More on Bradley Manning

For many months, Glenn Greenwald has documented the many ramifications of the mistreatment of Bradley Manning, including the failures of the U.S. media and the moral failures of Barack Obama. I highly recommend his latest article for the latest information. His final line: "And it's quite telling how one must go to to a British newspaper to read about U.S. abuse of a U.S. service member." [Addendum of April 21, 2011]  Bradley Manning has been transferred out of the military brig at Quantico, and he's headed toward Leavenworth.  As usual, you can learn many of the details from Glenn Greenwald.   One can only hope that he is kept in more humane circumstances in Kansas. Greenwald takes a moment to celebrate the work and success of the independent press, which carried this story along where the mainstream media melted:

[T]his episode should be a potent antidote to defeatism, as it provides a template for how issues that would be otherwise ignored can be amplified by independent voices creatively using the democratizing and organizing power of the Internet, and meaningful activism achieved.

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Kucinich is refused access to Bradley Manning

The DoD is refusing to allow Dennis Kucinich speak with Bradley Manning:

Since my initial request to visit Private First Class (Pfc.) Bradley Manning on February 4, 2011, the Department of Defense (DoD) has consistently sought to frustrate any attempts to communicate with Pfc. Manning regarding his well-being. I or my staff have been shuffled between the Secretary of the Army, the Secretary of the Navy, and the Office of Secretary Gates. I was initially told that I would need Pfc. Manning's approval in order to meet with him. When Pfc. Manning indicated his desire to meet with me, I was belatedly informed that the meeting could only take place if it was recorded because of a Monitoring Order imposed by the military's Special Courts-Martial Convening Authority on September 16, 2010, which was convened for the case. Confidentiality is required, however, to achieve the candor that is necessary to perform the oversight functions with which I am tasked as a Member of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. I was also told that I could be subpoenaed to testify about the contents of my conversation with Pfc. Manning. This is a clear subversion of the constitutionally protected oversight process and it severely undermines the rights of any Member of Congress seeking to gather information on the conditions of a detainee in US custody.

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From animal to food

I eat meat. Not as often as most people, but I eat meat at least several times a week, mostly chicken, but occasionally a hamburger. I rarely eat pork. Over the years, It has sometimes occurred to me that in order to eat meat I had an obligation to fully understand how a live animal is turned into food. With that as the background, this was the perfect video for me. As the creator of this video states, this is "a good story about a proud butcher open to teaching his trade, and a story I felt compelled to share with many others, like me, who didn’t want to be disconnected to their food any longer." This is a story narrated by "Larry Althiser, the owner and head meat cutter for Larry’s Custom Meats in Hartwick, NY, a small farming community in the Northern Catskills." This is not a video about factory farming. The video is direct and graphic, but it is also honest and informative.

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Intelligence can exacerbate motivated reasoning

At The Intersection (no relation), Chris Mooney points out that Intelligence doesn’t protect us from Motivated reasoning. In fact, intelligence can invite this problem. What is "motivated reasoning"?

In motivated reasoning, memory searches, interpretations of incoming information, evaluations of arguments, and even perception, are biased in such a way that we will be more likely to arrive at a desired conclusion (called a directional motivation . . . ). The way this is achieved, in essence, is by limiting the information that is retrieved from long term memory into current working memory (the store of information that is available for current processing), thereby biasing the information available for supporting or evaluating conclusions and arguments, as well as interpreting incoming information.
Climate-change denial is a good place to observe motivated reasoning in action: [More . . . ]

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