Influential British parenting website Mumsnet was instrumental in bringing down scandal-ridden News of the World. Bill Coles reports from London on the remarkable grassroots campaign.
Tell Your Members of Congress to Cosponsor the Shareholder Protection Act
The Shareholder Protection Act proposed by Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) would empower shareholders to vote on whether to allow corporate executives to spend corporate money on political campaigns. Shareholders — not the CEO and not the board of directors — are the real owners of any publicly traded corporation, and the decision should be theirs.
Israeli intelligence services managed to stop dozens of European pro-Palestine activists from flying to Israel, by gathering open-source intelligence about them on social media sites, such as Facebook. According to Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor, intelligence gathered on Facebook formed the basis of a blacklist containing over 300 names of European activists, who had signed up on an open-access Facebook page of a group planning nonviolent actions in Israel this summer.
Israeli intelligence agencies forwarded the names on the lists to European airline carriers, asking them not to allow the activists onboard their flights, as they were not going to be allowed into the country. This action prompted airline carriers to prevent over 200 activists from boarding scheduled flights to Israel. Israeli security officers detained over 310 other activists, who arrived in Israel on several European flights last week. Of those, almost 70 were denied entry to the country, while more detentions are expected to take place later this week, according to Israeli Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabine Hadad.
During the detention operation, at least two flights into Israel, from Geneva, Switzerland, and Rome, Italy, were diverted to a secluded area of the Ben Gurion International Airport, which is located a few miles southeast of Tel Aviv. Once there, they were boarded by armed Israeli security officers, who detained several activists onboard the airplanes before allowing the remaining passengers to disembark. Witnesses also reported the presence of hundreds of police officers at Ben Gurion during the detention of the activists. Characteristically, only one of a 40-strong pro-Palestinian activist contingency onboard an EasyJet flight from London, UK, was able to enter Israel, while 39 were detained and sent back to the UK.
The Curriculum Reform Forum is dedicated to disseminating thought leadership in the field of curricular reform in order to inspire local reform initiatives. It is a platform for global dialogue fostering the exchange of ideas as well as a resource offering concrete support to academic practitioners.
Inspired by this question of the father of Modern Skepticism we would like to approach contemporary curricular reform with the wisdom and fervour of an owl going into nosedive. You are invited to read our manifesto and join the conversation!
This is an interesting dialogue I’ve been eavesedropping on..
Cheers,
John
Phi Beta Iota: Others have been on this story for decades–the rest of the world is just now catching on. It is a two-party tyranny–voting for one or the other is NOT an option. What we need is an end to the one party winner take all system. Here's a starting point: Seven Promises to America–Who Will Do This?
From: John Neffinger
To Drew's point, check out this AP story from a couple days ago, noting that Obama is having trouble selling the Republican talking points he has adopted about how budget cuts that lay people off create jobs by reassuring the business community.
What is new about this moment is that things have gotten so bad, the American people see very clearly that the richest few of us are paying less than ever in taxes and should pay more. Even Republicans know this. David Brooks lashed out at his own party last week for taking its ideological aversion to taxes to a new, cult-like level of irrationality.
But to call them ideologues misses the point. The majority of rank-and-file Republicans admit that taxes on top earners should be higher, and the people calling the shots aren't mere ideologues either. They are running a hugely successful business enterprise. It's not irrational, it's very rational (if not so enlightened). The contributors invest in the politicians and lobbyists, and they make very handsome returns on their investments. To Brooks' question, the reason Washington Republicans won't cut any taxes at all as part of an otherwise very favorable deficit deal is that lowering taxes is the entire point. The concern about deficits is only a charade, just another way to discredit our government. The Republican party is not a cult. The Republican party is a racket.
This might be a moment we could make that point with new clarity. That yes there are honest and well-meaning Republicans all across the country, but their whole party is run as a racket. That Republican politicians are just errand boys, as Colonel Kurtz would say , who work only for the rich conservatives who pay for their campaigns.
A new survey from Insite Security and IBOPE Zogby International of those with liquid assets of $1 million or more found that 94% of respondents are concerned about the global unrest around the world today.
Fully 90% of respondents have a negative view of the current global economic climate and 41% say they have little or no faith that the U.S. will be able to right itself in this fiscal climate.
Phi Beta Iota: The super rich have created a global plague of failed states, poverty, infectious disease, and environmental degradation, thinking governments that they corrupted will take care of it. Not so. Corruption is a super-plague. Integrity is the antidote, M4IS2 is the method by which the super-rich can fund a win-win recovery. They did it once before, addressing public health in New York City. Time for big ideas again.
From a Human Intelligence perspective, below is a very strong signal that the Arab Spring and its “Days of Rage” are spreading; even well-managed countries such as Malaysia (and one speculates, badly-managed ones like the USA) appear to be in line for Electoral Reform protests and perhaps Open Source Insurgency.
Demonstrators march in defiance of ban, call for electoral reform
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Police fired repeated rounds of tear gas and detained more than 1,600 people in the capital on Saturday as thousands of activists evaded roadblocks and barbed wire to hold a street protest against Prime Minister Najib Razak's government.
Phi Beta Iota: All governments are in the process of collapse as credible sole focal points for governance. None are gearing up for the inevitable emergence of bio-regional hybrid governance networks based on accountability, information-sharing, transparency, and a common interest in sustainable peace and prosperity.
A fundamental understanding of the Pashtun would make evident the problem with election rigging in Afghanistan. As a tribal group, nobody is elected to serve as a leader. Thus, voting, regardless what the West thinks, is not something that most Pashtuns care about or partake in. Thus, Karzai knew he had to rig the elections to win. The Hazara understand politics and thus have energized their ethnic grouping to participate as government bureaucrats and advance through educational means (there are more and more private Hazara private schools coming into existence than any other grouping, to include government sponsored). This was the crux of the problem with the last Parliamentary election, Hazaras won most of the seats from Ghazni Province, a primarily Pashtun area. Very few Pashtun voted but almost every Hazara did.
The past presidents of Afghanistan have all come to power through the Coup method, not through the electoral process.
And besides, the rural Afghan population could care less about a Central Government. This is more true among the Pashtun that do not look on Kabul as nothing more than a gathering point not a seat of power.
