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Friday, May 9, 2008
Tomorrow is....Pangea Day!
What's going on this weekend?
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I hope I had the time of my life by Vladimir Putin Just a normal laid back night by Hillary Clinton First ever blogging strike goes unnoticed by Al Sharpton Finally something good -- I think by Barack Obama Adoption? Why not just have a baby?! by Howie Mandel Flush the got-damn toilet, Hillary. Obama's got to use it by Samuel L. Jackson I'm going long on Chuck E. Cheese tokens by Ben Bernanke I don't like Huffington. I do like ham. by John McCainRegards, The News Groper Editors | |
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Thursday, May 8, 2008
San Diego Students take on the DEA
Watch SSDP respond to the DEA's drug bust at San Diego State University...
Dear Friend,
Something incredible just happened.
On Tuesday morning, San Diego State University student Randy Hencken woke up, checked his email, saw that 75 of his fellow students had just been arrested in a massive drug bust, and realized that a national news story had just landed on his doorstep. So he rolled up his sleeves, grabbed his cell phone, and got to work.
By Wednesday afternoon, Randy and his chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy had successfully reframed the story for nearly every local and national news outlet that covered it. In less than 24 hours, they had pulled together a demonstration and a press conference that forced the media to question the wisdom of the War on Drugs -- rather than simply parroting the prohibitionist talking points spouted by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
You don't have to take my word for it -- check out this 4 minute news broadcast that focuses almost entirely on SSDP's response to the sting. Below the video are links to dozens of other news stories that aired in family's living rooms across the country.
As impressive as yesterday's media blitz was, this caliber of work is certainly no anomaly. At any given moment during the school year, a search for "Sensible Drug" on news.google.com will yield at least dozens of stories of heroes like Randy working on their campuses to change the hearts and minds of their peers, many of whom will go on to play key roles in the downfall of the War on Drugs.
This issue is hot right now. Dozens of students like Randy contact us weekly with requests to start new chapters. Without your support, these calls could soon go unreturned because there is way more demand for our work than we have man hours to do it.
If you already donate to SSDP, thank you for making things like this happen. We couldn't do it without you.
If you haven't donated to SSDP recently, but would like to see this kind of work expand I invite you to roll up your sleeves and be part of the excitement by making a generous donation today.
I thank you in advance for your generosity.
Sincerely,
Micah Daigle
SSDP National Field Director
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Hippiefest!
Eric Burdon & The Animals
The Turtles Featuring Flo & Eddie
Janis Ian
Badfinger Featuring Joey Molland
Jonathan Edwards
Eric Burdon & The Animals
The Turtles Featuring Flo & Eddie
Janis Ian
Badfinger Featuring Joey Molland
Jonathan Edwards
Eric Burdon & The Animals
The Turtles Featuring Flo & Eddie
Janis Ian
Badfinger Featuring Joey Molland
Jonathan Edwards
Eric Burdon & The Animals
The Turtles Featuring Flo & Eddie
Melanie
Badfinger Featuring Joey Molland
Jonathan Edwards
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The US Pledge of Allegiance, as translated by Google from English to Japanese and back again.
The Lords of Capital Decree Mass Death by Starvation
"No amount of emergency aid is sufficient to make up for the wild price rises that have already occurred."
Fidel Castro called biofuels "genocide," and he was right. And there can be no question as to the identity of the perpetrators of this global genocide: the Lords of Capital that formulate the foreign and domestic policy of the United States. That policy calls for 20 million acres of corn from states like Iowa to be converted from food to fuel. As should have been expected, such a massive diversion almost immediately pushed up the price of all other basic foodstuffs - a global disaster made quick and easy by the fact that, over the past several decades, planetary food production has been taken over by agribusiness - the speculative human parasites that control how food is bought and sold, and to whom, and for what purpose. These Lords of Capital are killers on a mass scale.
"Hot" money has totally distorted the "marketplace" for life-sustaining goods, causing millions of the desperately poor in scores of countries to take to the streets. "In less than a year," writes the Guardian newspaper, in Britain, "the price of wheat has risen 130 per cent, soya by 87 per cent and rice by 74 per cent."
These are nothing less than crimes against humanity, and cannot help but destroy the lives of millions who are already at the very edge of the precipice.
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FOX News: Lincoln debated Frederick Douglass in 1858?!?
By SilentPatriot
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Claude Monet
A Claude Monet painting was auctioned Tuesday for more than $41 million, breaking the auction record for the French Impressionist artist.
