"Advertising is the rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket." George Orwell
By George Sand
(Reprinted with author’s permission from Copblock.org)
There are countless laws. Literally.
Maybe not in the mathematical sense – it is technically possible to count the laws in existence, but based on a colloquial and general use of the term “countless” it is not really feasible for someone to count every law. Just this year, 40,000 laws were passed and are set to go into effect. On the other hand, we rarely hear news about laws being repealed.
As anybody who follows US news knows by now, the recent string of murders of homeless people in LA was apparently committed by an Iraq War veteran, Itzcoatl Ocampo. We have gotten so accustomed to reading about vets returning only to commit violent crimes at home that we’re beginning to become numb to the reality that there is an increasing number of trained killers on our streets, doing what they were trained to do.
Broadly speaking, there are two possible reasons for this. Either the military is recruiting unstable people, or people are becoming unstable during or after serving in the military as a result of their military service. In either case, the military does hold responsibility.
It is also telling that at least one source has describe the latest victim, John Berry, as a vet himself, a homeless one at that. How sad. A psychotic, murderous vet killing a homeless one. How can the US military possibly escape responsibility?
Vets are disproportionately homeless and suffering from mental illness of one sort or another. I suspect this is largely tied to war; I doubt that vets that didn’t experience war suffer the same degree of problems.
The US military is to blame on both fronts. They are recruiting and training people who they shouldn’t, and they aren’t taking care of vets after they leave service. Shame.
John Berry, 64, is warned on Jan. 5 by Anaheim Police Sgt. Mike Lynch about the serial killer preying on homeless men in Orange County. On Friday, Berry himself was killed. (Allen J. Schaben, Los Angeles Times / January 6, 2012)
Nothing to see here folks, just a man with a bomb. It’s unclear why Yahoo put the headline in the past tense. The guy still is an explosives expert trained by the Army even if he just got fired.
Trey Scott Atwater
SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) – A man arrested on New Years Eve at a Texas airport with explosives is an Army-trained demolitions expert and member of the elite Green Berets who served in Afghanistan and is stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, military officials said on Monday.
It continues until this absurdity:
“Officials declined to speculate on the reason Atwater had the explosives, which city officials said were in “military grade explosives wrapping” in his bag.”
“At no time was there any danger to the people at Midland International Airport or the people of Midland Texas,” Mark Morgan, Special Agent in Charge of the El Paso office of the FBI said in a statement.
NOTE: This was one of the rare times in four years that Yahoo actually named a source.
WASHINGTON – President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law today. The statute contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision. While President Obama issued a signing statement saying he had “serious reservations” about the provisions, the statement only applies to how his administration would use the authorities granted by the NDAA, and would not affect how the law is interpreted by subsequent administrations. The White House had threatened to veto an earlier version of the NDAA, but reversed course shortly before Congress voted on the final bill.
Investigators have discovered that the remains of at least 274 U.S. military personnel that died in battle were dumped into a landfill by the Dover AFB Mortuary between 2004 and 2008.
After three whistle blowers, James Parsons, Mary Ellen Spera and William Zwicharowski, sounded the alarm, they were fired but have since regained their jobs after an investigation by the inspector general found their allegations were true and that they are protected under the law.
Another 1,762 pieces of remains were also dumped at the same landfill and no DNA testing was done to them, and investigators are now trying to figure out how many more service-members were thrown away.
One morning, as my wife’s Buddhist group was engaged in its weekly food distribution to the houseless residents of north Sacramento, I decided to interview a few of those who were willing to talk. I didn’t have much luck until Darryl Jefferson rode by on a bike and asked him if he’d considered telling a little about his world.
Please listen to what Darryl has to say about homelessness and living on the street:
Repeatedly, police and their apologists insist that police are held accountable regularly, and in fact are held to a “higher” standard than ordinary people. This simply isn’t the case, according to the law (and don’t police and their supporters care about the law?) Below are several provisions of the California Government Code, which are relevant to the police state, governmental lack of accountability, and why government services in this area are so poor. Similar provisions likely exist in other jurisdictions, and are supported by Supreme Court case law.
