“I have my own army in the NYPD, which is the seventh biggest army in the world. I have my own State Department, much to Foggy Bottom’s annoyance. We have the United Nations in New York, and so we have an entree into the diplomatic world that Washington does not have.”—Michael Bloomberg, Mayor of New York
“There are no safeguards to ensure that the NYPD doesn’t break the law. So far as I know, there are no mechanisms in place to ensure... (more)
As the lower house of the Indiana State Legislature approved Senate Bill 1 on March 1, Representative Linda Lawson lamented that if it were passed the measure would signal that it’s "open season on law enforcement."
"You have men and women in your community who are willing to die for you, willing to die for your family," insisted Lawson, who – as a former police ... (more)
In the string of military conflicts that the United States and NATO have been involved in since the second world war they have always attempted to maintain the high road by claiming that they were responding to some kind of threat, and apparently helping the people that they were bombing.
This approach is largely accepted by the general public who is either too afraid or unable to suspect malicious intentions on the part of their masters. In helping themselves to rationalize the n... (more)
At more than ten years into the US government's never-ending "war on terror," that government's excuses for atrocity after atrocity keep getting less and less convincing.
"A few bad apples."
"An isolated incident."
"The video doesn't tell the whole story, and when we find out who leaked it he's going to jail."
"It appears that you had a lone gunman who acted on his own in just a tragic, tragic way."
For hundreds of years Americans have been committing massacres of women and children, old men and sometimes even young men, mostly unarmed or armed only with primitive weapons. The early massacres were mostly of Indians who refused to leave their lands when Americans decided it was God's will that they steal those lands for nothing or for a few trinkets. In the Civil War Sherman and Grant routinely massacred Southern civilian populations with bombardments of cities, burning homes and A... (more)
A teenager has been arrested for allegedly making comments on Facebook about the deaths of six British soldiers in Afghanistan last week.
According to Sky News, Azhar Ahmed of Ravensthorpe (19) posted comments on his profile page, criticizing the level of attention British soldiers who died in a bomb blast received, compared to that received by Afghan civilians killed in the war.
He was arrested on Friday and charged over the weekend.
... (more)
Most of us hadn't thought about Davy Jones of the Monkees in many years. Suddenly, he died at the age of 66 and we were all instantly living in his world. Tributes were everywhere. His YouTube videos were slammed with hits. Praise for his life and works appeared on blogs everywhere.
People were honoring his memory by looking back at the timeline of his life, seeing the change in his face and appearance from the youngest age when he played the Artful Dodger to his last year, in whi... (more)
In January, a judge said that the UK could extradite student Richard O'Dwyer to the US to face criminal copyright infringement charges for the "crime" of linking to streaming videos hosted elsewhere -- something that had already been found legal in the UK multiple times. This is pretty important, because for it to be criminal inf... (more)
The newest attack of vague language is aimed at your 1st Amendment rights of Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Assembly and Freedom to Petition. It is found in the pending legislation of H.R. 347.… As currently worded, it might as well have been called the “Federal We’re Too Important To Be Annoyed By Your Protest Act of 2011.”
— Gene Howington
The Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011 (PDF) ma... (more)
Small quantities of processed meat such as bacon, sausages or salami can increase the likelihood of dying early by a fifth, researchers from Harvard School of Medicine found. Eating steak increases the risk of early death by 12%.
[...]Scientists added that people who eat a diet high in red meat were also likely to be generally unhealthier because they were more likely to smoke, be overweight and not exercise.
In an accompanying editorial Dr Dean Ornish, of the Unive... (more)
This is pure junk science, here is the key line:
"Scientists added that people who eat a diet high in red meat were also likely to be generally unhealthier because they were more likely to smoke, be overweight and not exercise."
All this means is the people who are generally unhealthier also eat red meat, it doesn't mean the red meat is the cause of their unhealthiness, correlation is not causation. They assume that simply because red meat contains saturated fat, it's bad for you, see Gary Taubes' work to counter that argument. Additionally, it says the study was accompanied by an editoral by Dr Dean Ornish (See Gary Taubes debate him here) saying eating less red meat "could also help tackle climate change."
This is junk science, and it's probably politically motivated. - Chris
A 12-year-old girl is suing her school district after staff at Minnesota middle school searched her Facebook and e-mail accounts.
The sixth-grade Minnewaska Area Middle School student, named in court documents as R.S., claims she twice suffered humiliating punishment for things she had written on Facebook.
She was also pressured by school officials to given them her password.Her complaint, back by the American Civil Liberties Union, alleges that the girl's First a... (more)
Rap News Episode 12: YES WE KONY. It's March, and the Internet delivers 2012's first globe-consuming meme: the unstoppable, Stop-Kony 2012 video, which has highlighted the plight of African child soldiering like never before. But is it really good? Is it really bad? Or is the world really more complex than 'good guys' and 'bad guys'? Whatevers; one thing's for sure, th... (more)
When I was growing up, police in America generally treated women with gentleness and respect. It was generally understood that women were not to be thrown around or mistreated by police unless they were being openly violent. But in most areas of the United States those days are long gone. Sadly, many police officers seem to make it a point to be especially mean and degrading to women. All over the country women are being openly abused and humiliated by police. In Am... (more)
As an anarchist, I have little use for "national sovereignty" as a political concept. Boiled down, "national sovereignty" is simply the assertion that mutual recognition of turf lines on the part of various overgrown street gangs ("states") is sacrosanct: The writ of the UK's parliament doesn't extend to Missouri, nor are the peasants of Azerbaijan subject to the orders of Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe.
The funny thing about "national sovereignty" is that its most vociferous defenders ... (more)
The newest twist in the "excuse-Our-Rulers-for-any-and-all-atrocities" comes in the claim that "many members of Congress seem to be unaware of what they were actually voting for" with respect to the NDAA and its provisions for kidnapping us because "the language in the bill appears to be deliberately vague and confusing." And this from critics of the legislation!
