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ScienceMan Successfully Flies With Custom-Built Bird WingsAs happy as this would make me if real, it is apparently a hoax. SecuritySurviving a bad RNGDefence/Police/AggressionBefore attacking Iran, Israel should learn from its 1981 strike on IraqMiami Occupier Tells of Violent RaidPolice state tacticts in Miami.Environment/Energy/WildlifeThere was a large spike in infant deaths in the US northwest in the weeks following the Fukushima disaster.the four northernmost Pacific Northwest cities in the CDC sample Portland, Tacoma, Seattle and Spokane show remarkably significant results a larger infant mortality increase than the original Sherman-Mangano results. During the ten weeks before March 11 those four cities suffered 55 deaths among infants less than one year old. In the ten weeks after Fukushima 78 infants died a 42 per cent increase and one that is statistically significant.GMO FactsBig Nuclear’s cosy relationship with the Obama administration Democrats and Republicans agree on one thing: they’re going to force nuclear power on the public, despite the astronomically high risks, both financial and environmental.Fledgling green industries could be hit as document reveals move to put nuclear power on equal footing with renewable energy55 Congressman Sign a Letter to the FDA Requesting GMO LabelingFinanceTax AIGThe $7 Trillion Question That Haunts BanksAnti-TrustDennis Kucinich jerrymandered out of office.I suspect he will be a good advocate out of office too.Rumor: Yahoo Is About To Fire Its Smartest InnovatorsThe source article mentions a possible transfer to another Microsoft asset, Facebook. The goal of the Microsoft slog is for the target company to be destroyed and for all the employees to have to beg Microsoft for a job. It is apparent that Microsoft has damaged Yahoo and Yahoo may have to fire people, the rest is speculation.PR/AstroTurf/LobbyingOn CNN: From the Left…a Corporate PR StrategistCensorshipA new threat to media freedomsGuernsey is looking to become a hub of another lucrative offshore practice: libel tourism. … anyone, anywhere, who feels that their “image” has been inappropriately reproduced/copied/traduced/pirated – the correct legal terminology is hazy – can then sue through the Guernsey courts for redress. The new laws are being pushed by a “wealth manager”.Lawrence Lessig: One Way Forward (Excerpt)Until the twentieth century—or, more precisely, the rise of broadcasting—all of politics was read-write. The energy of democratic politics inspired by Andrew Jackson and perfected by Martin Van Buren was to get people out of doors—to canvass, to debate, to argue, and (not to romanticize this past too much) to promise the necessary patronage or buy the necessary votes. The twentieth century killed this political read-write culture as well. As campaigns were professionalized, command and control were centralized. The audience was expected to shut up and listen. The worst possible idea was for ordinary supporters to produce their own copy. Campaign material was professional material. The job of the amateur was simply to show up and vote. Yet here again, the twenty-first century is reviving what the twentieth century killed. Police court order DotwrongA judgment from Justice Judith Potter on Friday declared the restraining order “null and void” and having “no legal effect”. The blunder might now lead to the beleaguered internet mogul getting back everything that was stripped away in the surprise dawn raid on his mansion eight weeks ago.Google Defends Hotfile (and Megaupload) in CourtPrivacyThe NSA Is Building the Country’s Biggest Spy Center (Watch What You Say)Romney’s old company, Bain, owns a Chinese company that makes surveillance cameras.For something of very general use, such as pencils or general purpose computers, it is valid for the manufacturer to argue that it can’t control how purchasers use them. That argument is inapplicable for surveillance cameras in China because repression is their most significant use.Private data on British drivers will be stored offshoreThe government has secretly agreed that the “particularly sensitive” personal data of all 43 million drivers in the UK can be contracted offshore to India in a move that will allow the private firm running London’s congestion zone to cut costs and make more money.Civil RightsThe World Water Forum has been designed to help transfer the world’s water resources to the wealthy, and to undermine the human right to water.Around 100 countries are planning universal health care. The US, with its government controlled by business, is not one of them.“If all goes well, most of the world’s population will have access to affordable basic health care in one decade – a true milestone in human history.”Via RMS.The Day ‘Due Process’ Died: Obama, Holder and the End of RightsTSA security theater round upSee also threats against the press for reporting the scanner flaw from people who don’t think pulling down old ladies’ pants is a strip search.London’s Olympic Legacy: a permanent burden of new surveillance systems, repression, and debt.Faculty to Bloomberg: Tell Your Police Chief to GoToday, we along with more than 400 other faculty sent Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City a letter (see below) calling for the resignation of Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly and Deputy Commissioner of Public Information Paul J. Browne.Guest Post: A Doctor on Transvaginal Ultrasounds If I insert ANY object into ANY orifice without informed consent, it is rape. And coercion of any kind negates consent, informed or otherwise.Education Watch‘Occupy Education’ Debates the Gates Foundation (and Wins)I should admit from the start that it wasn’t a fair competition—something akin to the Varsity taking on the JV team; in our corner we had people who have attended public schools, taught in public schools, and are parents of kids in public schools; all they had were policy analysts and public relations specialists.Tanya McDowell faces 5 years in prison for “stealing” access to a better public school.The War on Teachers: Why Is the Public Watching It Happen?Gates Foundation, “Before you can fund the charter school, you have to fund an advocacy organization that can create a climate for the charter school to exist”It looks like it’s going to be a Gates kind of weekend. We are, in the state of Washington, once again having the battle over charter schools. The good people in our state have voted it down three times but it has come up again due to the “let’s go around the voters” shenanigans of a former Republican turned Democratic Senator from the upscale suburbs of Bellevue … ALEC Exposed in WisconsinWisconsin Representative Mark Pocan explains in a brilliant speech how ALEC is working to