Let’s start with the police -
Educate yourself about SOPA if for no other reason than to appreciate what you’re about to lose.
http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/dont-break-internet
That should be enough to get you started. This law will be the biggest infringement on freedom of speech and freedom in general since the Patriot Act, and very few people are aware of it. It’s being slipped into, or slipped by, our reality.
(2 minutes, 35 seconds into video)
I first became aware of Cass Sunstein’s ideas for controlling conspiracy theories after seeing several ads for a web site called America.gov run by the State Department. It’s a complex, well-funded site with more avenues than I’ve cared to examine, but what caught my attention was the section under International Relations: Peace and Security called “Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation” with the astounding caption: “Conspiracy theories exist in the realm of myth, where imaginations run wild, fears trump facts and evidence is ignored.”
The Concert For Banglesdesh, Madison Square Garden, 1971
Recall the cop who casually hosed students with pepper spray on the UC Davis campus?
UCD Police Lieutenant John Pike
As my friend Bob pointed out, this cop has become a meme! Click on this link: http://peppersprayingcop.tumblr.com/ THEN Google “pepper spraying cop” and you’ll see many more art pieces like this. It’s all over the web!
The Truth is not Enough: How to overcome emotional barriers to 9/11 truth
by Ken Jenkins
9/11 Activist and Video Producer
Pioneering 9/11 activist and video producer Ken Jenkins has a degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University, and has done extensive postgraduate study in psychology.
He has worked as a video professional for over 40 years, including 7 years at Hewlett-Packard in their state-of-the-art broadcast video facility HPTV.
Ken completed awakening to 9/11 truth by November of 2001 and started presenting his PowerPoint and video productions on 9/11 truth in 2002. He has since spoken at six international 9/11 conferences and at numerous other 9/11 events and on many radio programs. His first video release, Perspective on 9/11 was originally made for the early live presentations. He has since produced dozens of 9/11 DVDs – nine with leading 9/11 Truth author David Ray Griffin, including 9/11–The Myth and the Reality. More recently he co-produced, directed and edited architect Richard Gage’s 9/11: Blueprint for Truth and SF Press Conference DVDs for AE911Truth.
Ken is also a founder of 9/11TV.org, which has documented speakers from many 9/11 conferences and events. The resulting DVDs, as well as those produced by others, are distributed in part through cable public access channels nationwide. He also helped co-found one of the first 9/11 local groups, The Northern California 9/11 Truth Alliance, and co-produced many events with them, including, in March of 2004, the first major 9/11 conference, the San Francisco International Inquiry into 9/11.
He authored an article featured in Global Outlook titled “The Truth is not Enough: How to overcome emotional barriers to 9/11 truth.”
Ken also designed, with help, the popular 11 Remarkable Facts About 9/11 card.
He is currently working with Senator Mike Gravel on the Citizens’ 9/11 Commission Campaign. The goal is to create an independent, citizen based investigation, through state ballot initiatives.
By revealing the “false flag” nature of the 9/11 attacks, it is Ken’s intention to not only help end the current bogus “war on terror” but to also help open the way to ending war as a political option on this planet.
Police and their supporters always talk about how policing is such a difficult and dangerous job. As with most things related to police, this attitude is derived from general misconception, ignorance, and a tendency of people to arbitrarily worship those in fancy uniforms. Year after year, policing fails to make the top ten list of most dangerous professions. The dangers they face on the job consistently fall below that of pilots, loggers, sanitation workers, farmers, fishers, etc.
George Sand received her B.A. from UCLA and her J.D. from the University of San Diego School of Law. She enjoys beer, jogging, the beach and music in her spare time. Contact the author at george.sand@copblock.org
The TSA is swillin’ lately.
What I’d like to know is who are the experts mentioned below.
