Buffy

Great story on NPR about an Iraq war reporter who watched Buffy to help her deal with the stress of being in a war zone.

Sen. Edward Kennedy has malignant brain tumor - Yahoo! News

Sen. Edward Kennedy has malignant brain tumor - Yahoo! News: "BOSTON - A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics' most enduring figures. 'He remains in good spirits and full of energy,' the doctors for the 76-year-old Massachusetts Democrat said in a statement."

Paranoia isn't always paranoia, sometimes they really are watching you

Daily Kos: Police State 2.0: It's Here: "Klein says that the latest unrest in Tibet was a test for the ever-expanding system, called the 'Golden Shield.' And the oppressive infrastructure earned at least an A-. Dissident cell phones were jammed. Information favorable to the protestors was blocked on the Internet. Photos of the participants, especially the leaders, were rapidly disseminated on 'Most Wanted' posters on the Internet and the protests were 'spun' through Chinese media to make the Tibetans look like violent thugs.

While some in the West were protesting the crackdown on dissent, companies like Yahoo, Google, Cisco and a mysterious company called L-1 Identity Solutions have been cooperating with the Chinese government and hoping to profit greatly from helping construct Police State 2.0. Yahoo came under mild Congressional criticism in 2006 for turning over email data belonging to dissidents who had (unwisely) used their free email service. Google custom tailors searches in China to censor out results offensive to the government. Cisco provides the routers for the Great Firewall of China that not only blocks out websites like the BBC but also allows deep packet surveillance on Chinese surfers.

And L-1 may be the lynchpin of the whole system. Some say their facial recognition sofware is the best in the world. Despite American laws prohibiting the export of technology that could aid the Chinese govenment in oppressing its citizens, L-1 is stealthily working with Chinese companies to compete for the contract to make the facial recognition software that will tie China's rapdily growing high resolution camera phalanx into a integrated system that can identify everyone on the street at any time and tie their face to their national ID and the vast amount of data kept there.

Save your money

Calculated Risk: "There seems to be sentiment developing that the U.S. has weathered the worst of the current cyclical economic storm and blue skies are ahead. We disagree. Any blue skies you see are likely to be short lived. The economy is in the relative calm of the eye of the business-cycle hurricane. The mortgage credit problems are not over. And credit problems in other sectors are just beginning as the housing recession spreads to the rest of the economy."

I have been somewhat obsessed with financial news the past couple of years. As a result I regularly read Businessweek, Financial Times, WSJ, NYTimes, Economist (although I really hate them) etc. I also read several economic blogs, several who are very good at taking hard to understand finance talk and break it down into understandable scenarios.

And I am officially terrified of the coming storm.

I wish I had more money in the bank. I wish I believed that what I do for a job was actually useful and necessary and thus harder to layoff. I wish I knew how to grow food or even cook from ingredients, because I think this is a new era. I suspected that they screwed the pooch.

Now I think I begin to grasp the sheer amount of money that was lost and understand that a lot of that money was people's retirement, government's savings and generally speaking the bedrock of the world financial system as we don't understand it, and it's gone. It's really, really gone. Never to return.

And people get angry when their money is gone and government's sure as fuck get angry when their money is gone and just for fun we have had an asshole of president who has been handing out the treasury to his cronies for eight years and he will get to waltz off into the Texas sunset while we idiots think hiring Barack Obama will matter. It won't matter, because they stole the country and a lot of the rest of the world's money and they and us are going to be pissed and there may not be a way out of this. Just saying.

Your not Paranoid

Media Matters - Military analysts named in Times exposé appeared or were quoted more than 4,500 times on broadcast nets, cables, NPR: "Military analysts named in Times exposé appeared or were quoted more than 4,500 times on broadcast nets, cables, NPR

Summary: A New York Times article detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, reporting that 'the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform' media military analysts 'into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.' A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article -- many identified as having ties to the defense industry -- collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR."

Thanks Ann!

Indian village proud after double "honor killing" - Yahoo! News

Indian village proud after double "honor killing" - Yahoo! News:
"THE POWER OF UPPER CASTE MEN

The relatively prosperous northern state of Haryana is one of India's most conservative when it comes to caste, marriage and the role of women. Deeply patriarchal, caste purity is paramount and marriages are arranged to sustain the status quo.

Men and women are still murdered across the villages of northern India for daring to marry outside their caste, but in Haryana the practice is widespread, and widely supported.

Here, women veil their faces with scarves in public. The illegal abortion of female fetuses is common, the ratio of women to men in Haryana just 861 to 1,000, the lowest in the country.

