The Day the Internet Stood Still
Source: frugaldad.com
Torture, and impunity in US courts
The decision, which throws out the civil suit of former enemy combatant Jose Padilla, is troubling, both in its result and potential sweep. It not only threatens core freedoms protected by the constitution, but also undermines the principle that government officials should be held accountable for their illegal conduct.
… rather than charge Padilla with a crime under various anti-terrorism statutes, President Bush declared him an “enemy combatant” and transferred Padilla to a navy brig in South Carolina, where he was imprisoned without access to a lawyer, a court, or his family for nearly two years. While at the brig, Padilla was held in total isolation for long periods of time, forced to endure extreme sensory deprivation, subjected to painful stress positions, and threatened with death.
Torture, and impunity in US courts - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
Conservatives tend to concentrate more on images considered to be negative, while liberals’ eyes tend to linger on positive images, says political science professor John Hibbing.
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Fear factor: The science behind America’s red/blue divide No suprises |
Quarterly Returns are Destructive
’A future worth choosing’ panel’s diagnosis:
- The number of people living in poverty is declining, but the number hungry is rising
- Inequality in wealth distribution is rising
- Access to clean water is increasing, but 2.6 billion people lack access to modern sanitation
- By 2030, demand for food will rise by 50%, for energy by 45% and for water by 30%
- Women are too often excluded from economic opportunities
- The financial crisis was partly caused by market rules that encourage short-termism and do not reward sustainable investment
- The current economic model is “pushing us inexorably towards the limits of natural resources and planetary life support systems”
once the President accuses you of being a Terrorist, a decision made in secert and with no checks or due process, we can do anything we want to you, including executing you wherever we find you.
It’s hard to know what’s more extraordinary: that he feels so comfortable saying this right out in the open, or that so few people seem to mind.
The very same faction that pretended for years to be so distraught by Bush’s mere eavesdropping on and detention of accused Terrorists without due process is now perfectly content to have their own President kill accused Terrorists without due process, even when those targeted are their fellow citizens: obviously a far more Draconian and permanent abuse than eavesdropping or detention (identically, the very same faction that objected to Bush’s radical whole-world-is-a-Battlefield theory now must embrace exactly that theory to justify how someone riding in a car, or sitting at home, or sleeping in his bed, in a country where no war is declared, is “on a battlefield” at the time the CIA ends his life).
Every year we inspect more factories, raising the bar for our partners and going deeper into the supply chain. As we reported earlier this month, we’ve made a great deal of progress and improved conditions for hundreds of thousands of workers. We know of no one in our industry doing as much as we are, in as many places, touching as many people.”
“We are focused on educating workers about their rights, so they are empowered to speak up when they see unsafe conditions or unfair treatment. As you know, more than a million people have been trained by our program.”
“We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues. What we will not do — and never have done — is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain. On this you have my word. You can follow our progress at apple.com/supplierresponsibility.
“We are focused on educating workers about their rights, so they are empowered to speak up when they see unsafe conditions or unfair treatment. As you know, more than a million people have been trained by our program.”
“We will continue to dig deeper, and we will undoubtedly find more issues. What we will not do — and never have done — is stand still or turn a blind eye to problems in our supply chain. On this you have my word. You can follow our progress at apple.com/supplierresponsibility.
Apple is committed to the highest standards of social responsibility across our worldwide supply chain. We insist that all of our suppliers provide safe working conditions, treat workers with dignity and respect, and use environmentally responsible manufacturing processes. Our actions — from thorough site audits to industry-leading training programs — demonstrate this commitment.
We hear from time to time that drone aircraft have killed half a village in Pakistan and Afghanistan under the pretext of pursuing terrorists,” Mr. Salah said. “Our fear is that will happen in Iraq under a different pretext.
The birth of a boy is usually a cause for celebration in Afghanistan but girls are generally seen as a burden. Some women in Afghanistan are abused if they fail to give birth to boys.
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Afghan woman is killed ‘for giving birth to a girl’ You may not be able to change the social perspective on the value of a girl overnight, but gender is selected by the male, and you could change the blame with access to information. THIS is why unfettered web access to e.g. wikipedia and OLPC is such a fundamentally moral issue. |
If churches want to play the game of politics, let them pay admission like everyone else.
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| — | George Carlin |
The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments in a courthouse: You cannot post ‘Thou shalt not steal,’ ‘Thou shalt not commit adultery,’ and ‘Thou shalt not lie’ in a building full of lawyers, judges, and politicians. It creates a hostile work environment.
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| — | George Carlin |
intolerance and fear
“It is time for us to acknowledge that Norwegian policemen, civil servants and other Norwegians took part in the arrest and deportation of Jews.”
He added that he was sorry to see that the “ideas that led to the Holocaust [were] still very much alive today”.
“All over the world we see that individuals and groups are spreading intolerance and fear,”
former National Security Agency Director Mike McConnell claimed that the US has already used cyber attacks against an adversary successfully
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US has already flexed cyberwar muscle, says former NSA director File under: They hate us for our freedom |
Chief among the new proposals is a “right to be forgotten” that will allow people to demand that organizations that hold their data delete that data, as long as there is no legitimate grounds to hold it.
Citizens will also have to give their explicit permission before companies can process their data; assumptions of permission won’t be permitted, and systems will have to be private by default.
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Europe proposes a “right to be forgotten” This should be the automatic de facto answer. If it weren’t for outside influence, we wouldn’t even be debating this. But why doesn’t this precedent already exist for snail mail? Did the previous generation not care? I don’t have the patience to look at my mail / mailbox, other than the bright red envelope. If it weren’t for my wife, my mail wouldn’t get opened. |