Two elderly women object to security search at JFK
NEW YORK (AP) — With age come such things as catheters, colostomy bags and adult diapers. Now add another indignity to getting old — having to drop your pants and show these things to a complete stranger.
Two women in their 80s put the Transportation Security Administration on the defensive this week by going public about their embarrassment during screenings in a private room at Kennedy Airport. One claimed she was forced to lower her pants and underwear in front of an agent so that her back brace could be inspected. Another said agents made her pull down her waistband to show her colostomy bag.
While not confirming some of the details, the TSA said a preliminary review shows officers followed the agency’s procedures in both cases. But experts said the potential for such searches will increase as the U.S. population ages and receives prosthetics and other medical devices, some of which cannot go through screening machines. (Emphasis added)
by George Sand
I don’t understand American admiration of the lone man who stood in the path of a tank in the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 – that is, unless you are a police-hating American. If you are an American who hates, dislikes, or mistrusts police or outright advocates the abolition of government police, then certainly I can understand why the famous image of a lone man standing against uniformed authority would be an inspirational one.
I saw this tour in Columbus, Ohio in 1979. Neil looked just as he does in this video; he was even dressed the same. His music is always timely, which makes it timeless. I suppose ‘always timely’ is an oxymoron, or is it? Isn’t a truth always timely?
I remember the freaky hooded characters from the concert. You see them in Cortez The Killer.
Child homelessness rises 33% in 3 years? Lazy little runts! If it weren’t for those pesky child labor laws, they could be out making an honest buck for a good healthy 12-hour day’s work.
What’s wrong with American children these days? Everybody wants a handout, a free meal, a warm bed. I say we line ‘em up and shoot ‘em all, or at least send them to labor camps where they’ll learn a little discipline.
Report: Child homelessness up 33% in 3 years
By Marisol Bello, USA TODAY
One in 45 children in the USA — 1.6 million children — were living on the street, in homeless shelters or motels, or doubled up with other families last year, according to the National Center on Family Homelessness.
The numbers represent a 33% increase from 2007, when there were 1.2 million homeless children, according to a report the center is releasing Tuesday.
Copblock posted a quote by Becky Akers on the Facebook page recently -
”We all need to recognize cops are the enemy. They’re not just the enemy of the black guy. They’re not just the enemy of Miguel who came across the border without a bureaucrats permission first. They are our enemy too, they will pick on us as well. When we allow government to prey on societies least liked memebers, it’s only a matter of time before they prey on us too” – Becky Akers
In response, one reader replied, “They are your neighbors and the person your standing in line with at the grocery store. Educate yourself and get to know them and we can all be on the same page. Have you ever taken a ride along with your local PD? Have you ever went to a pancake breakfast and learned what they talk about? Do you even know one personally? Didn’t think so. You are depending on a story or some third party blurb to make drastic decisions about your viewpoints are without taking the time to form your own opinions with real data imo. I have some of those things planned in the near future to learn about them. I don’t know enough yet to form a valid firm opinion but plan on learning and talking with them.”
Amazon.com and MTurk discriminate against US citizens.
MTurk, or Amazon Mechanical Turk, is a service run by Amazon.com that partners people with small jobs needing done with other people capable of doing those jobs. From the MTurk website:
What is Amazon Mechanical Turk?
Amazon Mechanical Turk is a marketplace for work that requires human intelligence. The Mechanical Turk service gives businesses access to a diverse, on-demand, scalable workforce and gives Workers a selection of thousands of tasks to complete whenever it’s convenient.
Amazon Mechanical Turk is based on the idea that there are still many things that human beings can do much more effectively than computers, such as identifying objects in a photo or video, performing data de-duplication, transcribing audio recordings, or researching data details. Traditionally, tasks like this have been accomplished by hiring a large temporary workforce (which is time consuming, expensive, and difficult to scale) or have gone undone.
What is a HIT?
A Human Intelligence Task, or HIT, is a question that needs an answer. A HIT represents a single, self-contained task that a Worker can work on, submit an answer, and collect a reward for completing.
