South by Southwest

Remembering others as we celebrate Christmas:

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:47:00 +0000

Far to many people are without jobs this Christmas. The decisions they have made about how to celebrate the holidays are different than they would have made otherwise. The housing crisis still impacts many people, and the economic outlook remains poor as a result. Families face foreclosure, doubling up or even homelessness. Remember the faces of homeless people around the world. And a particular face of the U.S. recession belongs to homeless children. To quote from the Reuters story:

How does anyone explain to kids like Aeisha and countless others how they wound up homeless in the world's richest nation?
In a report issued earlier this month, the National Center on Family Homelessness, based in Needham, Massachusetts, said 1.6 million children were living on the streets of the United States last year or in shelters, motels and doubled-up with other families.
That marked a 38 percent jump in child homelessness since 2007. . .

Remember the needs of our Mother Earth. As the carbon dioxide output soars, the problem of climate change is big enough to be defined an a national security issue. "Water Poor" Will Suffer Most as Climate Change Hits Cities. To explain how the poor will suffer in India, for example:

Like many cities in the developing world, Indore's water infrastructure and institutions face the mounting pressures of population and growth and urbanization. Experts worry that global warming will compound these problems, enlarging a category of people they call the "water poor."

Astronauts and cosmonauts are away from their families this Christmas. The European Space Agency's International Space Station's representative just arrived on orbit. Andre Kuipers is featured in this story: "Space-Flying Dutchman's Must-Haves: Time, Space Stamps & Cheese," is the headline from a Space.com. To quote:

The first Dutch astronaut to return to space, André Kuipers is about to begin five and a half months on board the International Space Station (ISS), a mission the European Space Agency named "PromISSe."

Finally, if all this news is beginning to depress you, here are 8 Ways To Forget Your Troubles. My wishes are that you are having happy holidays, and that your 2012 is a good year.

Unexpectedly saddened

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 14:40:00 +0000

. . . by the death of Christopher Hitchens. I often disagreed with his views. Sometimes I would change the channel to watch someone easier to take. But I always admired his capacity for sophisticated thought and his amazing articulation of those ideas. He died yesterday, according to a Reuters article from which I quote:

British-born journalist and atheist intellectual Christopher Hitchens, who made the United States his home and backed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, died on Thursday at the age of 62.
Hitchens died in Houston of pneumonia, a complication of cancer of the esophagus, Vanity Fair magazine said.
"Christopher Hitchens - the incomparable critic, masterful rhetorician, fiery wit, and fearless bon vivant - died today at the age of 62," Vanity Fair said.
A heavy smoker and drinker, Hitchens cut short a book tour for his memoir "Hitch 22" last year to undergo chemotherapy after being diagnosed with cancer.
As a journalist, war correspondent and literary critic, Hitchens carved out a reputation for barbed repartee, scathing critiques of public figures and a fierce intelligence.

Over the years I came to admire Hitchens, not for his beliefs or lack of religious belief, but for the sheer power of his mind. No one in their right mind, except perhaps William Buckley, would take him on in a face to face debate. We who watched him over the years would often be rivited as his wonderfully upper crust British accent embellished his authority. I was not familiar with his writing, but he counted on it as "who he was" to the very end. The article concludes:

In his last essay on www.vanityfair.com, dated "January 2012," Hitchens said his illness made him question the saying attributed to German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche that "Whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger."
A painkiller injection just before typing the article titled "Trial of the Will," Hitchens wrote, caused "numbness in the extremities, filling me with the not irrational fear that I shall lose the ability to write. Without that ability, I feel sure in advance, my 'will to live' would be hugely attenuated."

For such a wonderful raconteur to die of esophogeal cancer is terribly ironic. And that he died not long after writing his last piece for Vanity Fair I find very sad. He and Steve Jobs (another towering intellect) were too young to be victims of cancer.
How long do we have to wait for a cure for the scourge of early death from cancer? After all it is 2011. I am 74 and a breast cancer survivor, soon to be five years. I am optimistic about my chances because of a very early diagnosis. But I remain sad because others were not so lucky.
Rest in peace, Mr Hitchens. I am sorry your voice has been stilled too early.

Additional reading in the Washington Post.

It may be as bad as we fear when it comes to our long recession.

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 12:58:00 +0000

The United States and other nations, for that matter, are far from being out of the woods economically. Almost half the people in the United States are poor or low income, according to recent census data. Congress is unable to get its act together and the government may just shut down. Republicans and Democrats differ wildly on the reality of the current situation. To quote from CBS News,

Congressional Republicans and Democrats are sparring over legislation that would renew a Social Security payroll tax cut, part of a year-end political showdown over economic priorities that could also trim unemployment benefits, freeze federal pay and reduce entitlement spending.

Robert Rector, a senior research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, questioned whether some people classified as poor or low-income actually suffer material hardship. He said that while safety-net programs have helped many Americans, they have gone too far, citing poor people who live in decent-size homes, drive cars and own wide-screen TVs.

A compassion deficit within the Far Right seems apparent. Politics trumps concern about what is currently happening to the so-called "99%" of us. Reuters reports that, "Republicans introduced a $915 billion spending bill in the House of Representatives early on Thursday in an attempt to force Democrats to finalize legislation that would keep the U.S. government operating beyond the weekend." We are again into hostage taking mode. Too many House Members and Senators have been "purchased" by corporate money. Fiscal ignorance and greed abounds. We are at risk until Congress comes to understand the peril into which they are propelling us.

Read further and come to your own conclusion. Joseph Stiglitz, Pulitzer prize winning economist, explained a great deal about our long term economic and fiscal crisis in a recent Vanity Fair article, "A Banking System Is Supposed To Serve Society, Not the Other Way Around." HT to @mattyglesias for the article.

Poverty Digest - for Thanksgiving Week, 2011

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 14:33:00 +0000

This from Twitter provoked me to prepare a short digest on the subject of U.S. poverty:

@kfedor79 Ken Fedor

Millions face #poverty without #unemployment benefits. Tell Congress to extend UI benefits now! bit.ly/qf0LnV @usaction #P2

**********

About the rise in U.S. poverty rates, David Hawkings sent a Roll Call newsletter on Nov. 7 with astounding new figures. To quote:

POVERTY DATA: The government today increased by 2.9 million its estimate of the number of Americans living in poverty. The new total is 49.1 million, or 16 percent of the population, the Census Bureau said. In September, the agency pegged the numbers at 46.2 million, or 15.1 percent. Much of the increase came because of a recalculation of everyday costs, especially inflation in non-prescription health care items. As a result, the population 65 and older had the biggest poverty jump — to 15.9 percent from 9 percent. But the poverty rate for Hispanics rose to 28.2 percent, surpassing that of African-Americans for the first time.

**********

Newt Gingrich supports child labor as a solution to poverty explains Michael Stickings at The Reaction.

**********

The following chart is from Mother Jones,— "Child Poverty in the Great Recession," By Tim Murphy| Thu Sep. 29, 2011

Latino child poverty has skyrocketed during the recession: Courtesy of Pew Research

**********

Closer to home, in Fort Worth, according to the Star Telegram, the author of a book on poverty is again trying to climb out.

**********

So, as you approach your heavily-laden Thanksgiving table on Thursday, take a moment to reflect. Some, indeed will still be hungry this Thanksgiving.

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

The Surveillance State(s)

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 22:18:00 +0000

The cliche "big brother is watching you" is now becoming more the reality. These stories caught my eye just in the last couple of days.

New York's finest, detectives working on gathering intelligence entered church sanctuaries and basements to surveil Occupy Wall Street protestors. Words and phrases found on Twitter will be data mined for clues to possible uprisings and unrest. Texas border patrol agents may soon be the recipients of night vision equipment and unmanned drones that come home from the Middle East. And with U.S. financing, Afghanistan has plans to gather biometric data on all coming and going to or from the country, and eventually will fingerprint, photograph and scan the irises of all Afghans. Seen together it is a not a picture that matches with our vision of assumptions about freedom, privacy or justice. Not to mention spending inordinate amounts of public money on such ventures.

Even in Churches, Wall Street protesters can’t escape the watch of police.* (After their encampent in Zucotti Park was destroyed by the highly militarized NYC police department), protestors had been allowed to sleep in welcoming churches. The police entered the churches with the excuse of needing a bathroom. To quote from the New York Times story,

. . . demonstrators were sleeping on the cushioned pews of a United Methodist church on the Upper West Side on Thursday morning when one of them spotted a man in plainclothes wandering through the sanctuary, apparently counting heads.