Anyone who transgresses social codes, by marrying across caste boundaries or within the same village, is liable to meet the same fate as Sunita and Jasbir.

Many such murders are never reported, hardly any result in prosecution, says Professor Javeed Alam, chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research."

Just interesting

He was a carefree Italian with a recent law degree from a Roman university. She was “a totally Virginia girl,” as she puts it, raised across the road from George Washington’s home. Their romance, sparked by a 2006 meeting in a supermarket in Rome, soon brought the Italian, Domenico Salerno, on frequent visits to Alexandria, Va., where he was welcomed like a favorite son by the parents and neighbors of his girlfriend, Caitlin Cooper.

But on April 29, when Mr. Salerno, 35, presented his passport at Washington Dulles International Airport, a Customs and Border Protection agent refused to let him into the United States. And after hours of questioning, agents would not let him travel back to Rome, either; over his protests in fractured English, he said, they insisted that he had expressed a fear of returning to Italy and had asked for asylum.

Ms. Cooper, 23, who had promised to show her boyfriend another side of her country on this visit — meaning Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon — eventually learned that he had been sent in shackles to a rural Virginia jail. And there he remained for more than 10 days, locked up without charges or legal recourse while Ms. Cooper, her parents and their well-connected neighbors tried everything to get him out.

and also...

"I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school," the now 24-year-old told AFP.

"I was 'filet mignon' for recruiters. They started phoning me when I was in 10th grade," or around 16 years old, he added.

Chiroux joined the US army straight out of high school nearly six years ago, and worked his way up from private to sergeant.

He served in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and was due to be deployed next month in Iraq.

On Thursday, he refused to go, saying he considers Iraq an illegal war.

The Corporation as Sociopath

Multinationals make billions in profit out of growing global food crisis - Green Living, Environment - The Independent: "Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.

The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor – who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food – into hunger and destitution."

Cargill's net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030bn over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world's largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m.

Similarly, the Mosaic Company, one of the world's largest fertiliser companies, saw its income for the three months ending 29 February rise more than 12-fold, from $42.2m to $520.8m, on the back of a shortage of fertiliser. The prices of some kinds of fertiliser have more than tripled over the past year as demand has outstripped supply. As a result, plans to increase harvests in developing countries have been hit hard.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation reports that 37 developing countries are in urgent need of food. And food riots are breaking out across the globe from Bangladesh to Burkina Faso, from China to Cameroon, and from Uzbekistan to the United Arab Emirates.

Oh this isn't going to make anyone happy

Iran dumps U.S. dollar for oil trades - CNN.com: "TEHRAN, Iran (AP) -- Iran, OPEC's second-largest producer, has stopped conducting oil transactions in U.S. dollars, a top Oil Ministry official said Wednesday, in a concerted attempt to reduce reliance on Washington at a time of tension over Tehran's nuclear program and suspected involvement in Iraq."

It's my birthday

so I woke up and danced it out to Prince's Let's Go Crazy. An awesome way to start the day if I do say so myslef!

Violence is never the answer....

and yet sometimes.....

NORRISTOWN, Pa. - A woman pleaded guilty Friday to third-degree murder for killing her bigamist husband just hours before he was to leave for Morocco to visit his second wife.

Myra Morton, 48, was upset about the new marriage and her husband's plans to have children with the younger woman, authorities have said. She shot her 47-year-old husband, Jereleigh Morton, twice in the head in August while he slept, and initially blamed an intruder.

of fer the love of Jesus...or not

JERUSALEM - Dozens of Greek and Armenian priests and worshippers exchanged blows at one of Christianity's holiest shrines on Orthodox Palm Sunday, and used palm fronds to pummel police who tried to break up the brawl.

Sometimes the jokes just write themselves...

Seriously?

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The U.S. government paid more than $1.7 million in defense contracts over the last decade to companies owned by leaders of Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect, with tens of thousands allegedly winding its way back to Jeffs and his church.

The Pentagon had contracts with three companies with ties to Warren Jeffs' polygamous sect.

In fact, some of the deals were made after Jeffs was named to the FBI's "Most-Wanted List" and remained in place while he was on the run.

CNN has learned that between 1998 and 2007, the United States Air Force and Defense Logistics Agency purchased more than $1.7 million worth of airplane parts from three companies owned by members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which practices polygamy.

Those companies are Utah Tool and Die, Western Precision and NewEra Manufacturing. Today, the companies all operate under the name NewEra Manufacturing, a company based in Las Vegas, Nevada, that says it supplies precision components "for the aerospace, military, medical, recreational and other commercial entities."