eliminate public education in the state of Wisconsin … “This is part of dismantling public education in Wisconsin, and Florida, and Ohio, and every single state it’s introduced in,” Pocan explained. “This bill doesn’t come from this body, this bill is an identical bill that’s been introduced brought by special interests by ALEC and introduced state by state by state.”Gov.Jindal has a death wish agenda for K-12 education in LouisianaThings are bad everywhere but nowhere is it worse than in Louisiana, where Gov. Bobby Jindal and State Superintendent John White threaten to annihilate the state’s public schools with budget cuts, vouchers, the expansion of virtual charters, the erosion of teacher rights, and other forms of noxious corporate reform.Public assests are handed over to private interests that fail to provide passing education.Maryland students protesting school conditions met with attack dogsTeaching children the way police states work.ACLU letter & Moratorium on Charter Schools needed in Delaware!The ACLU cites many reasons for their opposition, but says NCS contributes to “re-segregation” of public education, and that its lack of a free and reduced lunch program breaks federal and state laws.California charter school aims to shut down successful public schoolour small community is faced with the unthinkable – we may be forced to close a high-performing public school to hand that school lock, stock and barrel over to a charter school. Shocking, isn’t it? How could this happen? Charter school law was originally intended to help children who are underserved and falling through the cracks of traditional education systems. Unfortunately, across the country there are more and more charter schools popping up which are taking advantage of loopholes to create pseudo-private schools with questionable admissions practices, high “suggested donation” requirements from parents and low representation of truly underprivileged children.Attempted coup by ConnCAN and TFA in Bridgeport: a cautionary taleVery often the corporate reformers appear to view elected school boards as getting in the way of their plans to privatize public education. … recently, in Connecticut, the hedge-fund backed, pro-charter lobby group ConnCAN conspired with Teach For America and the mayor of Bridgeport, along with the state’s Governor and the appointed Chair of the State Board of Education, who is also the on the advisory board of ConnCan, to oust Bridgeport’s elected school board. Their actions have now been overturned by the courts. Bill Gates gets dishonorable mention for his influence on New York City schools, “experiments on mostly poor and minority school kids,” by political corruption.Parents Across America hails defeat of Florida’s Parent Trigger billParents, Students: Noble Street Profiting from Predatory Discipline CodeWith Mayor Emanuel expanding the Noble Street Charter Network as a model for public education throughout Chicago, community groups today released original data on the profits that the growing charter network is making from disciplinary fines imposed on low-income families. … Noble’s discipline system charges students $5 for minor behavior such as chewing gum, missing a button on their school uniform, or not making eye contact with their teacher, and up to $280 for required behavior classes. 90% of Noble students are low-income, yet if they can’t pay all fines, they are made to repeat the entire school year or prevented from graduating. … Noble has collected $386,745 from detention fines and behavior classes over the past three years. As the charter network has expanded, its annual revenue from these fines has grown – last school year, Noble made $188,647 from its discipline code.NOLA charter schools: favoritism with community & parents shut outKarran Harper Royal, long time parent advocate and one of the founding members of Parents Across America – New Orleans, reports from the front lines of school privatization, where already 75 percent of the public schools have been converted to charters, and possibly all the remaining public schools run by the Recovery School District will be charters within two years: “[After Katrina] we were promised that these schools would be community-driven schools and we did not have to charter them. … Internet/Net NeutralityITU control of the Internet would exclude civil society.The US control of the Internet leads to injustices such as domain name seizures, but that doesn’t mean the ITU would be better. Russia and China surely don’t care about defending netizens from the US government and its masters in Hollywood. Obama and the US Congress would love to let the ITU adopt regulations comparable to SOPA, since then they could say, “We have no choice: the ITU has forced it on us.”ISPs Selling Out Customers, Pushing Backdoor SOPAPlease sign this to demonstrate popular oposition. Media owned ISPs will ignore it but the demonstraion will make effective regulation more likely. Petition for US citizens: Stop Verizon’s ShenanigansVerizon’s proposed deal with Comcast, Time Warner Cable and other cable companies would destroy competition in the broadband market and stick Americans with higher bills. This transaction will have a dramatic impact on the affordability and accessibility of online communications. Please reject this deal, and urge the Federal Communications Commission and the Justice Department to do the same.People should also petition their local governments to build public networks. Media companies are not going to change and need to be replaced.Intellectual MonopoliesBreaking free of deadly and cruel patents.India granted a compulsory patent license for cheap manufacturing of an anti-cancer drug. The WTO rules permit compulsory licenses, but the US has persistently pressured poor countries to let people die rather than exercise that option.Mayo Collaborative Services v. Prometheus – Mayo Prevails – Judgment as Text ~pj – UpdatedCopyrightsHow Publishers Fail AuthorsAn endless stream of headaches for people who want to buy books.European Parlement Blocks Copyright Reform with 113% TurnoutGlyn Moody points at the complaint from the Orphan Works rapporteur, Lidia Geringer de Oedenberg, about this. There was not only the 12-to-14 vote on Compromise 20 as mentioned, but also a 13-to-12 vote on amendment 71 and a 13-to-11 vote (still with 23 maximum possible votes) on amendment 32. At least three cases of “temporary democratic surplus”, for which the rapporteur requests clarification. Also, the rapporteur refers to these amendments as crucial.Belgian rightsholders group wants to charge libraries for READING BOOKS TO KIDS Share in other sites/networks: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. Permalink Send this to a friend

● 03.21.12

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