"U.S. Spy Agency to Use Twitter to Forecast Unrest" is the headline. According to Scientific American, a US intelligence agency aims to forecast unrest by studying . . . social media. This is the use of so-called open source intelligence and it amounts to more widespread domestic surveillance. To quote:

It is every government's dream: a system that can predict future events such as riots, political upheavals and the outbreak of wars.The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), a research arm of the US intelligence community, is sponsoring the work under the Open Source Indicators (OSI) program. The three-year project, with an unspecified budget, is designed to gather digital data from a range of sources, from traffic webcams to television to Twitter. The goal, according to IARPA, is to provide the intelligence community with predictions of social and political events that can "beat the news".

Here is a recent tweet I posted regarding the possiblity of widespread coordination of recent police actions:
GeeCarol Nov 16, 4:08pm via HootBar

A long list of possibilities for #OWS raid coordination via DHS | Fusion Center Locations/Contact Information: is.gd/wvMo1Z

Using left-over war-zone equipment along the Texas border is the idea of Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX). More and more we see evidence that domestic security is becoming militarized. To quote from the New York Times,

The Send Equipment for National Defense Act, written by RepresentativeTed Poe, a Republican from Humble, would require that 10 percent of certain equipment returned from Iraq — like Humvees, night-vision equipment and unmanned aerial surveillance craft — be made available to state and local agencies for border-security operations.

Afghanistan has big plans for obtaining biometric data. And the United States will pay for it. (Note also recent news of far more widespread demand for identity cards for voting).To quote from the New York Times:

A handful of other countries fingerprint arriving foreigners, but no country has ever sought to gather biometric data on everyone who comes and goes, whatever their nationality. Nor do Afghan authorities plan to stop there: their avowed goal is to fingerprint, photograph and scan the irises of every living Afghan. It is a goal heartily endorsed by the American military, which has already gathered biometric data on two million Afghans who have been encountered by soldiers on the battlefield, or who have just applied for a job with the coalition military or its civilian contractors.The Kabul airport program is also financed by the United States, with money and training provided by the American Embassy. Americans, like all other travelers, are subject to it.

*In conclusion, for years I have blogged about civil liberties or security. Despite the fact that "the war on terror" was always a misnomer, Fourth amendment protection from unreasonable search or seizure remains at increased risk for citizens of states becoming more and more militarized.

Rick Perry Roundup

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:49:00 +0000

Every day I receive a number of news feeds. I save them in Gmail and often do a search of these newslteers to see what dominated the news opinion about a certain subject. Today's theme is Governor Rick Perry, Republican of Texas.

Having lived in the state all of my adult life, I watched its evolution from a Democratic to a Republican dominated state. And it has been painful because I am a progressive Democrat. And my Republican governor has decided to run for POTUS. Here are a few items to help you understand why I am embarrassed by his attempt.

The loner from the Lone Star state - I have taken this paragraph from CQ Homeland Security Behind the Lines for Friday, Nov. 11, 2011 — 3 P.M. By David C. Morrison, Special to Congressional Quarterly. To quote:

“If the White House is out,” besieged GOP wannabe prez Herman Cain has “a future in airport security,” National Journal’s Theresa Poulson headlines — while Indybay’s Juan Batista alleges that also-running Rick Perry once “sought the support of the Republic of Texas militia, which has a long history of terrorism,” and Calvin Woodward’s Associated Press issues round-up hears the Texas gov terming it “unprincipled” for Republicans to have voted to create DHS. In Wednesday’s debate, meantime, libertarian long shot Ron Paul invoked DHS, natch, as the epitome of overweening federal incompetence, Time Magazine’s Michael Sherer summarizes.

The speedy spin - This is by David Hawkings at Congressional Quarterly [Nov. 10, 2011]

MAKING THE BEST OF IT: Rick Perry’s campaign quickly found a way to spin his epic “oops” from last night’s debate. This morning the Texas governor’s supporters were greeted by a fundraising e-mail that played up the incident as a “human moment” and announced the creation of an email address — forgetmenot@rickperry.org — where people can send suggestions about which federal agencies should be eliminated.

Perry himself did multiple TV interviews this morning, noting that the third agency he’d eliminate — in addition to the departments of Commerce and Education — indeed would be the Energy Department. (He’s been on the record about the three-department hit list in the past, but couldn’t recall Energy last night.) And what about ending his campaign? “This ain’t a day for quitting nothing,” he told the Associated Press this morning.

In the end, Perry’s forgetfulness squares well with his well-noted disdain for Washington, D.C. And Washington doesn’t have much to offer in return. He hasn’t pursued congressional endorsements with much vigor, and the federal workforce is an unlikely base of support for a candidate who makes no bones about his desire to shrink the government drastically.

It has gone from bad to worse - This is from David Hawkings at Congressional Quarterly [Nov. 8, 2011] To quote:

. . . polls out today . . . An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey found . . . the Rick Perry candidacy slides toward the abyss. He has only 10 percent support now, a drop of 6 points in a month — to fourth place behind Newt Gingrich, who’s up to 13 percent.

My senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison Stands by Criticism of Perry. The story is by Melanie Starkey [from Roll Call Politics, Nov. 7, 2011]

Retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison refused Sunday to soften any of the criticisms she leveled at Texas Gov. Rick Perry when she challenged him in last year’s GOP gubernatorial primary. Full Story

"Read my book" urged the governor at the beginning of his run. Read a review of Rick Perry's "Fed Up.", from Congress.org[Oct. 17, 2011]

In conclusion, we know our governor will return before long, a bit chastened, I fear. But I predict he will glad to be home, glad to be out of the blinding glare of national Republican politics.

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

Reich knows my thoughts:

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 14:21:00 +0000

Since it is less than a year until the U.S. presidential election is held, we are getting more and more into campaign mode. I do not have to think about for whom I will vote; it will be the incumbant. But my trip to the polling place will be less enthusiastic than the first time I voted for Senator Barack Obama. I was not sure why this is the case, but a blog post by Robert Reich gave me the reasons. To quote (emphasis mine),

Robert Reich (Why We May Be In Store for a Passionless Presidential Race) [Nov. 11, 2011] To quote:

President Obama will be supported by progressives and the Democratic base, but without enthusiasm. His notorious caves to Republicans and Wall Street — failing to put conditions on the Street’s bailout (such as demanding the Street help stranded home owners), or to resurrect Glass-Steagall, or include a public option in health care, or assert his constitutional responsibility to raise the debt limit, or protect Medicare and Social Security, or push for cap-and-trade, or close Guantanamo, or, in general, confront the regressive Republican nay-sayers and do-nothings with toughness rather than begin negotiations by giving them much of what they want — are not the stuff that stirs a passionate following.

In conclusion, I add a few other Presidential complaints not mentioned by Mr. Reich. I am disappointed by his failure to roll back the assaults on the Fourth Amendment in the name of national security and by the President's remaining in Afghanistan far too long. However, I still like the President enormously and think he is doing a great job with foreign policy.

More about the direction of Occupy Wall Street

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 11:08:00 +0000

Demanding the the OWS dissenters announce their purpose or agenda is not a good idea at this point. If you cannot determine or infer what is going on with the Occupiers, then you are not reading between the lines well enough.

The best way to learn is to watch the process in action. There is lots of video out there. The other is to read the various news items with an eye for trends, for how they are evolving over time. You might also learn by reading the items for what is bedrock, what stays the same along the way.

Amplify’d from www.mcclatchydc.com

Posted on Sunday, November 13, 2011

Occupy Wall Street is many things, but one thing it's not is partisan

By Gianna Palmer | McClatchy Newspapers

NEW YORK, N.Y. — The Occupy Wall Street protest may be a movement, a momentary phenomenon or something in between, but one thing its most fervent activists insist that it's not is a team of shock troops for any partisan political campaign.

Yet though most activists at Occupy Wall Street claim to be dissatisfied with the state of American government and politics, their views come in many flavors. Some are leftists of the '60s generation, others are curious newcomers to political activism. Still others are Ron Paul supporters, anarchists, or soured Obama campaign volunteers — and many more. How this chorus of interests will evolve politically is, they say, yet to be determined.

Last Wednesday, a group of protesters left for a two-week march to Washington D.C., with plans to arrive by Nov. 23, the deadline for the congressional supercommittee to decide how to deal with federal budget deficits. The activists plan to protest extending the Bush-era tax cuts.

But beyond such singular acts of protest, most Occupy Wall Street activists hope their movement will remain outside formal politics for now. They offer several explanations.

Some say they feel the political status quo is so corrupt, it's best not to engage with it at all. Elisa Miller, 38, a New Orleans resident who came to New York for the protests in late September, said she was personally boycotting the 2012 elections.

Several protesters said they want their effort to avoid being co-opted by or beholden to a particular party or candidate.