"Le Pont du chemin de fer a Argenteuil" - a painting of a bridge with two trains passing over the Seine while pleasure boats float below - was sold at a Christie's sale for $41,481,000, said Rik Pike, a spokesman for the auction house.
The previous record for a Monet painting was $36.5 million for his 1904 "Nympheas," which was sold last year.
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Stoner Helps Ban Sale Of Weed Candy
According to reports from local station WSBTV,
"[The law] targets businesses that sell the candies with drug-inspired names such as 'Kronic Kandy' and 'Pot Suckers.' ... Senator Doug Stoner pushed the bill in the senate. 'I don't think that folks are aware this is going on,' Stoner told Channel 2 in April. 'It's mainly, from what I can tell, particularly targeted to minority communities.'"
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America's Worst Governor
Nevada's Drunken Idiot Governor Divorcing His Wife For Some Reason
They've had approximately 15 near-divorces that have made it to the newspapers and blogs over the years — Gibbons was a GOP congressman and bribe-taker in Washington for many years, where he otherwise went totally unnoticed. Oh and he's trying to get her evicted from the Guv Mansion, in Carson City.
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A scary thought: Gasoline at $7.50 a gallon
by Charley Blaine
I'm really not here to scare you, but, get ready, I AM going to scare you.
The news got lots of attention: Goldman Sachs analyst Arjun Murti predicted Tuesday that the price of crude oil could hit $150 to $200 a barrel in six to 24 months. (Here's one discussion of the report. Another is here.)
Crude oil in New York promptly jumped to as high as $122.73 a barrel in New York before closing at $121.84. And, as I write this, crude was trading slightly lower in electronic trading. But it also had the perverse effect of pushing the stock market higher. Indeed, the biggest winners in Tuesday's stock market were oil and gas production companies, natural gas companies. (But not refiners; crude oil is rising faster than refiners can push their prices up.)
So, if crude jumps to $150 or $200, how does that translate into prices at the gas pump. Here's the scary part.
If crude hits $150 a barrel, we could be looking at $5 a gallon or so for the retail price of gasoline. That's based on Tuesday's $3.61-a-gallon national average and the rule of thumb that, for every $1 increase in crude oil, the pump price rises 5 cents a gallon.
If crude hits $200, the retail price of gas jumps to $7.52 a gallon. (Plus or minus a few cents) To fill the 10-gallon gas tank on my Honda Civic would cost $75.20, probably more because I live in Washington state, which has relatively high gasoline taxes.
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Congress considers the steel penny
Cost of making a penny is more than a penny, pushing the government to think about bringing back the steel-made pennies of World War II.
Surging prices for copper, zinc and nickel have some in Congress trying to bring back the steel-made pennies of World War II, and maybe using steel for nickels, as well.
Copper and nickel prices have tripled since 2003 and the price of zinc has quadrupled, said Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., whose subcommittee oversees the U.S. Mint.
Keeping the coin content means "contributing to our national debt by almost as much as the coin is worth," Gutierrez said.
A penny, which consists of 97.5% zinc and 2.5% copper, cost 1.26 cents to make as of Tuesday. And a nickel -- 75% copper and the rest nickel -- cost 7.7 cents, based on current commodity prices, according to the Mint.
That's down from the end of the 2007, when even higher metal prices drove the penny's cost to 1.67 cents, according to the Mint. The cost of making a nickel then was nearly a dime.
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First-of-its-kind 14-country study ranks consumers according to environmental behavior
Consumers in India, Brazil top index; US consumers rank last
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 The Goods sub-index, a combination of everyday consumption and waste disposal plus ownership of big-ticket items, consists of such variables as purchase and/or avoidance of specific products for environmental reasons,... |
WASHINGTON—The National Geographic Society and the international polling firm GlobeScan today unveiled a new mechanism for measuring and comparing individual consumer behavior as it relates to the environment. "Greendex™ 2008: Consumer Choice and the Environment — A Worldwide Tracking Survey" looks at environmentally sustainable consumption and behavior among consumers in 14 countries. This first-of-its-kind study reveals surprising differences between consumers in developed and developing countries in terms of environmentally friendly actions. This year's results are a baseline against which results of future annual surveys will be compared, in order to monitor improvements or declines in environmentally sustainable consumption at both the global level and within countries.
