New CISPA in the Senate ready for a vote + Action Alert: Support Privacy Amendments To Cyber-Security Bill

CISPA - The solution is the problem

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

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Jul 31, 2012 by

Congress is debating a new cybersecurity bill that has garnered the support of the White House. Does that mean it will ease the fears from Capitol Hill while still respecting concerns of privacy though? Aaron Swartz of Demand Progress joins RT’s Liz Wahl to talk about the latest efforts regarding the newest cybersecurity legislation being considered.

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Bernie Sanders takes on Jim Inhofe: Global Warming is Real + Richard Muller: Humans are almost entirely the cause

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by Bernie Sanders
July 30, 2012

Neighbor's Trees on July 10, 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

In a summer of record heat, severe drought, extreme storms, melting glaciers and raging wildfires, Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday challenged claims by a leading Republican senator who dismisses global warming as a “hoax.” Sanders rebutted what he called “myths” espoused by Sen. James Inhofe, the ranking Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. “Many who take climate science seriously dismiss Sen. Inhofe. I believe that is a huge mistake,” Sanders said of the Senate panel’s former chairman. “For better or worse, when Sen. Inhofe speaks, the Republican Party follows.  And when the Republican Party follows, it is impossible to get real work done in the Congress.”

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The Perversion of Scholarship, by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 30, 2012

Fraternities, sororities and football, along with other outsized athletic programs, have decimated most major American universities. Scholarship, inquiry, self-criticism, moral autonomy and a search for artistic and esoteric forms of expression—in short, the world of ethics, creativity and ideas—are shouted down by the drunken chants of fans in huge stadiums, the pathetic demands of rich alumni for national championships, and the elitism, racism and rigid definition of gender roles of Greek organizations. These hypermasculine systems perpetuate a culture of conformity and intolerance.  They have inverted the traditional values of scholarship to turn four years of college into a mindless quest for collective euphoria and athletic dominance.

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Fears of ecological disaster in Bangladesh oil spill + Pipeline Oil Spill In Wisconsin

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On the Meghna River with the gypsies

Image by The Advocacy Project via Flickr

Jul 30, 2012 by

Environmentalists in Bangladesh are warning that leaks from a sunken oil tanker could lead to the country’s worst-ever ecological disaster.

Al Jaeera’s Nicholas Haque reports from Naraayan-ganj, on the banks of the Meghna river.

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Behind Obama’s Fake Recovery – The Plan to Gut Social Security by Mike Whitney

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by Mike Whitney
Information Clearing House
July 28, 2012

obama_sellout_pstr

Image by sandy_sanders via Flickr

Last week’s dismal “data dump” has ended all talk of a strong recovery in the US. Retail sales, factory output, jobless claims, consumer confidence, business investment and existing home sales are all down sharply indicating that the US economy is decelerating and may be headed for recession.

The Obama administration was warned repeatedly that activity would slow when the $800 billion fiscal stimulus (ARRA) ran out and net government spending became a drag on growth. But Obama’s chief economics advisor, Lawrence Summers, shrugged off these warnings in order to keep the economy sputtering along at half-speed. Summers figured that bigger deficits and slower growth would create the rationale for slashing entitlement spending and crushing organised labor (particularly, public unions) In other words, the economy is weak, because the policy was designed to make it weak. Mission accomplished.

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Obama and Romney: Start Debating the Prison-Industrial Complex, by Ralph Nader + Professional Prisoners in Russia

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by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
July 25, 2012

COMO Police in Action

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Ever visit a major prison? The vast majority of Americans have not, despite our country having by far a higher incarceration rate per capita than China or Iran. Out of sight is out of mind.

Imagine the benefits of the average taxpayer touring a prison. The lucrative prison-industrial complex would definitely not like public exposure of their daily operations. Prison CEOs have no problem with a full house of non-violent inmates caught with possession of some street drugs (not alcohol or tobacco). Our horrendous confinement system cannot change when it clings to perverse practices such as cruel, costly, arbitrary, mentally destructive solitary confinement (again, the highest in the world, see: Solitary Watch). Corporate profits drive the prison system’s insanity.