Many praised the protests as a space to nurture the exchange of new, progressive political ideas entirely outside of the two-party system.

Others said that the question of what would become of the protests, politically or otherwise, was missing the point.

"The question to me is, what's the right way to come up with an answer to that, based on democratic principles?" said Bray, the press team member.

Or, as one middle-aged woman who wished to remain anonymous said: "The model is the message."

Above all, most protesters said they felt it was simply too early in the organizing process to get involved formally with politics.

Organizers from various working groups echoed this statement, saying that they were now most concerned with the logistics getting their individual groups off the ground. Indeed, the majority of proposals passed so far by the General Assembly here have not been about ideologies, but requests for funding, many related to keeping the physical camp up and running. Proposals for funding storage bins, walkie talkies, and laundry were all approved in October, for example.

One notable exception came on Thursday night, when the General Assembly passed a $29,000 proposal to send a delegation of Occupy Wall Street activists to Egypt to serve as international observers in the country's parliamentary elections later this month. The proposal was sparked by a letter from a coalition of civil society organizations in Egypt, who requested a delegation from Occupy Wall Street.
Read more at www.mcclatchydc.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1hyx5

Drill versus Spill

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:02:00 +0000

There are recent news stories regarding the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill. They follow, along with further references.

Gulf Oil Spill? What Gulf Oil Spill? From Mother Jones , by Kate Sheppard, Nov. 9, 2011. Tweet: "Feds leave Gulf spill out of economic impact analysis for new offshore drilling plan: http://t.co/KY1Ihv3Q . Also, recent RT @thegoodhuman Government officials have decided to let BP end its cleanup efforts http://t.co/bewwpBHT

Disc Spins Its Way to $1-Million Oil Spill Cleanup Prize -- Is there a better way to clean up the next oil spill disaster? FromScientific American , David Biello reports October 16, 2011.

U.S. blames BP for Gulf spill : from Reuters , by Ayesha Rascoe and Anna Driver Sep 14, 2011. - The United States heaped the lion's share of blame for the country's biggest ever offshore oil spill on BP on Wednesday as the government issued its final assessment of last year's Gulf disaster.

Here is a list of my South by Southwest blog posts written when the story was happening last year:

More on the Gulf Oil Spill - 7/29/10
On living near the Gulf - 6/27/10
Skimming reactions to the Oval Office Speech yields little lubrication for Presidential ego. - 6/16/10
Updating the energy lexicon - 6/15/10
Presidential field trip full of potential - 6/14/10
Above and Below - Worlds Far Apart? - 5/21/10
Contra catastrophe - 5/19/10

Other references:
Deepwater Oil Spill - McClatchy Newspapers
Deepwater stories, etc. - Huffington Post
Deepwater Horizon oil spill - Wikipedia

Some Legal Thoughts For Today

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 13:26:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Today is Monday, November 7, 2011 - It is a good day to be alive, despite the bad things that are happening. What I have read in the news this morning raises for me a number of important questions in the legal realm.

As the Feds seek unfettered GPS surveillance power as location-tracking flourishes, I feel alarmed at the growth of domestic sureillance in our day to day lives. Tomorrow the Supreme Court of the United States will hear arguments about whether law enforcement can attach a GPS tracking device to a vehicle without a probable cause warrant from a judge. Where is the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protection? As Wired blogger David Kravets wrote,

Technology has advanced since both of these cases, feeding the government’s growing hunger for cost-efficient, easy-to-use spy tools, and making the latest debate before the justices seem Orwellian. Today, one’s exact position on Earth can easily be secretly monitored with devices costing less than $200. Add to this the government’s argument in court briefs that “a person has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another,” and you have the makings for widespread, unchecked surveillance.

The Implications of DOJ’s FOIA “Lies,” according to blogger emptywheel, have all kinds of possibilities for the abuse of our civil liberties. How is it that the government can lie when it comes to matters involving the lega lights of citizens? To quote and list:

. . . the practice of DOJ for nearly a quarter century to provide misleading information in response to FOIAs asking for certain kinds of information–broadly, ongoing investigations, informants, and foreign intelligence. In this post I want to consider how the practice may be ripe for abuse.

Ongoing Legal Investigation - The first exclusion–for information that might tip the subject of an investigation into a potential crime to that investigation and therefore lead her to, for example, destroy evidence–makes a bit of sense. But it seems ripe for abuse in several ways.
Informants - The second exclusion prevents people from asking for information on people they suspect might be informants by name. So, for example, if a peace group thinks Joe Smith asks too many question about group members’ pot smoking and therefore might be an informant, their FOIA request for information on him could be excluded.
Classified FBI records on “foreign intelligence or counterintelligence, or international terrorism” - As with the other two exclusions, there’s some logic to the third, covering classified FBI records on foreign intelligence, counterintelligence, or international terrorism. . . . logic held before 9/11 turned the “foreign intelligence” category into a giant grab bag.

A Pennsylvania man gets jail for paying judges for favors, according to this (11/5/11) Reuters story. This is one of the dangers that come in when we make something the State should do on its own into a profit-making scheme. How is it that anyone should profit for providing juvenile detention? Here are the pertinent details:

A . . . man who owned for-profit juvenile detention centers was sentenced to 18 months in prison . . . for paying judges to send youths to his facilities in a so-called "kids for cash" scheme. Robert Powell, 53, a former trial lawyer . . . also must pay $60,000 for his involvement in the scheme. He was found guilty in 2009 of paying $770,000 in kickbacks to then-judges Mark Ciavarella Jr. and Michael Conahan, who in return sent youths to his detention centers.

Mississippi [is] to decide if [a] fertilized egg is a human being on Tuesday. If the proposition wins it could put women's lives in jeopardy, threaten birth control and would certainly be legally challenged in many different ways. Will it truly put Roe vs. Wade in the biggest danger since it was adopted? Reuters has the story.

Mississippi . . . could be the first state in the nation to define a fertilized egg as a person, a controversial concept aimed at outlawing abortion, some types of birth control and infertility methods that result in the loss of embryos. The so-called "personhood amendment" to the state constitution represents a twist in strategy for anti-abortion efforts, which have notched great success across the country this year with dozens of new restrictions put into law.

From a constitutional, ethical or procedural point of view, these news stories raise important questions. What questions do you have?

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

Trade-offs within your national security protection -

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:24:00 +0000

There is no easy way to cover our nation's security needs. And its success is always a mixed bag. Here are a few current examples of how easy it is to get off track --

This overcompensation in airport security may pose a health risk to travellers.

U.S. Glossed Over Cancer Concerns Associated with Airport X-Ray Scanners -- Experts say the dose from the backscatter is negligible when compared with naturally occurring background radiation, but a linear model shows even such trivial amounts increase the number of cancer cases . . . [via Scientific American]

The slowdown of donations to WikiLeaks is threatening its very existence. Moreover, Julian Assange can now be extradited. Free speech remains at risk.

@wikileaks WikiLeaks Free speech isn't free: WikiLeaks needs you wikileaks.org/support [via Twitter]

Those in Congress who voted for this legislation did not do their homework. Money may have been wasted, that could have provided security elsewhere

DHS Doesn’t Want Its New Spy Drones: Department officials were surprised, to say the least. See, new Predators weren’t exactly on their surveillance gear wish list. “We didn’t ask for them,” an unnamed official told the Los Angeles Times. DHS is already struggling to operate their seven existing drones. [via Wired.com]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the main investigative arm of the U.S. government, is supposed to do more than merely domestic surveillance. They are also charged with investigating white collar crimes. Bank fraud may go unpunished.

The FBI: Now, with 48% More Domestic Surveillance … but No Banksters. . . It has netted precisely zero of those who propagated the complex fraud that brought down our country–not even Angelo Mozilo or anyone from Goldman Sachs, against whom they’ve got reams of evidence. The FBI calls this emphasis on terrorism (and spies and hackers and corrupt politicians and Japanese gangsters) over white collar crime a “strategic” focus. Sort of makes you wonder what objective this strategy is supposed to accomplish. [via emptywheel.com]

The focus on national security too often gets blurred. Citizens can become more at risk than protected when an agency goes off course. Constitutionally protected rights can be ignored in the name of making us safer. Money gets wasted that could be put to better use. And the law can be subverted when it is not enforced. Be very careful what you wish for.

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

I long for peace

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 14:14:00 +0000

National security has long been a subject of my blogging. One of my best resources has been a Homeland Security newsletter I receive, published by Congressional Quarterly. It is called Behind the Lines. It's wonderful author is David C. Morrison. I quote from his most recent piece:

The decade-long splurge on intelligence spending in the United States appears to have hit its high-water mark, with $54.6 billion expended on non-Pentagon spy agencies and programs in fiscal 2011, The Washington Post’s Greg Miller blogs.