The Greendex survey was conducted online earlier this year among 14,000 consumers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Spain and the United States. A panel of 27 international experts in global sustainability helped identify which consumer behaviors were most crucial to investigate. One thousand people in each country answered questions that measured their behavior in the areas of housing, transportation, food and consumption of goods; each respondent earned a score that reflected the environmental impact of his or her consumption patterns, which included size and energy-efficiency of residence, commuting mode and distance and use of fresh water, among dozens of other measures. Consumers were then assigned a Greendex score (a measure of the relative environmental sustainability of their consumption patterns) out of 100. Consumers in Brazil and India scored highest; U.S. consumers scored lowest.
Bush Iraq Emails Not Recoverable
By Matt Renner
A late-night court filing by the White House on Monday revealed that official administration emails about the run up to the invasion of Iraq and the initial occupation may never be recovered.
Whistleblowers have accused the White House of destroying email records from their internal servers. The Bush administration disputes this accusation, claiming instead that many emails were stored incorrectly. The storage system came under harsh criticism from former employees who called it "primitive" and said it had deep security flaws that would inevitably lead to destruction of records. In September 2002, the Bush administration dismantled the Automatic Records Management System (ARMS) put in place by the Clinton administration and never replaced it.
Presidents are responsible for preserving all historical records during their time in office under the Presidential Records Act. Congress is conducting an investigation into possible violations of this act, including the destruction of at least ten million White House email records.
In response to a judge's orders, the White House Office of Administration (OA), which manages the networks and email systems in the White House, filed a statement (PDF Page 20), which revealed that no emails were saved between March 1 2003 and May 22, 2003. "Office of Administration is preserving 438 disaster recovery backup tapes that were written to between March 1, 2003 and September 30, 2003. Of those 438 tapes, the earliest date on which data was written ... is May 23, 2003," according to the Bush administration filing.
This time period is perhaps the most historically significant of the entire Bush administration. It includes the run up to the invasion of Iraq, diplomatic jockeying to try and rally United Nations support for war, the possible planning for retaliation against former diplomat Joe Wilson, who was accusing the administration of lying about Iraq weapons of mass destruction claims, the use of harsh interrogations in the so-called "War on Terror", as well as the formation of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) - the ruling body in Iraq after the invasion - and the controversial policy decisions the CPA undertook.
The filing was issued as part of an ongoing lawsuit by two government watchdog groups in an attempt to force the Bush administration to preserve the backup tapes and any email records contained on them.
"We have likely lost for all time a critical piece of our nation's history. This latest filing by the White House is yet more evidence of an administration committed to secrecy and delay at all costs," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and a lead attorney in the lawsuit.
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Laura Bush's Disastrous Diplomacy
By Dan Froomkin
When a country run by a despotic and isolationist regime is laid low by a massive natural disaster, the diplomatic thing to do is to respond with a show of compassion. Not kick 'em when they're down.
More than 22,000 people have died in the staggering devastation caused by this weekend's cyclone in Burma. But when First Lady Laura Bush made her first-ever visit to the White House briefing room yesterday, to talk about what's going on in that country, it was not to deliver a message of goodwill.
Rather than announce the launch of a massive relief effort that could take advantage of a rare diplomatic opening, the first lady instead tossed insults at Burma's leaders, blamed them for the high death toll, and lashed out at their decision to move forward with a constitutional referendum scheduled for this Saturday.
The traditionally issue-averse first lady's concerns about the Burmese junta and its abuses of human rights date back several years, and she's been particularly outspoken since last fall.
But why respond to a catastrophe with such hostility? The awkward timing, as it turns out, may have had something to do with an event entirely unrelated to the cyclone.
"I'm going to leave tomorrow for Crawford, for Jenna's wedding, and I wanted to be able to make a statement about Burma before I left," the first lady told reporters.
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Humans: The Strangest Species
By Robert Roy Britt, LiveScience Managing Editor
Humans are arguably the most bizarre creatures in the animal kingdom. The proof is in the many gross, unnecessary, contradictory and simply inexplicable things we do. And of course we're different in our capacity to ponder all these oddities and sometimes figure a few out.
This romp through the LiveScience archives reveals why we...
Lie, cheat, fall in love, kiss, blush, have sex, die?
Have fingernails, have an appendix, an Adam's apple, curly pubic hairs?
Part our hair, crack our knuckles, get goose bumps, shiver when cold? Blink without noticing, see spots in our eyes, cry when slicing onions?
***
Burp, fart, itch, stink, struggle to find a mate?
Get freckles, get birthmarks, hear ringing in our ears?
Spread urban legends, enjoy hearing voices, see things that aren't there? Join cults, believe in ghosts, fall for placebos, believe in UFOs?
Don't understand consciousness?
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Chinese firms outsourcing to U.S.