It’s a great concept and the site looked interesting, so I created an account and thought I was on my way. But then I learned that US citizens living outside the US were not allowed to participate in MTurk. And yet, non-US citizens residing outside the US are eligible. In short, certain Americans are not allowed to participate in MTurk while all foreigners are allowed to. This made no sense to me and so I wrote to Amazon requesting clarification. Below is our correspondence.
My initial message was clearly written in an irritated state. After all, I had just spent a significant amount of time completing the sign up process, including giving them all sorts of personal information:
I read on your FAQs page that “Unfortunately, US citizens living outside the United States are not allowed to work on Mechanical Turk.”
Why not? This appears illegal to me. I pay US taxes, I’m required to file every year regardless of where I live, and I’m a citizen, for Pete’s sake.
Please explain your policies. What is the logic? I have often ordered items from Amazon to be shipped overseas. Perhaps I should cancel my Amazon account and take my business elsewhere?
You’re clearly happy to take my money when I’m living overseas. This is hypocritical nonsense. Please explain.
Their first response:
Hello,
You are correct, that is our policy with Mechanical Turk. We strive to offer fast and efficient customer service, in this case I will need to further investigate this matter. We will be contacting you within the next 3-4 business days with more information regarding this policy.
Thank you for your recent inquiry. Did I solve your problem?
A couple of days later I received this message:
Hello,
I was able to get an answer back about US citzens who live abroad doing MTurk. Unfortunately the answer was still consistent with what originally given to you. Thank you for your interest and patience in this matter.
Thank you for your recent inquiry. Did I solve your problem?…
My response:
Hello *****,
Actually, I was asking why Americans living abroad can’t use MTurk.
I find it interesting that foreigners are allowed to use MTurk while Americans are not. This sounds like a public relations nightmare for you if someone were to make an issue of it.
So, again, can you please tell me WHY this policy exists?
Thanking you kindly,
My last message was sent Dec. 3, and I have not heard back from MTurk or Amazon.
US citizens living abroad are treated unfairly in many ways by the US Government and many companies, and the reasons are usually tax related, at least as far as I can tell. But I’m not sure if that’s the case in this instance because Amazon.com and MTurk won’t tell me why they discriminate against US citizens.
I haven’t lived in the US for over ten years, and yet I still have to file a US tax return every year. That is taxation without representation. Didn’t taxation without representation have something to do with the American Revolution?
Here’s another example. While living abroad, I was looking into non-US banks in which I could put a couple of thousand dollars and get a nice return on. Specifically, I was looking at banks in Singapore. I was also looking at some sort of money fund in Europe. This was a number of years ago. In all cases, I learned that literally everyone in the world is eligible to use these services except US citizens (and green card holders, who are second-class citizens). This was not the choice of the financial services; it was a US law. And now I have Amazon telling me that everyone in the world can use MTurk except US citizens living abroad.
So, at least economically, it is becoming apparent to me that US citizens are among the least free people in the world.
So, Amazon.com, I won’t be buying anything from you anymore. And MTurk, you should be ashamed. I think Americans should be aware of how you favor giving work to foreigners over US citizens.
Here’s a screenshot from the MTurk FAQ page (click to expand):
The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, will likely become law in the near future, and nobody seems to notice. SOPA is to the Internet what the Patriot Act is to the US Constitution.
If SOPA passes, it could severely cripple the free flow of information on the Internet. From the SOPA page on Wikipedia, “The bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of
enabling or facilitating copyright infringement.”
SOPA will allow not only the government but also copyright holders to see court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. What the hell does that mean? One could argue that literally every website enables or facilitates copyright infringement. Simply having a link to a Youtube video would make one vulnerable. Quoting a news story would make one vulnerable. It basically gives complete control over most any meaningful Internet activity over to the government.
Oh, people will still be able to Twitter the size of their morning shit, but they won’t be able to share or discuss a news story. This is bad bad bad. That’s bad times three. Triple bad.
