Check out these stunning images captured by the LRO cameras in 2010. I felt great pride when I viewed these images. Seeing them brought back some of the emotions I felt back in 1969 when the U.S. sent astronauts to the moon. If our country ever turned its attention from villainizing and attacking entire countries and cultures, maybe we could get back to serious space exploration, as well as other cutting edge science.
Protect-IP is an abysmal idea. No one likes it except for well-monied content providers. It would, if construed broadly by the courts, hinder the ability of ordinary folks to organize in order to promote higher profits for the entertainment industry, which already has plenty of ways to protect its IP. This is too high a price to pay.
PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.
How flawed are the approaches now being considered by Congress? Consider these reasons.A district court judge in Virginia ruled against online privacy today, allowing U.S federal investigators to collect private records of three Twitter users as part of its investigation related to Wikileaks. The judge also blocked the users' attempt to discover whether other Internet companies have been ordered to turn their data over to the government.
Glenn Greenwald describes the status of the Occupy movement, both the hope for continued vitality and the disturbing para-military response by our government.
The reason the U.S. has para-militarized its police forces is precisely to control this type of domestic unrest, and it’s simply impossible to imagine its not being deployed in full against a growing protest movement aimed at grossly and corruptly unequal resource distribution. As Madeleine Albright said when arguing for U.S. military intervention in the Balkans: “What’s the point of having this superb military you’re always talking about if we can’t use it?” That’s obviously how governors, big-city Mayors and Police Chiefs feel about the stockpiles of assault rifles, SWAT gear, hi-tech helicopters, and the coming-soon drone technology lavished on them in the wake of the post/9-11 Security State explosion, to say nothing of the enormous federal law enforcement apparatus that, more than anything else, resembles a standing army which is increasingly directed inward.For those who want to help the protesters through the winter, Greenwald suggest that FireDogLake has done an excellent job of raising money to by cold weather clothing and gear for the protesters. If you would like to pitch in, visit FDL.
“I hope we shall . . . crush in [its] birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations." Thomas Jefferson Much has been written about the causes and the effects of the financial crisis of 2008. The right blames easy home loan credit they claim was mandated by federal laws and Democratic legislators. The left blames corporate greed run amok after the GW Bush administration gave up regulation of the financial sector to the “free market.” It is important to know who the players were that brought us to a world-wide economic crisis in 2008 and another which is working itself out in Europe right now as a result of the sovereign debt crisis in the Southern tier of European Union countries of Greece, Italy, Spain, and Portugal. The Irish financial crisis was as a result of an exploded housing bubble much as unfolded in the US. It is important to note there are neither “easy home loan credit… mandated by federal laws” or “Democratic legislators” in Ireland. At the core of the crises is a group of US based banks and financial services corporations, chief among which are Goldman Sachs. Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and Citigroup, along with Goldman Sachs, are still making massive investments in risky derivatives such as credit default swops and credit default options and currently hold over 95% of such contracts in that market. But, Goldman Sachs has had at the nexus of all the actors its players and yet another has just been appointed as the new head of the European Bank, Mario Draghi. Mr. Draghi’s immediate past position was with the Bank of Italy and just before that Mr. Draghi was with Goldman Sachs. It was during Mr. Draghi’s tenure at Goldman that the firm came under heavy fire for mis-stating Greece’s debts so as to ease its entry into the EU. Italy’s likely new appointed PM, Mario Monti, is also a Goldman Sachs alumnus and will have to leave as the Euro Chair of the Trilateral Commission if he enters government service. Lucas Papademos, the newly appointed PM of Greece, is a technocrat and that’s thought to help Greece and the EU but, resigned (as required) as a member of the Trilateral Commission upon his government appointment. Mr. Papademos served as a member of the Trilateral Commission along with the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase and folks from AIG and other major Wall Street players that brought us the 2008 meltdown and now have brought the entire EU sovereign debt crisis to a boil. The very scary reality is that the next economy to falter after the Southern tier is France. France holds the highest amount of any nation of the sovereign debt of the South. Soon, France may lose its AAA credit rating which it has held to even though its debt to GDP ration of 83% is higher than the about 62% of the US. France will next have to enact “austerity measures” such as those already imposed in much of the EU and which have caused riots in Greece. What this all means to us poor average Americans is that while we work hard, pay our taxes, save for our retirements and kids’ college, forces beyond our ken and control are at work around the Western world to make sure that the interests of our monied corporations are those which are served and that our votes, our elections and our very dreams for ourselves and our children just don’t matter any more. And see here and here. There was a war while we slept last night, we lost. Goldman Sachs and its ilk won by removing all our wealth to them, by removing elected officials to be replaced by their former employees and by taking over our dreams and replacing them with their own. "As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed." Abraham Lincoln