From this information one would surmise that we are less and less secure, necessitating bigger spending. That is not the case any more. We are more secure, less threatened. And we should be able to move out of this "all war on terror/all over the world" mentality.

I long for peace.

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

Globalizing Occupy Wall Street: From Chile to Israel, Protests Erupt

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 21:30:00 +0000

by Lois Beckett, ProPublica
Oct. 25, 2011, 12:27 p.m.

At first glance, the synchronized protests that took place in more than 900 cities around the globe on Oct. 15 seemed to indicate that Occupy Wall Street had achieved a kind of worldwide resonance.
But the truth is more complex. Many of the protests elsewhere grew out of movements that pre-date Occupy Wall Street and out of frustrations that, though similar in some ways, are also specific to their countries.

Here’s a look at the origins, demands and affects of five of these global protests, as well as the criticism they’ve faced.

In Chile, Students Protesting for Free Education Occupy Schools

The Santiago protest in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street took place during a week of ongoing national demonstrations. Since May, Chilean students have been staging protests demanding that the government make education free to all.
Secondary school students have occupied their schools, sleeping on the floor and holding their own classes. Last week, protesting students occupied Chile’s senate building in Santiago. Hundreds of thousands of people have participated in marches over the past six months. At times, the protests have become violent, with police using tear gas and water cannons on the protesters, and “masked assailants” setting fire to a city bus.
Opinion polls show more than 80 percent of Chile’s citizens support the protesting students, who also have the backing of labor unions and teachers. Government officials, including the president, have resisted the demands, saying the government cannot afford to pay for education for all students.

In Israel, a Summer Protest Against Rent Prices, Cost of Living

Protesters in Tel Aviv returned Oct. 15 to Rothschild Boulevard, the site of a summer occupation that prefigured the Occupy Wall Street movement.
During those demonstrations, which began July 14, hundreds of people set up tents along the most prestigious street in Tel Aviv’s financial district to protest the high cost of rent. Government ministers mocked the protesters, calling them “sushi-eaters” and “nargila [hookah] smokers with guitars.”
But over two months, demonstrations against Israel’s high cost of living brought out a record-breaking numbers of participants. A march on Sept. 3 drew 450,000 people, or roughly six percent of Israel’s population. In response, Israel’s prime minister proposed reforms, and, when they were rejected as insufficient, assembled a task force to consider ways to improve the standard of living for Israel’s middle class.
Tel Aviv’s tent city was dismantled earlier this month.

In Spain, High Youth Unemployment Rate Sparks Tent Occupations

The idea for a global day of protest on Oct. 15 was originally proposed by participants in Spain’s 15-M or “Los Indignados” movement.
The “indignados” movement began in May, when hundreds of protesters set up tents in Madrid’s historic Puerta del Sol, and others gathered elsewhere to protest Spain’s extremely high unemployment. Overall, unemployment was at more than 20 percent, and youth unemployment was at nearly 50 percent. On Oct. 15, tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Madrid, Barcelona and Seville.
Like the Wall Street protesters, protesters in Spain faced criticism for having no clear demands and using the protest as an excuse for a big party. Madrid’s tent city, which largely disbanded in June, was leaderless and had a legal advice tent, a library, a kitchen set up to prepare donated food. It also had a general assembly where participants made decisions through consensus on issues such as how to deal with police or complaints from neighbors. Some neighboring merchants were not enthused about the occupation, but, as in New York, the 24-hour pizzeria didn’t seem to mind.

In the UK, Occupation Follows Protests on Education Cuts, Riots Over Police Brutality

Over the past year, the UK has seen major student protests over rising school fees, as well as violent riots and looting this August after a young black man from a low-income neighborhood was killed by the police.
In comparison with the roughly 50,000 protesters who turned out last November to demonstrate against tuition increases, the Occupy London Stock Exchange movement is small: an estimated 600 people are camped out by St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a smaller cluster have gathered near London’s Royal Bank of Scotland and JP Morgan buildings. (At times, an estimated 2,000 protesters have gathered at the encampment. There also have been smaller protests in other cities across the UK.)
The encampment has prompted the closure of St. Paul’s Cathedral, which is reported to be considering legal action to dislodge the protesters.
Like those in New York, the Occupy London protesters have been criticized—by the Mayor of London, among others—for not having a clear set of demands. A Guardian reporter who spent a few days at the encampment reported that “a few of the key facilitators in last winter’s student protests haven’t come down” because “they’re not sure it’s radical enough.”
But the reporter, Patrick Kingsley, concluded that the lack of demands may be part of the point: “If anything, the camp itself is their demand, and their solution: the stab at an alternative society that at least aims to operate without hierarchy, and with full, participatory democracy. And to be fair, in its small way, it kind of works,” he wrote.

In Germany, a Country Less Burdened by the Financial Crisis, Protest May Reflect Fears for the Future

In Frankfurt, Europe’s financial center, roughly a hundred protesters are currently camped out in front of the European Central Bank, and at least 4,000 more took to the streets again last weekend to protest the banking system. (Smaller numbers protested in Berlin.)
The protests, inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement, have been greeted with some bewilderment by commentators. While the American protests have focused on the nation’s increasing inequality and wealth disparity, Germany “has one of the most equitable distributions of family income in the world,” according to Foreign Policy magazine. German youth are not saddled with student loan debt, the Wall Street Journal points out, and have a very low unemployment rate of 9.7 percent.
Trying to explain the reason for protests in a country “largely unscathed by the global financial crisis,” German newspapers suggested that there was “bitter disappointment” that state bailouts of banks did not result in reforms to the financial system, or that the protests were forward-looking, sparked by “young people who are afraid that the debt crisis is robbing them of their future."

My Other Blogs: Check out my Amplify blog for synopses of current news stories. My creative website is Making Good Mondays. Follow me at Twitter. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the home page for all my websites.

Things may be OK again at the ISS.

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:52:00 +0000

When there was a failure to successfully launch a Russian Progress vehicle recently, there was a very real possibility that the International Space Station could go to unmanned status. The reason for the failure had to be nailed down and fixed before we could send any more astronauts or cosmonauts into orbit in a Soyus capsule. There would have to be another Progress sent to the ISS, a successful rocket launch. And the current three member crew would have to eventually come home after reaching the limits of how long they could stay in space.

The reason for the 3rd state failure was rather quickly determined, however, and November 14, 2011 set as the next target date for a Soyuz launch. It is only a couple more weeks when we think things on the ISS will begin to get back to normal.

We will all breathe a sigh of relief when that happens. And we will feel even more relieved when we again have a U.S. capability to send crew members into low earth orbit. It cannot happen soon enough for me.

Posted via email from Behind These Links

The high cost of U.S. spying

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 12:02:00 +0000

Even though the in-your-face terrorist attacks have significantly diminished, we are spending more than ever on National Intelligence gathering. The pro-spook world would say that the high expenditures are what has kept us safe. But that is not something anyone can prove.

Note that these figures do not include military intelligence gathering.

Amplify’d from www.washingtonpost.com

U.S. intel spending nears a high-water mark

By Greg Miller

The nation spent $54.6 billion on national spy agencies and programs in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, excluding spending on military intelligence programs, according to figures released by the nation’s intelligence director.

“If today’s number isn’t the absolute apex, it’s definitely within spitting distance from it,” said a congressional aide involved in intelligence budget deliberations.

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has said imposing cuts on agencies that have grown accustomed to generous increases every year will be a “litmus test” of his job.

The trajectory on spy spending has been breathtaking since the Sept. 11 attacks. Budgets more than doubled during a 10-year span in which the CIA and other spy agencies were charged with tracking al-Qaeda and staying abreast of the intense intelligence demands associated with two distant wars.
Read more at www.washingtonpost.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1g0vb

Otherwise occupied.

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 19:38:00 +0000

Today's newsletter roundup is about the Occupy fill-in-the-blanks movements. It gleans interesting little items from my Emailed Congressional Quarterly newsletters of recent weeks.

"There’s really no rush" to pass the teacher/first responders jobs bill, "because the measure isn’t going to do much better, if it does any better at all, than the entire Obama jobs package," said David Hawkings in today's CQ newsletter (Oct. 18, 2011), CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing. To quote further:

SLICING AND DICING: There is no timetable today for the Senate test vote on that $35 billion in grants for teachers and first responders. . . Reid has no incentive to call the vote while the president is out on the road promoting his new piecemeal approach.