Download SOPA: H.R.3261 – Stop Online Piracy Act; House Judiciary Committee; October 26, 2011
Stop Online Piracy Act – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), also known as H.R.3261, is a bill that was introduced in the United States House of Representatives on October 26, 2011, by Representative Lamar Smith (R-TX) and a bipartisan group of 12 initial co-sponsors. The bill expands the ability of U.S. law enforcement and copyright holders to fight online trafficking in copyrighted intellectual property and counterfeit goods.[2] Now before the House Judiciary Committee, it builds on the similar PRO-IP Act of 2008 and the corresponding Senate bill, the Protect IP Act.[3]
The bill would allow the U.S. Department of Justice, as well as copyright holders, to seek court orders against websites accused of enabling or facilitating copyright infringement. Depending on who requests the court orders, the actions could include barring online advertising networks and payment facilitators such as PayPal from doing business with the infringing website, barring search engines from linking to such sites, and requiring Internet service providers to block access to such sites. The bill would make unauthorized streaming of copyrighted content a felony. The bill also gives immunity to Internet services that voluntarily take action against websites dedicated to infringement, while making liable for damages any copyright holder who knowingly misrepresents that a website is dedicated to infringement.[4]
President Barack Obama faced a civil liberties backlash today after he signed a law that will allow terror suspects to be held indefinitely- even raising the prospects of U.S. citizens being sent to Guantanamo Bay.
The controversial move, revealed last night, effectively extends the laws of the battlefield to American soil. The move shows a clear hardening of Mr Obama’s anti-terror policies, and a major shift from the liberal stance that helped him sweep into power three years ago. After campaigning heavily on the need to close the controversial terrorist detention base at Guantanamo Bay, he failed to deliver when met with legal obstacles.
Now, showing that he has truly moved to the opposite end of the spectrum, he is endorsing the tools and civil powers that he once rallied against. “It’s something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration,” said Human Rights Watch spokesman Tom Malinowski. “It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent,” Mr Malinowski continued.
Considering he is now in the midst of running for re-election, comparisons between Mr Obama and Mr Bush are certainly not something the President wants going into the 2012 race. Civil rights groups are outraged after he dropped the threat of a veto Wednesday, meaning the bill will become a law and implement several controversial provisions, like the ability to keep all terror suspects imprisoned.
Read more here
Are you an intellectual zombie?
Annual flu shots are “medicines for the mindless.” Even according to the medical scientists who are pro-vaccine, flu shots simply don’t work on 99 out of 100 people. So if you find yourself standing in line at the pharmacy waiting to get a flu shot, think to yourself, “Whoa! I might be a zombie!”
Happy Winter Solstice Everybody,
The winter solstice being Dec. 22, that is. The next winter solstice will be in 20121221, which is roughly the last day of the Mayan Calendar.
As one of my passions is gardening, I take great interest in solstices and equinoxes. They have immediate, direct, and fundamental influences on plant activity, and therefore they must have the same on life in general. They are a foundation of our existence, in every sense of the word, foundation that is. As of December 23, days in the northern hemisphere will start getting longer, while in the southern hemisphere they will start getting shorter. This will cause a reaction in all of life on this planet.
For example, plants that are not frozen solid in earth will start to go into production. Farther north, when the earth does thaw and things start sprouting, the increasing number of light hours will force them into a hyper-growth period.
Once the spring equinox passes and daylight starts getting shorter in the northern hemisphere, this will signal some plants to start producing seeds.
Here in the tropics things are a little messier. Many plants here starting growing now, right during or just before the winter solstice. They take advantage of the early increase in sunlight hours for their growth spurts because the summer is just too darned nasty, too hot. They grow and go to seed before they get fried. This is the growing season in much of the northern equatorial region.
The winter solstice is very, very special. It is far more essential to our existence than Christmas, Chinese New Year, or any of the other silly commercial holidays that have hijacked this essential period of seasonal change. We must take notice; we must either be aware of how to use this source of energy or die a Walfart death.