States are aggressively trying to lure companies looking to grow. Incentives and a weak dollar are spurring investment.
Henk Hofstra's "Art-Eggcident" in Leeuwarden
Dutch artist Henk Hofstra (who's Blue Road we featured in April of last year) is back with a new environmental art project called 'Art Eggcident' in Leeuwarden, a city in the north of the Netherlands.
Yesterday, several large eggs (each 100 feet wide) were spread on the Zaailand, one of the largest city squares in the Netherlands.
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Harvard Law votes Yes on open access
The Berkman community is tremendously excited by the news, which resonates deeply with the Center's mission and helps set the stage for other academic institutions to establish open access policies. In February, Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences did just that, unanimously passing an open access motion spearheaded by computer science professor and Berkman faculty co-director Stuart Shieber. (In addition, Harvard College Free Culture has launched a free Thesis Repository!) Professor Shieber's work and leadership, along with that of Harvard library director Robert Darnton, paved the way for Berkman's own Terry Fisher and John Palfrey to bring this open access proposal to the Law School.
"That such a renowned law school should support Open Access so resoundingly is a victory for the democratization of knowledge. Far from turning its back to the outside world, the HLS is sharing its intellectual wealth."
- Robert Darnton, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor and Director of the University Library
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FBI Withdraws Unconstitutional National Security Letter After ACLU and EFF Challenge
Gag Order Lifted on Internet Archive, Allowing Founder to Speak Out for First Time
San Francisco - The FBI has withdrawn an unconstitutional national security letter (NSL) issued to the Internet Archive after a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). As the result of a settlement agreement, the FBI withdrew the NSL and agreed to the unsealing of the case, finally allowing the Archive's founder to speak out for the first time about his battle against the record demand.
"The free flow of information is at the heart of every library's work. That's why Congress passed a law limiting the FBI's power to issue NSLs to America's libraries," said Brewster Kahle, founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive. "While it's never easy standing up to the government -- particularly when I was barred from discussing it with anyone -- I knew I had to challenge something that was clearly wrong. I'm grateful that I am able now to talk about what happened to me, so that other libraries can learn how they can fight back from these overreaching demands."
The NSL was served on the Archive -- a digital library recognized by the state of California -- and its attorneys in November of 2007. The letter asked for personal information about one of the Archive's users, including the individual's name, address, and any electronic communication transactional records pertaining to the user. Kahle, who is also a member of EFF's Board of Directors, decided to fight the NSL because it exceeded the FBI's limited authority to issue such demands to libraries.
The Archive responded to the letter by handing over only publicly available documents and simultaneously filing a lawsuit challenging the letter. This lawsuit is the first known challenge to an NSL served on a library since Congress amended the national security letter provision in 2006 to limit the FBI's power to demand records from libraries.
The NSL included a gag order, prohibiting Kahle from discussing the letter and the legal issues it presented with the rest of the Archive's Board of Directors or anyone else except his attorneys, who were also gagged. The gag also prevented the ACLU and EFF from discussing the NSL with members of Congress, even though an ACLU lawyer who represents the Archive recently testified at a congressional hearing about the FBI's misuse of NSLs.
"This is a great victory for the Archive and also the Constitution," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU. "It appears that every time a national security letter recipient has challenged an NSL in court and forced the government to justify it, the government has ultimately withdrawn its demand for records. In the absence of much needed judicial oversight – and with recipients silenced and the public in the dark – there is nothing to stop the FBI from abusing its NSL power."
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Walking Bike
Max Knight design
Here is a bike that i designed for my good friend Yorgo Tloupas at Intersection magazine.
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China. The Art of Penetration
Qin Gang, spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, recently defined Tibetan Buddhist monks as "criminals" while fantasizing the existence of a plot to attack China involving Tibetan monks, therefore claiming that China has the right to defend itself from this imaginary attack. In this way, the roles of victim and executioner are completely reversed.
After this and other similar declarations made recently by the Chinese government, how can we expect them to adopt anything resembling a moderate and conciliatory attitude in their international diplomatic relations?
During the administration of U. S. President Clinton, the Olympic Games were awarded to Beijing. China became a member of the World Trade Organization. We can now say that these attempts at encouraging an opening up of the rigidly closed-off Chinese regime to the rest of the world have failed. The Chinese government has made no positive use of these opportunities to interact and confront their social system with liberal democratic values. The only true change that took place was that the regime has managed to aggressively penetrate the world market without modifying its repressive policies, continuing to totally disrespect human rights.
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