. . . As in the past, Obama and the Democrats would rather have the money and the new jobs more than anything else. But it’s also true they’re not unhappy with the consolation prize from another defeat (and at least three more after that). They will get to campaign for the next year on just the sort of declaration that they hope will get the Occupy Wall Street types to the polls: That the GOP had a choice between creating jobs and protecting millionaires — and chose the metaphorical 1 percent.

Another favorite CQ regular newsletter focuses on national security and intelligence. It is written by David C. Morrison and titled CQ Behind the Lines. This (Oct. 13, 2011) clip focused on the Occupy Boston protest.

Over Here: “The Tarek Mehanna Support Committee came to Occupy Boston’s ever-evolving tent city to say [that the] Muslim American pharmacist, is a victim of anti-Muslim sentiment, ”Townhall.com condemns.

Washington D.C. has also been occupied by protesters. From the Oct. 11, 2011 CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing by David Hawkings, we learn that each group sort of forms on its own, and may or may not be connected. To quote from another newsletter:

ONE IS NOT THE OTHER: The hundred or so “Stop the Machine” anti-war protesters who spent the weekend camped out in Freedom Plaza are threatening to swarm through the House and Senate office buildings this afternoon in an effort to cause some TV-worthy disruptions. These people do not want to be confused with the Occupy D.C. crowd that’s been in McPherson Square for several days in a relatively low-impact version of the Occupy Wall Street movement. That ragtag group, which is getting less ragtag now that the AFL-CIO is helping it — and now that the Democrats are urging them on from just offstage — is planning its own protest on the Capitol Hill grounds for this afternoon.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has the job of passing the President's latest jobs bill, piece by piece. This summarizes the issue. The quote is from the Oct. 6 CQ Roll Call Daily Briefing, by David Hawkings:

GOING NOWHERE: Obama is embracing the “millionaire’s surtax” as the best way to pay for his jobs package —

. . . So the president’s $447 billion package is sure to stall as a stand-alone bill — meaning that, for a while longer at least, the 330,000 or so families with income of more than $1 million can remain more worried about running into an Occupy Wall Street protester than about finding creative new shelters for their wealth.

Democrats May Find ‘Occupy’ Movement Is Not That Into Them. By Ambreen Ali and Neda Semnani, Roll Call Staff Oct. 6, 2011, 2:29 p.m. A quote:

Liberals have been racing to embrace the Occupy Wall Street protests as a left-leaning response to the tea party, but the protesters aren’t exactly returning the favor.

Early this month, David C. Morrison wrote about how the Occupy Wall Street folks and law enforcement might or might not get along. It is dated Oct. 3, 2011 and comes from CQ Behind the Lines. To quote,

NYPD Blue: . . . A violent clash with members of the Occupy Wall Street movement may underscore “the flip side of a police force trained to fight terrorism,” the Times analyzes. “Anything connected to a potential terrorist attack on New York is a target for surveillance anywhere,” The New American disapprovingly leads.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has morphed into a world-wide set of protests against the perceived greed of big-monied interests. I predict that it will be a long time before it ends.

Related articles

[Post date: October 18, 2011]

My Other Blogs: Check out my Amplify blog for synopses of current news stories. My creative website is Making Good Mondays. Follow me at Twitter. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the home page for all my websites..

Throwing the windows open to jarring reality -

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 22:12:00 +0000

Between the fall of 2008-2009 too many of us were mostly unaware of what was actually been happening to the world's economy. We got the mainstream media's headlines, their reports but almost no analysis. That is usually as it is with big events; the history has to wait until later. Currently it seems that enough time has passed to find out the main facts and to gain some perspective. Maybe that is why the "Occupy Wall Street" movement has been this long in coming. This morning I watched the best report I have ever seen of the worldwide financial crisis that occurred during the last years of the Bush administration and the beginning of President Obama's term of office. Unfortunately, it had to come from an outside source, a news service not much trusted by our own government over the years, Al Jazeera/English. Here is the link.

Al Jazeera has been broadcasting a great 4-part series the past few days titled, "Meltdown." The piece highlights the main players and events of the period. Skillfully and objectively the segments provided me with an awareness and understanding of what happened - and why - that I never before have had. Rebroadcasts of each memorable episode are available on the "Meltdown" page. The series includes these four episodes:

1) "The men who crashed the world" - who brought down the economy, the sequence of what happened, who intervened to try to stave off the disaster.
2) "A global financial tsunami" - how it happened that the financial crisis was truly and quickly world wide, the present inter-connectedness of current economies.
3) "Paying the price" - The people and groups who lost out, as well as those who won without any negative consequences.
4) "After the fall" [Part 4 will be broadcast tomorrow afternoon, October 11].

Ezra Klein is one of my very favorite pundits. He recently offered his own very thorough and insightful analysis of the Obama administration's decisions regarding the financial crisis in the fall of 2008 and the spring and summer of 2009. It is entitled: "Financial Crisis and Stimulus: Could This Time Be Different?" by Ezra Klein, columnist at The Washington Post (10/04/11). It is headed by a great photo essay by Bill O'Leary called, "Obama’s economic inner circle and other key voices in the debate." I highly recommend taking the time to read this, and the following piece, in order to flesh out the basics so brilliantly laid out by Al Jazeera.

Jared Bernstein, who was Vice-President Biden's economic adviser, is out of government. And happily, he is now another of my favorite pundits. He wrote a very fine piece in response to Ezra Klein's analysis called: "The Self-Imposed Limits of Reaction to a Crisis," by Jared Bernstein at his blog On the Economy (10/11/11). He and Klein had a conversation about these matters when Klein recently filled in at the Rachel Maddow show. There is also a link on Bernstein's blog.

Today has been immersion day for me. I had to do something. I was feeling anxiety disappointment as things things got worse politically; I was becoming more discouraged for the future. Throwing the windows open to the reality of our economic meltdown means I now know a lot more than I did yesterday. Consequently my perspective changed. I am now much more clear about who is responsible and why. And I have a very positive reaction to the Occupy Wall Street events that began a few weeks ago. I am so proud of all those folks! They may not all know exactly why they are in such trouble, but they surely know who caused it. And they know that they are not the people who should be bearing all the burdens of years of Wall Street, greed, irresponsibility and profligacy. And they know that our government's leaders have not done well enough to make things right again.

Assessing the threat of terrorism via overhead spycraft -

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:50:00 +0000

Image by Defence Images via Flickr

Spying on adversaries from above is one way the U.S. assesses the level of danger from terrorists. There are many times when those assigned the role of providing protection from the sky go about it in a very big way. Here's an interesting story about a craft destined for eventual surveillance use in Afghanistan. It is from today's Wired Danger Room and describes a giant spy blimp that dwarfs an 18-wheeler.

In stark contrast, drones are also getting smaller. Portability, cost containment, and minimum use of personnel also seem to be attractive to the military. The DIY-Drone of the Future Is … a Flying Pogo Stick comes again from Wired Danger Room (10/6/11). To quote:

Darpa is holding a contest to design the military’s next spy mini-drone. So far, the entrants include a flying pogo stick, a sail that lands on mosques, and an unmanned laser shooter.

Those are some of concept videos submitted to UAV Forge, a Pentagon experiment to crowdsource the development of unmanned aerial vehicles. DIY-drone hobbyists are encouraged to work together to create the flying spy-bot of the future. It has to fit in a rucksack and be operated by just one person without any help, guidelines say.

Remotely operated combat drones are not problem free, as it turns out. Recently it was revealed that a Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet. To quote from another Wired Danger Room article:

[10/7/11] A computer virus has infected the cockpits of America’s Predator and Reaper drones, logging pilots’ every keystroke as they remotely fly missions over Afghanistan and other warzones.

The virus, first detected nearly two weeks ago by the military’s Host-Based Security System, has not prevented pilots at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada from flying their missions overseas. Nor have there been any confirmed incidents of classified information being lost or sent to an outside source. But the virus has resisted multiple efforts to remove it from Creech’s computers, network security specialists say. And the infection underscores the ongoing security risks in what has become the U.S. military’s most important weapons system.

* * * * * * * * * *

For my readers who follow the subject of national security, I am recommending "Behind the Lines" listed under Free Alerts / CQ Roll Call free newsletters. To quote briefly from today's newsletter (always so well-done by David C. Morrison):

Holy Wars: Following last week’s CIA hit on U.S. citizens Anwar al-Awlaki and Samir Khan, “the last terrorist left chatting in an American accent is a chubby former metalhead named Adam Gadahn,” Danger Room follows up. “It is possible that Awlaki was assassinated because he was an effective critic of the U.S. government,” Paul Craig Roberts wildly reaches in HoweStreet.com. A new e-book, “The Just Scale — On the Permissibility of Killing the Infidels’ Children and Women,” published by a jihadi forum, attempts to refute mainstream arguments against killing certain types of civilians, IPT News notes. If proven to have been carried out by right-wing extremists, Sunday’s attack against a mosque in the Galilee “will be just the latest sign that Jewish terrorism is gaining steam,” The Jerusalem Post reports. A new online journalism course on Islam appears to downplay the threat posed by global jihadism, suggesting reporters keep the death toll from Islamic terrorism in “context,” FOX News relates.

