

We need our young men and women home.  Already the toll is too high: nearly 5,000 deaths and over 50,000 wounded physically, some of them maimed. And the mental wounds, the distress, and anxieties many of the soldiers experience add to the emergency to bring our people home.  And when they come home they can  fight the fires in California and in the South East or they can help rebuild New Orleans or provide foreign aid to countries in dire needs, such as Haiti.  These saving activities would help rehabilitate the soldiers.  Building instead of killing and destroying will rebuild their mental strength.

Women in America, equality is still an illusion- Washington Post

Check my older post below about women in the US.

Dutch troops 'to leave Afghanistan as planned'

Let us all follow suit and get our young men and women back home where they belong.  

Controversial Diabetes Drug Harms Heart, US Concludes

Who is going to jail? In 2008 over 4800 deaths and 21,000 injuries were due to side effects of prescribed drugs; see the LA Times The pharmaceutical industry is killing thousands of people and yet no one goes to jail. All they do is remove the drugs from the market, sometimes months even years after they have already caused injuries and deaths. Put the culprits in jail, and the drugs will become a lot safer.

US School district spied on students through webcams, court told

 Who has access to our webcams?  This article raises issues of privacy and security. Check the article in the Guardian. 

Richard Hamilton: a master class from the father of Pop Art

More Students taking and failing A.P. Tests

Revising Book on Disorders of the Mind

Check the comments section as well.

Mozart Bond

How Bush's Grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Check this article in the guardian.  How could the Guardian find the info and how is it that the Democrats did not when Bush was running?  

UN find challenges Israeli version of attack on civilian building in Gaza war

When will Israel ever comply with the UN resolutions?

Kids in Crisis Behind Bars

The opinion in the New York Times triggered some souvenirs of my different jail stays.  

The Jail/prison issue requires a whole book and more vivid descriptions.  The strip-search procedure, which inmates have to suffer every time they have a visit, is a procedure I experienced first hand while serving a 30 days sentence in Walhalla.  I was jailed for fighting against the installation of surveillance cameras in Peekskill, NY see NY Times for some context.  Here are my first recollection:  "After spending six hours in a holding pen, I was brought to a small room.  There a female guard ordered me to undress, to bend over, spread my cheeks open and cough".  The idea is that inmates bring in drugs carrying them in their orifices.  But it is more frequent for the drugs to be walked in by guards. 

Inmates are not assessed emotionally.  One of the girl who was in jail with me, hanged herself  a couple of weeks after my release.  We all knew she was depressed, she was crying all the time.

A huge number of people jailed, who should be in mental hospitals, end up in jail for several years.  In Walhalla, there were women with mental disorders who were with me for my first sentence and I saw them again several years later when I spent an overnight in jail this time for fighting against the Iraq war.  

The jail commissaries sold terrible products at inflated prices; since my release from Jail I have boycotted Colgate, the only tooth paste you could buy in Walhalla County Jail.

MCI was the only phone company and the inmates could only call collect leaving families  with huge bills.  Who awarded the contract to them?  And why inmates could not use a calling card like they do in Israeli prison where I spent 9 days for fighting against the occupation of Palestine?   (Not that the conditions in Neve Tirza were good).  Inmates in the US come from the lower socioeconomic stratum and thus they can't afford the calls.  Calls which are important to their families and children.

And then, we are not discussing the women jail population which is mostly drug addicts and prostitutes; no rehab centers for the poor and the pimps rarely end up in jail.

The idle life in jail does not prepare the inmates for their release.  There are not enough classes to help them acquire skills which would help them get a job once they are released.  But the few classes offered will probably be cut under Obama's budget freeze.

There are many other issues, overcrowding, sex...  You can't keep humans, who are sexual animals, in cages and think there won't be any sexual activities.  How can this be resolved?

Certainly, placing all delinquents together under one roof can't be a solution.  Most people I met in jail were known to the guards and to other inmates; they were recidivists.  This could only convince us that the system of incarceration does not work.

Risky to walk and talk on the phone

Cell phones have been responsible for many deaths and injuries while driving or while walking.   Check the article in New York Times

Plastic contains BFA (bisphenol

Until regulation is passed to totally remove BFA from our products, it is a good idea not to eat foods which are in plastic containers, or wrappers.   It is also a good idea to restrain from eating canned food and drinking plastic bottled drinks.  A boycott of plastics will result in change.  See the story in the New York Times