"It was my understanding that Western Precision was paying roughly $50,000 a week into the coffers of the church," former sect member Richard Holm said. "It would have been close to $200,000 a month."

Men who explain things - Los Angeles Times

Men who explain things - Los Angeles Times: "He cut me off soon after I mentioned Muybridge. 'And have you heard about the very important Muybridge book that came out this year?'

So caught up was I in my assigned role as ingenue that I was perfectly willing to entertain the possibility that another book on the same subject had come out simultaneously and I'd somehow missed it. He was already telling me about the very important book -- with that smug look I know so well in a man holding forth, eyes fixed on the fuzzy far horizon of his own authority.

Here, let me just say that my life is well-sprinkled with lovely men, including a long succession of editors who have, since I was young, listened and encouraged and published me; with my infinitely generous younger brother; with splendid male friends. Still, there are these other men too.

So, Mr. Very Important was going on smugly about this book I should have known when Sallie interrupted him to say, 'That's her book.' Or tried to interrupt him anyway"

Random particularly offensive Misogny

I am not sure how much readership Harper's Magazine has, but the consider themselves the preeminent liberal policy magazine in the US. I have been reading them since high school and subscribing since college. It's generally speaking a good magazine. Nonetheless, there has been either a recent or only recently noticed trend of "women are less than human (male)" in both them and Atlantic Monthly. I don't know if the editors have changed or if it was there all along and I am only recently noticing it, but it's awful. That Rush Limbagh, Laura Ingram, Bill O'Reilly and their ilk are misogynists is expected, annoying, but expected. When supposedly liberal humanists writing about society at large are, it's depressing.

The following are snippets from Lewis Lapham's Notebook which is his opening soliloquy for each issue. Two times in this article women are mentioned in lists of things. Things for sale or things in a place, but things nonetheless. I see this stuff and I don't know how its going to change. I don't know how or where progress will happen and it's really frustrating.

Women dominate Spanish cabinet

BBC NEWS | Europe | Women dominate Spanish cabinet: "Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has unveiled his new cabinet, which for the first time includes more women than men.

The former housing minister, Carme Chacon, one of the rising stars of Spain's Socialist party, becomes its first ever female defence minister."

Nine of the ministers are women, and eight are men; when the prime minister is included, the cabinet is equally divided by gender.

BBC NEWS | Europe | 'World peace' hitcher is murdered

"An Italian woman artist who was hitch-hiking to the Middle East dressed as a bride to promote world peace has been found murdered in Turkey.

The naked body of Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo, 33, known as Pippa Bacca, was found in bushes near the city of Gebze on Friday.

She had said she wanted to show that she could put her trust in the kindness of local people."

Daily Kos: Food Riots Breaking Out Across the Planet

Daily Kos: Food Riots Breaking Out Across the Planet: "Is the U.S.immune to the conditions that cause food riots? In March, Kossak bink documented soaring wheat prices, which are now showing up in price hikes at bakeries in Michigan, pizzerias in New York, and beer just about everywhere. Milk prices are up 26 percent and egg prices are up 40 percent.

But Americans are a tough lot. We swallowed $2 and $3 per gallon gas prices with nary a blink or change in our driving habitat (until very recently). But is something about to change? Nearly one in 10 Ohioans now receive food stamps. Middle class Long Islanders are turning to food pantries. In Windsor, CT, 350 households now visit the food bank, compared to 120 in 2006. While I don't believe food riots are in our immediate future, it appears our ability to feed ourselves is becoming increasing difficult, and a day of reckoning may now be on the horizon."

On Prisons, Borders, Safety, and Privilege: An Open Letter to White Feminists | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet

On Prisons, Borders, Safety, and Privilege: An Open Letter to White Feminists | Reproductive Justice and Gender | AlterNet: "Around the same time, I read and heard a whole lot of white feminist media makers explaining that 'we' need to show young women 'why feminism matters.' Sometimes I asked them why, in the face of a series of egregious, in some cases highly publicized examples of state violence against marginalized people (e.g., Jena 6 and the New Jersey 4), prominent white feminists are MIA in and largely ignorant of the work and analyses of major, often feminist-of-color-led movements against state violence? And, I wondered, what is your feminism for, and why does it matter? Because feminists of color don't seem to need convincing on that point -- they're engaged in profound, intergenerational, cross-cultural grassroots work that is transforming not only feminist movement but all social-change movements.[5]"