Given the recent killing of the terrorist al-Awlaki and others in Yemen, predator drone warfare will continue to be the subject of debate among concerned Americans. Stay tuned.

[Post date: 10/7/11]

My Other Blogs: Check out my Amplify blog for synopses of current news stories. My creative website is Making Good Mondays. Follow me at Twitter. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the home page for all my websites.

Are you active or are you passive?

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 15:01:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Surfing around the World Wide Web - Today I discovered a number of interesting sites that are part of the activist movements now getting coverage in the national news. Here are a few links to the online efforts, movements and organizations about which you may have heard:

Occupy Wall Street - Since the middle of September demonstrators, growing into the thousands, have been staging a protest on Wall Street in New York City.

Occupy Together - Includes a list of all the other "Occupy" movements beyond Wall Street.
The NYC General Assembly at #Occupy Wall Street: Needs of the Occupiers are spelled out in this interesting post.
AnonOps Communications - Includes a good Michael Moore video from the Wall Street protest.

Get Money Out - learn about an idea for cleaning up corporate influence in Washington and sign the petition. Almost 125,000 have so far signed.

Dylan Ratigan organized a petition drive that could free America from the influence of unlimited campaign contributions via a Constitutional amendment.
Ratigan explains at Huffington Post.

Rebuild the Dream - A large number of Progressive organizations joined together this summer to fight to restore the American dream for the 99% of us who are not rich.

Founder Van Jones organized this week's Take back the American Dream Conference.
About the Partners in the American Dream Movement - participating organizations listed at the bottom.

[Post date: 10/6/11]

Technorati tags: [Occupy Wall Street], [Rebuild the Dream], [Take Back America]

My Other Blogs: Check out my Amplify blog for synopses of current news stories. My creative website is Making Good Mondays. Follow me at Twitter. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the home page for all my websites.

Occupy Together | Home

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 21:37:00 +0000

The website that gathers all the "Occupy" action sites into one location:

Occupy Together | Home

Why civil liberties should still matter -

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 14:14:00 +0000

President Obama's Inauguration. Image via Wikipedia

South by Southwest is an old political blog I began in 2005. For whatever reason, I focused on the subject of constitutional civil liberties almost from the beginning.* Perhaps it was my belief that the Republican Bush administration began riding roughshod over the Bill of Rights' First and Fourth Amendments almost immediately after the 9/11/01 attacks on the United States.

Fast forward to January 2009 when the current Democratic Barack Obama administration began.
It became apparent to me over time that not that much changed under our Constitutional Law professor president.

The U.S. recently confirmed that Anwar al-Awlaki was killed in a military drone strike. And almost from when this news became known, there was a debate between civil libertarians and the rest of the country over the justification of the U.S. military action in northern Yemen. In its news article today's New York Times points to the President's dilemma. To quote,

The strike was the culmination of a desperate manhunt marked not only by near misses and dead ends, but also by a wrenching legal debate in Washington about the legality — and morality — of putting an American citizen on a list of top militants marked for death. It also represented the latest killing of a senior terrorist figure in an escalated campaign by the Obama administration.

. . . There had been an intense debate among lawyers in the months before the Obama administration decided to put Mr. Awlaki on a target list in early 2010, and officials said that Mr. Khan was never on the list. The decision to make Mr. Awlaki a priority to be sought and killed was controversial, given his American citizenship. The American Civil Liberties Union, which fought unsuccessfully in the American court system to challenge the decision to target Mr. Awlaki, condemned the killing.

Commentators on television, the blogosphere and social media soon raised questions about the legality and morality of the "assassainations" or war combatant targeting of two United States citizens. So I am not alone with my discomfort. That view is not widely held beyond the members of the left. But it does give many of us pause. Michael J.W. Stickings, my longtime blog friend at The Reaction, wonders whether President Obama is "a disaster for civil liberties." He mirrors my own ambivalence, saying:

Though I remain, for the most part, a supporter of the president, I cannot disagree

[with legal scholar Jonathan Turley, whom Stickings quotes extensively].

While I would argue that he has done a lot of good thus far in office, this remains the major blot on his record.

*Just a few of my previous posts related to civil liberties over the years:

9/7/11: A look at freedom and liberty in the US ten years after 9/11/01
9/2/09: Intelligence Bytes
12/18/05: NSA Surveillance of Americans: NYT
12/09/05: Patriot Act May Be Extended
10/20/05: Spy World

Civil liberties should still matter. Even if I can understand or even argue for the killing-of-a-terrorist view, the next questions are the real ones. What happens when another president (not so competent and trustworthy) is in charge? Where is the line for him/her? Does it make a difference where the killing happens? Could it be legally done in the United States as well as Yemen? How strong was the evidence? Was there due process? What does the law of war demand? What qualifies as the "imminent threat" posed by the citizen/combatant? What if innocent people are also killed?

Posted on 10/1/11 - from Texas:

My Other Blogs: Check out my Amplify blog for synopses of current news stories. My creative website is Making Good Mondays. Follow me at Twitter. And Carol Gee - Online Universe is the home page for all my websites.

Entitlement programs are no longer off limits for cuts.

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 12:16:00 +0000

President Obama called for Medicare and Medicaid reform in his jobs speech to Congress. And Texas Gov. Rick Perry called Social Security a "Ponzi scheme" in the previous night's Republican debate.

It looks like everything could be up for grabs in the bipartisan race to dismantle our Federal government's social safety net.

Original: www.nytimes.com/2011/09/09/us/politics/09social.html

A Bipartisan Move to Tackle Benefits Programs

by JACKIE CALMES, nytimes.com
September 8th 2011

At the same time, Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill expressed a willingness to wring savings from the long-untouchable programs during the first meeting of the special committee that is charged with recommending $1.5 trillion in deficit reductions over the decade. Then President Obama, in his address to a joint session of Congress on spurring job creation, reiterated his call for a plan reducing long-term debt with both changes in entitlement programs and taxes from the wealthy.

To the chagrin of many in his party, this summer Mr. Obama proposed changes in Medicare and Social Security that once would have been unthinkable for a Democratic president during his unsuccessful talks with the House speaker, John A. Boehner, for a “grand bargain” on cutting deficits. In return for the Republicans’ agreement to raise taxes after 2012 for the wealthy, Mr. Obama indicated that his party would support slowly increasing the eligibility age for Medicare to 67 from 65 and changing the formula for cost-of-living increases in Social Security to a less generous one that some economists consider more accurate.

Until Mr. Perry’s recent entry into the Republican contest, the debate over reining in the projected growth of the entitlement programs focused on the health programs, Medicare and Medicaid. Their projected costs, given the aging of the population and fast-rising medical expenses, are greater and growing faster than those for Social Security.

The turn in both parties toward tackling the cost of the entitlement programs has been building. In 2010, Congressional Democrats approved about $500 billion in future savings from Medicare to help pay for the new health care law, though Republicans attacked them for it in last year’s midterm elections. But the onset of the new deficit committee’s work and Mr. Perry’s scathing critique of social spending has added a new dimension.

At the first meeting of the House-Senate committee on deficit reduction, which is to make recommendations by Nov. 23 for a quick up-or-down vote in Congress, several Republicans said that entitlements were the main cause of annual deficits and should be the panel’s focus.

James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, a House Democratic leader on the panel, said that he was for “smart and compassionate budget cuts” and “ending military adventurism,” but that Congress must not shred Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid benefits.

Separately, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, Sander M. Levin of Michigan, circulated a memo listing two dozen options that could squeeze more than $500 billion out of Medicare in the next 10 years. Aides to Mr. Levin said that he was not endorsing the ideas but helping other Democrats understand the sorts of actions that could be taken.
Read more at

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1cne9

A look at freedom and liberty in the US ten years after 9-11-01

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 21:57:00 +0000

A recent poll revealed some surprises about how Americans feel about their constitutional rights after ten years of changes in how the Fourth Amendment has been applied in their lives. They still care a great deal about civil liberties protections, even in the face of the need to deal with increased government surveillance. They have differing levels of tolerance for intrusions however, depending on the circumstances.

Readers are encouraged to read the full WaPo article for the details of this truly fascinating poll.