This is a special day, and it can’t be bought or sold or owned or acquired or granted or given or protected. It can, however, go unnoticed by the stupid, ignorant, and misguided.
In addition to the horrible title of this article, the following use of the passive is also interesting.
Occupy has been likened to the conservative Tea Party movement, which emerged in 2009 and helped elect dozens of Republicans.
Maybe somebody did compare the Occupy movement to the Tea Party movement, and maybe they didn’t; regardless, this story has with their, at best, sloppy and lazy use of the passive established that link. A good journalist would have cited sources of those comparisons. Did Laird Harrison and Michelle Nichols just pull this Occupy/Tea Party connection out of each other’s asses? Or, more likely, are they simply assuming that lazy, passive consumers of their dribble will digest this statement as fact, a fact that has been created by “It”.
At what point did “It” become so powerful? It is even more powerful than the all-knowing, all-seeing unnamed spokesperson, official wishing to remain anonymous, and unnamed source. “It” makes sense because it’s a shorter word, saving on data input. It is easier to read and requires less cognition to process. It is far less personal than them or they. I like it.
In fact, I’m lovin’ it.
This new virus preying on your on-line banking is indeed serious and worth reporting, but this story by MSNBC is well, shit. How much more effort would it have taken them to inform consumers (of their news) that this virus exclusively targets Windows machines?
At one point the article states, “While Klein is worried about the “post transaction” attack, he said consumers who have vulnerable Web browsers are bound to be victims of one fraudster or another,” but then doesn’t go on to define vulnerable Web browsers. Could this possible be because the most vulnerable web browser is Microsoft’s IE, running on Windows?
So the normal (i.e., non-techie) reader is left with a feeling of helplessness.
New virus raids your bank account – but you won’t notice
The best way to protect yourself from an online financial scam is to diligently check your bank accounts. At least, until now.
Israeli-based Security firm Trusteer has found an elaborate new computer virus that not only helps fraudsters steal money from bank accounts — it also covers its tracks.
Think of a crime plot involving a spy who plans to break into a high-security building and begins by swapping out security camera video so guards don’t notice anything is amiss. Known as a surveillance camera hack, the technique has been used in dozens of movies.
A new version of the widely prevalent SpyEye Trojan horse works much the same way, only it swaps out banking Web pages rather than video, preventing account holders from noticing that their money is gone.
The Trojan horse employs a powerful two-step process to commit the electronic crime. First, the virus lies in wait until a customer with an infected computer visits an online banking site, steals their login credentials and tricks the victim into divulging additional personal information such as debit card information. Then, after the stolen card number is used for a fraudulent purchase, the virus intercepts any further visits to the victim’s banking site and scrubs transaction records clean of any fraud. That prevents — or at least delays — consumers from discovering fraud and reporting it to the bank, buying the fraudster critical extra time to complete the crime.
Trusteer calls it a “post transaction” attack, because much of the virus’ effectiveness is attributable to its ability to control what victims see after fraudulent transactions occur. Amit Klein, chief technology officer for Trusteer, said he believes criminals have used the technique for a few months, and it has infected real consumers.
“I predict that the use of post transaction attack technology will significantly increase as it enables criminals to maximize the amount of fraud they can commit using their initial investment in malware toolkits and infection mechanisms,” Klein said.
The new SpyEye came to Trusteer’s attention when a large retail bank in the United States spotted it and shared with the firm, he said.
‘A very scary tactic’
The virus’ evidence-covering techniques are elaborate. First, it keeps track of all fraud committed by the criminal, and makes sure to remove those line items from online transaction lists. It also edits balance amounts to prevent consumers from getting suspicious.“This is a very scary tactic,” said Avivah Litan, a financial fraud analyst at consulting firm Gartner. “Everybody thinks all they have to do is check their transactions and their balances. That’s not true anymore.”