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Climate Change and the Next U.S. Revolution by Shamus Cooke

Butterfly Bushes

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

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by Shamus Cooke
www.globalresearch.ca
July 24, 2012

The U.S. heat wave is slowly shaking the foundations of American politics. It may take years for the deep rumble to evolve into an above ground, institution-shattering earthquake, but U.S. society has changed for good.

The heat wave has helped convince tens of millions of Americans that climate change is real, overpowering the fake science and right-wing media – funded by corporate cash – to convince Americans otherwise.

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Mother Energy and Hemp: Part 2 by Rand Clifford

by
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
July 23, 2012

July 5, 2005 - Hemp Field

Image by CSLP via Flickr

US prohibition of hemp farming is a national catastrophe. Addiction to fossil energy is a global, ecological catastrophe.

Both are peoples’ catastrophes; right up there with the consequences of hemp prohibition, and suppression of Mother Energy access, is the demonstrated disregard of humanity.

Nature is infinitely subtle. We are part of nature. Working against nature is working against us.

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This is What Global Warming looks like 2.0

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Drought effecting the Butterfly Bushes

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Jul 26, 2012 by

We dump billions of tons of carbon pollution into the atmosphere each year. As a result, the concentration of carbon dioxide has increased by 40%. Excess carbon dioxide traps excess heat in the atmosphere. Excess heat causes extreme heat waves, droughts, and storms.

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Veblen’s Institutionalist Elaboration of Rent Theory by Michael Hudson

by Michael Hudson
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
https://michael-hudson.com
July 27, 2012

Wage Slavery/Workers Education

Image by Tobias Higbie via Flickr

Michael Hudson’s new book The Bubble and Beyond has just been released and can be purchased via here.

Speech given at the Veblen, Capitalism and Possibilities for a Rational Economic Order Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, June 6th, 2012

Simon Patten recalled in 1912 that his generation of American economists – most of whom studied in Germany in the 1870s – were taught that John Stuart Mill’s 1848 Principles of Political Economy was the high-water mark of classical thought. However, Mill’s reformist philosophy turned out to be “not a goal but a half-way house” toward the Progressive Era’s reforms. Mill was “a thinker becoming a socialist without seeing what the change really meant,” Patten concluded. “The Nineteenth Century epoch ends not with the theories of Mill but with the more logical systems of Karl Marx and Henry George.[1] But the classical approach to political economy continued to evolve, above all through Thorstein Veblen.

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Dennis Kucinich: The House Overwhelmingly Passed a Bill to Audit the Federal Reserve

End the Fed

Image by r0b0r0b via Flickr

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Jul 27, 2012 by

There’s only about a week left until Congress goes on a summer recess, and there are a few notable things that have, and haven’t been done. As we mentioned yesterday, the House overwhelmingly passed a bill to Audit the Fed, but the Democratic leadership, isn’t exactly on board. It’s seven days before recess and yet still no jobs bill. And was the symbolic tax vote this week, a lot more important than people wants to let on? And a few US foreign policy decisions that haven’t exactly played out as planned. Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, just to name a few. Alyona discusses with U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich.

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The Punk Patriot: Enbridge Tar Sands Pipeline or Keystone XL is Back from the Dead

Climate Camp 2009... march and demo against BP in support of the Tar Sands campaigners _G108365

Image by fotdmike via Flickr

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Jul 26, 2012 by

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Hope for the Gentiles: The Gospel of Mark

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Hanging Rood

Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr

Mark 15:39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

Our Daily Bread on Jan 6, 2022

Travel to Rome and Israel with host Michael Card to explore the life and character of Jesus through the experiences of Peter as captured by Mark. You’ll visit the Mamertine Prison, Circus Maximus, the Roman Forum, and significant landmarks in Israel that help to reveal the struggles, suffering, and pain endured by non-Jewish believers who followed Jesus.

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Medieval Warm Period: Fact vs. Fiction

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Jul 28, 2012 by

This video looks at the scientific research to answer three basic questions: 1) Was the Medieval Warm Period global? 2) Was it warmer than today? 3) And what does this all mean anyway? I examine the internet feud over the hockey stick and the various myths and misinterpretations about the Medieval Warm Period that seem to be rife on the Internet. My sources for the myths are blogs and videos; my sources for the facts are scientific papers.

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