Amplify’d from www.washingtonpost.com

Poll: Americans open to trading off some liberties _ within limits _ to fight terrorism

By Associated Press, Published: September 6

WASHINGTON — Surveillance cameras in public places? Sure. Body scans at airports? Maybe. Snooping in personal email? Not so fast.

Ten years after the 9/11 attacks led to amped-up government surveillance efforts, two-thirds of Americans say it’s fitting to sacrifice some privacy and freedoms in the fight against terrorism, according to a poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

A slim majority — 54 percent — say that if they had to choose between preserving their rights and freedoms and protecting people from terrorists, they’d come down on the side of civil liberties. The public is particularly protective of the privacy of U.S. citizens, voicing sharp opposition to government surveillance of Americans’ emails and phone calls.

The poll asked people to grapple with some of same quandaries that the government and the courts have been wrestling with over the past decade, and even before the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Two-thirds of those surveyed believe the resulting policies are a mish-mash created in reaction to events as they occur rather than clearly planned.

The AP-NORC poll found that about half of those surveyed felt that they have indeed lost some of their own personal freedoms to fight terrorism. Was it worth it? Close to half of those who thought they’d lost freedoms doubted it was necessary.

Overall, six in 10 say the government is doing enough to protect Americans’ rights and freedoms as it fights terrorism. But people may not even be aware of what they’ve given up. The extent of government eavesdropping and surveillance is something of a mystery.
Read more at www.washingtonpost.com

See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1ckpm

Why President Obama was smart to reschedule his jobs speech - The Fix - The Washington Post

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 12:17:00 +0000

Image via Wikipedia

Why President Obama was smart to reschedule his jobs speech - The Fix - The Washington Post:

To summarize an excellent analysis by Chris Cillizza, here are three good reasons to move the speech from Wednesday to Thursday of next week:

1) - No one wins a process fight. .
2) - Get the last word. . .
3) - Pick your audience. . .

Readers will gain good insight from Cillizza's thinking here. It is also interesting to see how an excellent opening photo illustration can make a political point.

'via Blog this'

About Google Trends – Google Trends

noreply@blogger.com (Carol Gee) — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 21:32:00 +0000

About Google Trends

With Google Trends, you can compare the world’s interest in your favorite topics. Enter up to five topics and see how often they’ve been searched on Google over time. Google Trends also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and in which geographic regions people have searched for them most.

How does Google Trends work?
How accurate and up-to-date is the information provided by Google Trends?
When will Google Trends be available for my country or language?

About Hot Searches

With Hot Searches, you can see a snapshot of what’s on the public’s collective mind by viewing the fastest-rising searches for different points of time. You can see a list of today’s top 40 fastest-rising search queries in the U.S. You can also select a recent date in history to see what the top rising searches were and what the search activity looked like over the course of that day. Hot Searches are updated hourly.

How does Hot Searches work?
Is the list of Hot Searches comprehensive?

Working with Google Trends

How many terms can I compare? And what other functionality is available?
How is the data scaled?
Is the News reference volume graph scaled?
Is the data normalized?
Do the numbers on the graph reflect actual search traffic numbers?
I see a number next to my search term at the top of the graph. What does it mean?
When comparing two or more search terms, I sometimes see results with all zeros. Why?
Is there a way to adjust how the terms are ranked and scaled?
How does counting and ranking of the top regions, cities, and languages work, and are they scaled differently?
How is information gathered to determine the regions, cities, and languages?
How do I change the time frame, region, or sub-region of the results?
Is there a way to export the data?
How does the geographical assignment change from 1/1/2011 affect the data I see?

Privacy and Terms of Use

When is it okay to use the information I find on Google Trends?
This tool makes search information public. What about my personal search data?

1. How does Google Trends work?

Google Trends analyzes a portion of Google web searches to compute how many searches have been done for the terms you enter, relative to the total number of searches done on Google over time. We then show you a graph with the results – our Search Volume Index graph.
Located beneath the Search Volume Index graph is our News reference volume graph. This graph shows you the number of times your topic appeared in Google News stories. When Google Trends detects a spike in the volume of news stories for a particular search term, it labels the graph and displays the headline of an automatically selected Google News story written near the time of that spike. Currently, only English-language headlines are displayed, but we hope to support non-English headlines in the future.
Below the search and news volume graphs, Trends displays the top regions, cities, and languages in which people searched for the first search term you entered.
2. How accurate and up-to-date is the information provided by Google Trends?

The data Trends produces may contain inaccuracies for a number of reasons, including data-sampling issues and a variety of approximations that are used to compute results. We hope you find this service interesting and entertaining, but you probably wouldn’t want to write your Ph.D. dissertation based on the information provided by Trends.
The information provided by Trends is updated daily, and Hot Searches is updated hourly.
3. When will Google Trends be available for my country or language?

Currently, Google Trends is only available in English and in Chinese. Hot Searches is only available in English, but both Singapore and India show information specific to their regions. We hope to roll out Google Trends in other regions and languages in the future.
4. How does Hot Searches work?

Hot Searches reflects what people are searching for on Google today. Rather than showing the most popular searches overall, which would always be generic terms like “weather,” Hot Searches highlights searches that experience sudden surges in popularity, and updates that information hourly. Our algorithm analyzes millions of web searches performed on Google and displays those searches that deviate the most from their historic traffic pattern. The algorithm also filters out spam and removes inappropriate material. For each search, Hot Searches shows related searches and a Search Volume Index graph. The page also displays news, blog posts, and web results to give context about why a search may be appearing on the Hot Searches list. You can also choose a date in the past to see what the top Hot Searches were for that date by clicking change date.
5. Is the list of Hot Searches comprehensive?

No. We know there may be numerous queries that experience sudden surges in popularity, but Hot Searches only highlights the top 40 such queries. You can view all 40 searches by clicking More Hot Searches; this list is updated throughout the day. You can also get this list through a feed. To do so, click Site Feed after you’ve clicked More Hot Searches, and follow the instructions.
6. How many terms can I compare? And what other functionality is available?

You can compare up to five terms by separating each one with a comma. For example, to compare “boots” and “sneakers”, simply enter boots, sneakers and click Search Trends.
To see how many searches contained either term, list them and separate with a vertical bar ( | ):
boots | sneakers
To see how many searches were done for either “snow boots” or “sneakers”, use parentheses around the multi-word term: (snow boots) | sneakers.
You can also exclude terms from your search by using the minus sign. For instance, to see how many searches contained the term “boots” but not “hiking”, enter boots-hiking.
To restrict your results to only those searches that contain your terms in the specific order you’ve entered them, you can put your terms in quotation marks: "snow boots". (By default, Google Trends will show you all searches that contain the terms you entered in any order.)
Note that when you use any of these advanced features – quotation marks, minus signs, or vertical bars – Trends will only display the Search Volume Index graph. The news portion doesn’t support advanced functionality at this time.
7. How is the data scaled?

The data is scaled based on the average search traffic of the term you’ve entered.
There are two modes of scaling – relative and fixed – and the only difference between them is the time frame that’s used to calculate the average. However, fixed scaling is only available as a .csv export. Please note that the ability to see numbers on the graph and to export this data with either mode of scaling are available only after you’ve signed into your Google Account for Trends.
In relative mode, the data is scaled to the average search traffic for your term (represented as 1.0) during the time period you’ve selected. For example, if you entered the term dogs, the graph you’d see would be scaled to the average of all search traffic for dogs from January 2004 to present. But if you chose a specific time frame – say 2006 – the data would then appear relative to the average of all search traffic for dogs in 2006. Then, let’s suppose that you notice a spike in the graph to 3.5; this spike means that traffic is 3.5 times the average for 2006.
In fixed mode, the data is scaled to the average traffic for your term during a fixed point in time (usually January 2004). In our example, 1.0 would be the average traffic of dogs in January 2004. If you chose 2006 as your time frame, you would be comparing data for dogs in 2006 to its data in January 2004. Since the scale basis (1.0) doesn’t change with time, you can look at different time periods, and relate them to each other. (Note: For keywords without a historical record, it may not be possible to establish a fixed scale).
8. Is the News reference volume graph scaled?

No. The graph is for illustrative purposes, and simply shows you the number of times your topic appeared in Google News stories.
9. Is the data normalized?

All results from Google Trends are normalized, which means that we’ve divided the sets of data by a common variable to cancel out the variable’s effect on the data and allow the underlying characteristics of the data sets to be compared. If we didn’t normalize the results, and instead displayed the absolute rankings of cities, they wouldn’t be all that interesting – a densely populated area like New York City would be the top city for many results simply because there are lots of searches from that area.
Remember, Google Trends shows users’ propensity to search for a certain topic on Google on a relative basis. For example, just because a particular region isn’t on the Top Regions list for the term “haircut” doesn’t necessarily mean that people there have decided to stage a mass rebellion against society’s conventions. It could be that people in that region might not use Google to find a barber, use a different term when doing their searches, or simply search for so many other topics unrelated to haircuts, that searches for “haircut” comprise a small portion of the search volume from that region as compared to other regions.
10. Do the numbers on the graph reflect actual search traffic numbers?

No. The numbers you see on the y-axis of the Search Volume Index (which you can see after you’ve signed in to your Google Account) aren’t absolute search traffic numbers. Instead, Trends scales the first term you’ve entered so that its average search traffic in the chosen time period is 1.0; subsequent terms are then scaled relative to the first term. Note that all numbers are relative to total traffic.
Read more about how we scale and normalize the data.
11. I see a number next to my search term at the top of the graph. What does this mean?

The number you see next to your search term corresponds to its total average traffic in the time frame you’ve chosen.
When comparing multiple search terms on a relative scale, the first term you enter will always be 1.0, as subsequent terms are ranked and scaled against this term. For example, you may see: blogs (1.0) and newspapers (0.51). In this case, newspapers has approximately half the searches of blogs.
If you export the data to a .csv file and you’ve selected fixed scaling, 1.0 corresponds to the average traffic for the search term in fixed point of time (usually January 2004), and all numbers are relative to this point. If you chose a time frame of 2007, the number you see for blogs (for example, 5.82) would mean that blogs has had approximately 5.8 times more relative traffic in 2007 than it had in January 2004. Similarly, the the number you see for newspapers (2.05) means that newspapers has about 2 times more traffic in 2007 than blogs had in 2004.
Note that the ratio between these numbers always remains constant and corresponds to how the keywords compare to each other; only the scaling basis (or the meaning of 1.0) changes.
Learn more about scaling.
12. When comparing two or more search terms, I sometimes see results with all zeros. Why?

If you see all zeros for one of your search terms, it could be that the term doesn’t have enough search volume to be reflected on a graph. It’s also possible that the term’s search volume is insignificant compared to the other terms you’ve entered. In those cases, the system will automatically rank your results by whichever term has greater search volume.
13. Is there a way to adjust how the terms are ranked and scaled?

Yes. Use the drop-down menu underneath the graph to change the search term by which all the data will be ranked and scaled (to 1.0). If you have more than one search term, the other terms will be ranked to the first one you’ve entered.
14. How does counting and ranking of the top regions, cities, and languages work, and are they scaled differently?

To rank the top regions, cities, or languages, Google Trends first looks at a sample of all Google searches to determine the areas or languages from which we received the most searches for your first term. Then, for those top cities, Google Trends calculates the ratio of searches for your term coming from each city divided by total Google searches coming from the same city. The city ranking you see on the page and the bar charts alongside each city name both represent this ratio. When cities’ ratios are fairly close together, the corresponding bar graphs will be roughly the same length, and the exact ranking between these cities is less meaningful.
If you export the data to a .csv file, you’ll see numbers for the top regions and cities. These numbers are based on a scale where the top region or city for the search term which you’ve ranked the data by will be 1.0.
15. How is information gathered to determine the regions, cities, and languages?

Google Trends uses IP address information from our server logs to make a best guess about where queries originated. Language information is determined by the language version of the Google site where the search originated.
16. How can I change the time frame, region, or sub-region of the results?

Once you’ve entered your search terms, you can use the drop-down boxes at the top of the results page to restrict your results to a particular time frame or region. The restrictions will affect both the Search Volume Index graph and the News reference volume graph. Please note that News reference volume may not be available for every region.
When you restrict your results to a specific year or multi-year period, each point on the graph will represent a week’s worth of searches. When you restrict the results to a specific month, each point on the graph will represent one day of searches.
17. Is there a way to export the data?

Yes. You can export the data to a .csv file, which can be opened in most spreadsheet applications. Click Export this page to a CSV file at the bottom of the page. You can choose to export the file with relative or fixed scaling. You’ll also see numbers corresponding to the bars under the Regions, Cities, and Languages columns.
The .csv file will also contain data for the top regions, cities, and languages for your search term. Read how this data is counted and ranked.
Along with the search index volume data, the file will include the upper bound of relative standard error for each data point. In your spreadsheet application, every column with search index data will be followed by a column of corresponding relative standard error. This information can be used to calculate the confidence interval for a data point.
Please note that since the news data isn’t scaled, it won’t be included in the file.
18. How does the geographical assignment change from 1/1/2011 affect the data I see?

On July 12, 2011 we rolled out a significant improvement to our geographical assignment. The improvement allows us to provide even better geo-location data for search queries. This update was applied retroactively from January 1, 2011 and may manifest itself in certain queries as a discontinuity in the trend line.
19. When is it okay to use the information I find on Google Trends?

You’re free to use any of the information you find on Google Trends, subject to the Terms of Use. If you choose to use the information, please make sure to appropriately attribute it to Google.
20. This tool makes search information public. What about my personal search data?

You can rest assured your personal search data remains safe and private. Our graphs are based on aggregated data from millions of searches done on Google over time. Moreover, the results Google Trends displays are produced entirely by an automated formula. As an additional measure, Trends only returns results for terms that receive a significant amount of search traffic.

via google.com

This is a handy tool you might want to bookmark.

Posted via email from Southwest Postings

South by Southwest

Remembering others as we celebrate Christmas:

Unexpectedly saddened

It may be as bad as we fear when it comes to our long recession.

Poverty Digest - for Thanksgiving Week, 2011

The Surveillance State(s)

Rick Perry Roundup

My senator, Kay Bailey Hutchison Stands by Criticism of Perry. The story is by Melanie Starkey [from Roll Call Politics, Nov. 7, 2011]

Reich knows my thoughts:

More about the direction of Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street is many things, but one thing it's not is partisan

By Gianna Palmer | McClatchy Newspapers

Drill versus Spill

Some Legal Thoughts For Today

Related articles

Trade-offs within your national security protection -

I long for peace

Related articles

Globalizing Occupy Wall Street: From Chile to Israel, Protests Erupt

In Chile, Students Protesting for Free Education Occupy Schools

In Israel, a Summer Protest Against Rent Prices, Cost of Living

In Spain, High Youth Unemployment Rate Sparks Tent Occupations

In the UK, Occupation Follows Protests on Education Cuts, Riots Over Police Brutality

In Germany, a Country Less Burdened by the Financial Crisis, Protest May Reflect Fears for the Future

Things may be OK again at the ISS.

The high cost of U.S. spying

U.S. intel spending nears a high-water mark

Otherwise occupied.

Democrats May Find ‘Occupy’ Movement Is Not That Into Them. By Ambreen Ali and Neda Semnani, Roll Call Staff Oct. 6, 2011, 2:29 p.m. A quote:

Throwing the windows open to jarring reality -

Related articles

Assessing the threat of terrorism via overhead spycraft -

Related articles

Are you active or are you passive?

Related articles

Occupy Together | Home

Related articles

Why civil liberties should still matter -

Related current opinion articles:

Entitlement programs are no longer off limits for cuts.

A Bipartisan Move to Tackle Benefits Programs

A look at freedom and liberty in the US ten years after 9-11-01

Poll: Americans open to trading off some liberties _ within limits _ to fight terrorism

By Associated Press, Published: September 6

Why President Obama was smart to reschedule his jobs speech - The Fix - The Washington Post

Related articles

About Google Trends – Google Trends

About Google Trends

About Hot Searches

Working with Google Trends

Privacy and Terms of Use

1. How does Google Trends work?

2. How accurate and up-to-date is the information provided by Google Trends?

3. When will Google Trends be available for my country or language?

4. How does Hot Searches work?

5. Is the list of Hot Searches comprehensive?

6. How many terms can I compare? And what other functionality is available?

7. How is the data scaled?

8. Is the News reference volume graph scaled?

9. Is the data normalized?

10. Do the numbers on the graph reflect actual search traffic numbers?

11. I see a number next to my search term at the top of the graph. What does this mean?

12. When comparing two or more search terms, I sometimes see results with all zeros. Why?

13. Is there a way to adjust how the terms are ranked and scaled?

14. How does counting and ranking of the top regions, cities, and languages work, and are they scaled differently?

15. How is information gathered to determine the regions, cities, and languages?

16. How can I change the time frame, region, or sub-region of the results?

17. Is there a way to export the data?

18. How does the geographical assignment change from 1/1/2011 affect the data I see?

19. When is it okay to use the information I find on Google Trends?

20. This tool makes search information public. What about my personal search data?